Speaking of non-313 music (re: mentions of Crystal Castles and Four Tet),
I've been thoroughly enjoying the self-titled 4th album from Sweden's Robyn.
Am telling everybody about it I can (see more below), to be honest.
It has been available since 2005, but has only been out in North America
for the last couple of weeks. Every track is solid; out of 14 tracks, 8
have
been issued as a single somewhere. One of the official remixes of Snoop
Doog's
recently-mentioned-on-this-list song "Sensual Seducation/Sexual Eruption"
features Robyn on vocals as does Britney Spears' "Piece Of Me", so you
might have already heard her voice. Plus she's sung on tracks for numerous
others including Basement Jaxx.
Anyway, if you don't know her story, she did 3 albums (since 1997) for
major labels
and struck out on her own with her own Konichiwa label for this new
album after
getting fed up with her majors. She's been writing and performing her
own songs
since she was 13; yes it is pop music, but it with a fresh take on the music
(producers range from The Knife to Klaus Ahlund to Kleerup) and her
lyrics--again, written by herself--are a twist on the usual pap of Britney,
Christina, et al. Example choruses that the other female pop artists
wouldn't
be able to pull off: "my new favorite thing to do/is wasting
my time with a bum like you"; "I should have seen it coming down/I should
have f*ckin' known"; "who's that girl that you think you love/I know there's
no such girl". She's known for performing acoustic versions of her dance
songs, too, which you wouldn't see many doing. And she does it very well.
I'd liken her to Neneh Cherry (a big fave of mine, and there's news Cherry
will have a new album out by the end of the year) before I'd compare her to
Britney, Christina, et al, actually. And she's smart about her remixers:
Drop The Lime does a take on her current single, for example, Jori Hulkkonen
has done a mix, etc. Her myspace page currently has her newest North
American single, a medley of the 3 remixes of it, a cover of The Police's
"Message In A Bottle", the Snoop Dogg remix she's featured on, and clips
from every track on the album. I could go on and on, but hopefully if you
haven't already heard her material, you'll check these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robyn
http://www.myspace.com/robynmyspace
http://www.robyn.com/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=robyn&search_type=
Andrew
--
Andrew Duke--sound design/recording/composition/production courses:
http://andrew-duke.com/course.html
Andrew Duke--Chain Reaction downloadable sound FX samplepack:
http://www.audiobase.com/product/SACR
Andrew Duke--Consumer vs. User album:
http://www.phthalo.com/cat.php?cat=phth40
Andrew Duke--columns/features/commentaries/more:
http://cognitionaudioworks.com/read.html
http://linkedin.com/in/AndrewDukeCognitionAudioworks
http://www.facebook.com/people/Andrew_Duke/852160229
http://myspace.com/AndrewDuke
http://myspace.com/CognitionAudioworks
