Category — News

The wonderful Flevans is back with a new album “27 Devils”. It is a magnificent melting pot of soulful yet catchy songs and irresistible dancefloor tracks, infused with Flevans’ innate knack for an unforgettable hook, and boasting guest vocals from Sarah Scott and Shona Foster, not to mention Flevans himself singing on a few numbers. It is a very much anticipated third album after the great sounds of “Make new friends” (2004) and “Unfabulous” (2007).

The wonderful people at Tru Thoughts Recordings has put together a podcast with Flevans in charge – just to get your groove on. CLick here to listen to the podcast – a guided tour through the whole album from the man himself – I reckon you’ll like it, at least I did! 

Of course, all Tru Thoughts releases can be bought from Etch Shop

Flevans | MySpace | Tru Thoughts |

Quantic is about to unleash the force of his Combo Bárbaro, so in advance of the release of their album ”Tradition In Transition” (6th July), and the release is celebrated with a series of parties at various venues in the UK, before hitting off for a live tour of selected spots in Europe and America throughout August and September.

As you might know, Will “Quantic” Holland moved from the UK to Cali (Columbia) to pursue his passion for both unearthing lost treasures from Colombia’s musical past and making new music with the golden array of talent available today. You probably know his first two albums from this adventure, Quantic Soul Orchestra’s “Tropidelico” and Quantic presenta Flowering Inferno “Death of the revolution“. 

Since 2007 he has brought together a multi-cultural band of exceptional musicians giving an explosive sonic snapshot of the ever-evolving musical landscape of the Americas. The international cast of acclaimed musical creators fusing those rediscovered psychedelic, experimental and rhythmically rich sounds of the past with deep funk and soul elements.

I’m hosting a party at VU in Oslo this thursday celebrating my own and a good friend’s birthday. Your truly will be providing the soundtrack for the evening – playing lots of funk, soul, disco, house and related genres. I am really looking forward to it – the guest list is looking quite impressive so far – a great bunch of people.

VU is a small club in the centre of Oslo that holds about 200 people. It is stylish, but the new owners keeps it far off the up-scale attitudes that surrounded the place when it was under different ownership and named Golden Room. It is not a regular club night anyway, it is all about getting our friends and their friends together for a good party.

Doors open at 22.00, and due to the restricted capacity I would suggest you don’t arrive too late. I did mention it was free? Wouldn’t charge our friends would we?!

 The wonderful Tirk Recordings is hosting a remix competition in cooperation with Soundcloud and Juno Download. You can put your skills to work on “Ecce – Control”, “Brad Vachal – Toys” or the amazing, Chic sampling “Start something” by Morten Sorensen (as posted here before).

Two winners will be chosen by Tirk, the first price being a disco night out in east London (including two tickets to Disco Bloodbath vs. Optimo thursday the 9th of April, hotel room and dinner for two), a years subscription to Soundcloud, £50 voucher from Juno Download (useful!) and perhaps most importantly, the winning track will be made available for sale on Juno Download. The runner up will also receive a years subscription to Soundcloud and having the track released for sale.

The submission deadline is the 2nd of April, so get started right away! Last time I entered (the “Jazzanova – I can see” remix competition on Soundcloud) we ended up making a pretty decent track but missed the deadline We are putting the finishing touches on it at the moment – and I’ll make it available for you here.

Tirk Recordings | Soundcloud | Juno Download

I am playing funk and soul with my good friend Lt.Wee on national radio tonight. The show is on for a couple of saturdays between 22.00 and midnight – so make sure you tune in to NRK P3 (online if your outside the beautiful country of Norway) and let me know what you think on this blog later.

Heading off to London in a few hours (!). The Carling Cup final at Wembley being the main event of the weekend, but obviously I’m going to spend my time wisely – that means digging through dusty second hand- and specialist shops for vinyl essentials.

Flevans is dj’ing at Neighbourhood tonight (Ladbroke Grove), and I hope to catch that show. His wonderful debut album “Make new friends” was released on Tru Thoughts, and he followed up with the brilliant ”Unfabulous” album on Jack to Phono. Both are still a classics I pull out from time to time. my favorite being the latter. His new album“27 Devils” has a confirmed release date of Monday 18th May, and once more it is going to be released on Tru Thoughts. The album has been mixed down and mastered, and all the artwork has been completed, so I expect to be exposed to some new beats.

Let me know if your in London and want to hook up for a few drinks,

Tru Thoughts | MySpace

Hot off the release of their latest EP on the innovative Blive sharing service, Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay have revealed that the service have been a massive success so far – and that there is more music in the pipeline – on his MySpace blog. 

“It is astonishing how much interest it’s created, which is obviously a good thing. At the heart of it was a feeling that we had the opportunity to put this music out in what ever way we could think of. A lot of music is free but the problem is, in becoming free, it’s become disposable. We were trying to find a way of putting music out there that was free but valued. We’re trying to bring back that thing where you get a record home and you make a few tapes for your mates because you want them to hear it. It seems to have worked. It’s been making waves all over the world. People are doing it in the tens of thousands. You can only get it from the B-Live site but the tune’s popping up at number one in the Cool Cuts chart and it’s Essential New Tune on Pete Tong and all the rest of it. It’s gone as well as it could have possibly gone.”

“The EP is kind of divided into two and it hints at the two albums that we’re going to do this year. There’s the really punky/band-y kind of thing, which is the one that we’re working on now. And then over the Ibiza season we’re going to release an album of pure house music, because we could never do that on major labels. Whilst we were DJing all over the world, the stuff we were making to play was never getting put out. So we’re going to right that wrong. Anyway, yeah, I think we chose the first tune because it’s maybe the most accessible, with its vocals.” 

The guys are finishing off the first of the two albums these days. I really look forward to getting my hands on more new material.

Get the new single for free at Bacardi Blive

Dear readers,

The first year blogging about music on this site has soon passed. I have really enjoyed it so far, and appreciate you stopping by every now and then. For me, christmas always gives me another excuse (as if I needed one) to listen to music, and I have put together a set of songs I think you will appreciate during the holidays. Obviously is addition to your recommended dosage of Sinatra. With no particular selection criteria or order, I just picked out downtempo, soulful songs I love. Let me know if you like them!

Terry Callier – Love theme from Spartacus
Azymuth – Vôo sobre o horizonte
Groove Armada – Think Twice
Donald Byrd – Christo Redentor
Amp Fiddler – I believe in you
Darondo – Didn’t I
Jon Lucien – Search for the inner self
Lizzy Parks – Raise the roof 

If you have Spotify installed, you can find most of them on my playlist.

N.E.R.D consists of Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo (as a duo you know these two as the Neptunes) as well as Shay Haley. The three childhood friends have been releasing their fair share of quality hiphop since the debut album “In search of…” was released back in 2002.

At the moment they have just released their third studio album “Seeing sounds“. 

Mixing up hiphop, funk and alternative rock they sure know how to put on a live show. Tomorrow they once again visit Oslo. Im looking forward to hear personal favourites such as “Provider“, “Frontin“, “Run to the sun”, and “Stay together“. There is still a few tickets left, so no hesitation if you’re not sorted yet. 

Are you joining me at Sentrum Scene tomorrow?

The people at Etch Shop/TruThoughts was kind enough to send me a few records to share with my readers. So the next ten days you have the opportunity to win a copy of Kylie Auldist’s debut album “Just Say” or the brilliant live album from the Bamboos – “Listen! Hear! The Bamboos live!“. Both are personal favorites that keep providing the funk and soul scene with a fresh sound whilst staying true to the genre. If you like artists like Alice Russell, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, or even Amy Winehouse and Duffy, you will love both of these records!

All you have to do is leave a comment on any post I have written on the blog saying why you like the song, what kind of emotions it creates when you listen to it, any special moments it makes you think of, if it made you curious to discover more new music, if you know any songs/labels you think I should listen to, or simply why you like my blog. Anything goes really…

I always appreciate your feedback, so keep it coming!