Yoshimi! released ‘II aka The Cheshire Rat‘ through esc.rec. last year and is finishing the work on his first album right now. He plays pleasantly rambling lofi popsongs, played with a broad variety of instruments, like the cello, conga, guitar, synth, bass, bongo, tarbuka, rababa, harmonium, trumpet, accordeon, drums, ukulele and -let’s not forget- his voice. Yoshimi! doesn’t hide the fact that his sound is greatly influenced by The Magnetic Fields. He performs live with the help of his brother, a drummer and sometimes his grandfather.
Ever since Toxic Chicken released his debut album through esc.rec. last year, his output seems unstoppable… Besides releasing another (free mp3) release through esc.rec. he also released several (free) albums through other labels. His bewildering songs, hectic beats and lofi punk noise eruptions often give a personal glance into the chaotic lifestyle of Toxic Chicken. Due to his unorthodox use of attributes and energetic performance spasms, his live performances are remarkable to say the least!
While I was on holiday, the first edition of Piknik just ‘happened’ in Havenkwartier Deventer. And once I got back… Bam! the second Piknik was already there. Piknik is a new series of (outdoor) dance events. These first two were co-hosted by DDS. I’m so warming up for more Piknik’s, I can hardly wait. Check out www.welovepiknik.com for more!
So far the redesign of the esc.rec. website resulted in some new features in the far right column.
A popup Last.fm radio player, that plays music by esc.rec. artists. This doesn’t mean that all the music you hear in this player is released through esc.rec. though. Many esc.rec. artists also release their music through other labels. That music also pops up in this player, if it’s available on Last.fm. I’m going to make (almost) all of the esc.rec. releases available for the Last.fm radio player soon, so you can theoretically listen to the entire catalogue in this player. Plus you get to hear some of the other great releases out there by the same artists!
A Tipit Jar. This is a feature that makes it possible to tip small (or large) amounts of money to esc.rec. Just because you might want to show your appreciation of all the high quality music you can download here for free (and want it to continue), or want to help me out with the hosting bill… Or perhaps you feel I should organize more ass-crack stage-hacks and want to stimulate me to make that happen. Or maybe you just think I’m a nice guy and deserve something extra… who knows.
Other new features I’m currently working on are:
- A more comprehensible overview of esc.rec. releases. Now it’s just catalogue numbers. A decent overview should include artists, titles, media and artworkpictures at least.
- A (random or recent) esc.rec. related photo from Flickr near the ‘introduction section’.
I’m in the process of slightly redesigning the esc.rec. website (as all you regular visitors can see by now). I’ll do this one step at a time, so you’ll gradually see some more changes being made here. Feedback is welcome as always…
I just joined Soundcloud. It’s still in beta testing, but seems to work fine. It’s a new way of sending and receiving (large) audio files, and I like it. To this point you can only join by invitation and I have only one more to hand out. If you’re interested, let me know.
In the mean time, Soundcloud has provided me with this personal dropbox, which makes it real easy for anyone to send me their music. No more yousendit, zshare, turboupload, etc. I still favor receiving packages on my doormat, but if you have to send your stuff digitally, please drop it overhere.
Worm and Café Sonore commissioned 10 composers to produce radiophonic work. The first to be broadcasted in this series was ‘Wa Da De Minse Klappe Gelak As d’Onne Basse’ by Didi de Paris and Lukas Simonis.
You can still listen to it overhere. But I don’t know for how long…
Mano Scherpbier of ON asked me to relay the message below to esc.rec. artists and other interested parties. And it does seem like an interesting remix project… so here it is:
“Remember the groundbreaking Commodore 64 computer? And did you play the games? Did you know there is an orchestra actually performing this old game tunes and that it is called the C64 orchestra? You can find them on www.myspace.com/c64orchestra and the songs have been played over 140.000 times. And did you check the extra ordinary CD design? Way better than the usual stuff isn’t it?
It gets even funnier if you are a musician, because the sequel of the C64 orchestra is called POKE 20.
Poke 20 offers you the possibility to get in the footsteps of the great Commodore 64 composer as Rob Hubbard and Jeroen Tel by downloading Monty On the Run in separate tracks and creating your own remix. You can find the stuff you need at: http://fotos.oninternet.nl/listpics.asp
Download the midi file of the original score and the separated tracks of the C64 orchestra score in Flute/ Horns & double bass, strings and you are ready to go.
When you are finished creating, make it an mp3 file and send it to poke20@oninternet.nl. Please limit your work to 5 minutes and deliver your music to us before the 31 august.
We will release all remixes on our internetsite and a selection on CD.”
Release number 20 is here! Time to celebrate? Or was that at 25?
Anyway, A Ltd. Lion Pup is the debut of Yop, a very talented Rotterdam based singer/songwriter. It’s really quite a magnificent release. Yop is a skilled songcrafter, limiting the length of his songs to the bare essential. Compact beauty. And you can download it here for free (thank you Yop!).
In fact this is a re-release of Yop’s self released 2006 original, so you could be one of those people who have downloaded most of this release already, but this version holds a previously unreleased bonus track, that makes downloading it again worth your while. The main reason for this re-release is more exposure, because if anything A Ltd. Lion Pup deserves that!
Oh, and I added some reviews of the 2006 version overhere.
