Conor

A lovely interview and live set from American singy man Conor Oberst on BBC 6 Music this afternoon. He comes across as chilled, genuine, thoughtful and accessible. And not anywhere near as weird as a lot of American singy men.

Herewith one of the songs he played: Barbary Coast (Later):

Beautiful. I’m not usually a huge fan of anything with a harmonica in it, but this is almost Bob Dylan-esque in its emotion.

Very nice.

Acoustic a-ha

Just when you thought it was all over…

a-ha will make a live acoustic album and concert film from a series of intimate performances to take place between June 26 – June 30, 2017.
The album, DVD and broadcast are scheduled for release in November 2017.
In early 2018, a-ha will take this special acoustic set on the road, giving the fans a new way to experience the music they love.

So… where are we going to see them this time, I wonder? After all, there’s still time to slip a couple of tickets into my Xmas stocking, darling…

The a-ha.com page is currently oversubcribed, suggesting that there is significant interest in this endeavour. The venues for the “series of intimate performances” haven’t yet been announced, but the first confirmed dates are in January 2018 and are in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Presumably, the Cape Town leg of the tour will be in February or March.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Faded Restrung

This is the big EDM hit of the moment, penned by Northampton-born, Bergen-based music producer Alan Walker.
If you feel the need (and I did), you can venture onto Soundcloud and explore literally several different remixes of this tune – try this one and this one, for example.

This Restrung version is acoustic with piano and pizzicato strings blooming into that soaring, catchy melody.

That breathy vocal is courtesy of Norwegian folk/pop chick Iselin Sondheim, whose pseudo-Celtic 2013 single The Wizard Of Us has a video which showcases wild Norway in the same way that Tove Lo showcased wild Sweden here.

I mentioned back then that female vocalists wandering through woods in Scandinavia seems like a very good way of showing off your country. I stand by that assertion.

Acoustic Wildfire

It was on or about this time last year that the Huge Cape Town Fire Of Twenty Fifteen was finally extinguished. And that seems as tenuous good a reason as any to share this acoustic version of Bridlington duo Seafret’s single Wildfire:

For the original, with its psychologically-challenging video, you’ll need to read this post from last year.

Lovely.

I Love You

I really do. But quite aside from that, here’s the hauntingly beautiful Quintet Version (2 violins, a viola, a cello and a double bass) (and a piano, but apparently we’re not counting that) of Woodkid’s track I Love You, which you may recognise from this ad.

Wow. Just wow.

Woodkid’s album, The Golden Age is next on my shopping list. I’ve had a wander through his youtube channel and there’s some remarkable stuff there. Most of his songs seem to be around 4 minutes long. However, this colab with Max Richter is more than double that. No surprises there, though.