The Alternate Vocal and Instrumental Jamendo Charts

Sunday, October 25, 2009

2009 - Week 43: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 43: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Free Music Charts October 2009

The Free Music Charts of October 2009 have been "aired" on the internet last Monday. If you missed them, you still can listen to the podcast. Most importantly however is that you go cast your vote for up to 5 songs you like. Almost all are available on Jamendo so a picked them together in the following playlist. Oh, and don't miss the November release of the FMC, which will be on Monday, November 23rd, 8PM CET.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

2009 - Week 42: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 42: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Free Music Charts October: voting ends this week-end

A few days are left until the Free Music Charts of October 2009 are published. Until then you still can vote for your favorite tracks. From this edition on, it will be broadcast on Mondays (no longer Tuesdays) so don't forget to listen in on Monday, October 19th, 8PM CET. In the mean time you can check out the candidate new comers.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Erica Shine (Erica Kim)

Erica Shine's EP "I will wait for you" which was released not even one month ago already lands three of the four tracks in this week's vocal top 20: "I Will Wait For You" on rank 15, "Oxygen" on rank 8 and "When Will It End" on rank 2. The listeners of Jamendo are really fast at discovering the good music among the hundreds of albums published every week. She's not only a fabulous singer and song writer but also an actress which has performed in two movies so far. The most recent one "Wedding Palace" even features her song "When Will It End".

Her soft voice can reach incredible heights by keeping the quality of her vibrato. The lyrics are very touching and the music ranges from pop (with an even mix between guitar, piano and strings) to rock (e-guitars, drums with a nice catchy beat). All in all, this young Los Angeles-based talent doesn't at all have to hide, neither behind the Hollywood stars, nor behind the k-pop scene of her home country.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

2009 - Week 41: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 41: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Sunday, October 4, 2009

2009 - Week 40: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 40: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Free Music Charts September 2009

The Free Music Charts of September 2009 are now out! They contain 23 tracks of the finest free and cc-licensed music, most of which are also available at Jamendo. Give them a listen and vote for your 5 favorite ones. The results will be published on Monday, October 19th at 8PM CET on Darkerradio. Don't miss it!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Dada Weatherman

Our weekly focus takes us away from the cold north (where we've been the two previous weeks) to Jonathan Chaumeil, a young Frenchman in his early twenties. His project, The Dada Weatherman, has been sitting for several weeks on the highest notch of the Jamendo Top 100 only to start slipping down now that the Diablo Swing Orchestra is holding the number one spot of the Vocal Charts in its tight grip.

His track, "Painted Dream" from his album "The Green Waltz" is now ranked second but don't you worry: there are two other albums in the pipeline, and there's no doubt you will soon hear more from them. As a matter of fact, "Yellow Gold" from his new album "EarthQuakes & Failed Mutations" already made it up to rank number 9.

Jonathan joins his skills and talent to make music meet with poetry and painting. As a matter of fact, he illustrates both the CD's artwork and the video clips (see the one below) with his paintings and he pictures his Arthur Rimbaud inspired poems with his music. His soft voice harmonizes wonderfully with the calm folk music which he leads with his guitar and is accompanied at times with the piano, at times with a very light and decent orchestra.

While listening to The Dada Weatherman I cannot keep from thinking that's a perfect music for falling asleep but at the same time I realize this is not really a compliment. However I really mean it as a compliment because it's a music that invites you to dream of new paintings.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

2009 - Week 39: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 39: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Matti Paalanen

Last week we had a look at Diablo Swing Orchestra from Sweden. This week, we just travel to the neighboring country Finland were we've having a closer look at the leader of the instrumental charts, Celestial Aeon Project who has another track ranked 13th. The man behind this is Matti Paalanen who appears to be really productive. In fact, he is also the father of Frozen Silence (ranked 2nd), Project Divinity (ranked 3rd) and Axial Ensemble (a project he's doing with Arttu Kataja). Oh and guess what? They also have a track in this week's top 20, Spectrial, ranked 14th.

His music is ranging from neo classical to electronic ambient, from new age to dark wave where influences from Vangelis, The Cure and Enya as well as his classical background cannot be overheard. The resulting tracks are spreading a calm mood where everything is so light, floating high above in the sky. This kind of music fits very well as a background music to role playing games, so much that he is actually the lead musician of an upcoming computer role playing game.

Dive into Matti's musical realm by listening to the tracks from the top 20 as well as other selected tunes of his.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Free Music Charts September voting ends in one week

If you are into free music, you probably know the monthly "Free Music Charts" on darkerradio. It's broadcast in German but the music is... music. And international. For those new to the FMC (which also features a lot of Jamendo music), you can vote for up to 5 songs once a month. Songs get eliminated after 6 months (if they manage to stay so long, that is...); some actually do!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

2009 - Week 38: Jamendo Vocal top 20

2009 - Week 38: Jamendo Instrumental top 20

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Diablo Swing Orchestra

Since the Diablo Swing Orchestra has three entries in the current's vocal charts, I thought I'd share some background information on them. The facts are taken from the websites given at the end of this post, while the interpretation is my personal view.

The three tracks Balrog Boogie, Heroines and Poetic Pitbull Revolutions are all from the album "The Butcher's Ballroom", which was released in 2006 by the Swedish experimental metal band Diablo Swing Orchestra (or D:S:O as they call themselves for short). Three years later they decided to release it on Jamendo which is how I discovered them.

They've built a myth about themselves according to which they are the descendants of band members of the 16th century which got into trouble with the crown and the church because of their music style. They were outlawed and saw no chance to get away with their life, so they made a pact following which their descendants would reunite as a new band 500 years later.

The first track, "Balrog Boogie" gives the tone: the listener could mistake the track as a mere jazz or swing tune but that doesn't last long... soon enough, styles start to be added and mixed. Is it a big band now? what about the cello? Oh and wait, what's that filthy gibberish, a demon straight out of J.R.R. Tolkien's world? One doesn't have the time to think more because Annlouice Loegdlund starts to sing... What a soprano! This high melodic voice immediately contrasts with the balrogs. Is it an angel or a fairy? Then you try to understand the lyrics. "Mea culpa" is clearly heard: "My bad". Follows a sequence of more or less well known latin phrases, apparently without any connection between each others except maybe that most of them have a strong religious taste. Is it a wink to the "heritage" of the 16th century? All this mixture definitely creates a strange mood, at times melancolic, at times full of creative energy. Is it how it feels to dance with balrogs? these freaks of nature ("lusus naturae")... The cruel laugh at the end says it all. Shudders...

"Heroines" and "Poetic Pitbull Revolutions" with reminiscences of Bach's Brandenburg concertoes for Cello respectively some mexican popular music that might come straight out of a far-west movie... And there's always this fascinating soprano, levitating above the metallic electric guitars. It's just a wonderful mixture which goes on like that for another 10 tracks.

What I like about this music is that you can listen to it for hours and always discovering something new in it. It transports you into DSO's world and lets you enough space to dream your fantasy as well.

Some compare the opera voice and the metal music with Nightwish. In my humble opinion, I think Nightwish, even though very good, doesn't reach DSO to the ankle. Their music is just so much richer! And some compare the energy in the voice with Nina Hagen's. That's a fair comparison.

If you haven't listened to it yet, give it a go right now.

Now if you haven't had enough, then listen up: Diablo Swing Orchestra's second album will be out in a week (September 21 or 22, 2009). It's called "Sing Along Songs for the Damned & Delirious" and will be available from several online shops, among others Amazon. Or do you want to wait another three years until they maybe release it on Jamendo?