Ludwik Zamenhof – Maicho ne znaesh video

Maicho ne znaesh is the third single from Ludwik Zamenhof’s debut album Balkan Error.

The video uses footage from the short film Migration of the Hearts by Magdalena Wyszynska, a documentary about the phenomenon of big love migration of Polish women to Yugoslavia in around 1960-1985. Watch the film here.

Ludwik Zamenhof’s new solo album Balkan Error is inspired by Bulgarian, Polish, Balkan, Indian and Syrian music. Folk and Ethno samples are mixed with new electronic music such as Dubstep, Drum and Bass, IDM, Breakcore and Glitch Music to create an intoxicating and exotic brew guaranteed to get your feet moving.

Jono Heyes’ Fisherboy album – “an exotic magic carpet ride”

The musical tapestry of Jono Heyes’s debut album Le Fisherboy is real eye opener for world music lovers. A unique blend that embodies the raw duende of flamenco, the rhythmic syncopation of West Africa, the modal depth of arabian North Africa and the subtle and playful grooves of South America. Heyes’s lyrics are direct, poetic and political aiming at the global, environmental and social issues we currently face. Above all it is imbued with a sense of urgency and a voice of many cultures. Hold on tight, sit back and enjoy a magic carpet ride across the world.

Jono Heyes grew up in an old goldmining village called Livingstone, situated in the foothills of North Otago in the South Island of Aotearoa (New Zealand). When he was seventeen Jono began teaching himself on an old guitar that was gathering dust behind a couch and had only two strings left. Little by little he found his voice and has since added hundreds of sets of strings to his guitar. Over the last 17 years he has crafted his own language drawing from an array of world music cultures, defying any attempts to be placed in one genre. The result is his own unique blend of world music that is an urgent call for ecological, social and cross cultural understanding.

In 2007, Jono Bono formed his world music group Mama Yeva in the South Island city of Dunedin and the first of hundreds of gigs was part of the international appeal by Amnesty International for the release of Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. This in many ways set the tone for the group’s focus. For the last 7 years he has performed in Mama Yeva with over 50 different musicians from a dozen or more countries. They have performed at venues and festivals that promote ecological and social justice in New Zealand, Ireland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Heyes’s debut album The Fisherboy features the special contribution of Mama Yeva members including: triple Emmy nominee Trevor Coleman, gracing the album with soulful trumpet, melodicas and basslines; Beata Bocek from the Czech Republic singing backing vocals on The Fisherboy; AJ Hickling mastering and backing vocals on No tengo Pais, and Frenchman Edouard Heillbronn playing bass on Hungry Little Dog.

Ludwik Zamenhof makes no mistakes with his debut album, Balkan Error

Ludwik Zamenhof’s new solo album Balkan Error is inspired by Bulgarian, Polish, Balkan, Indian and Syrian music. Folk and Ethno samples are mixed with new electronic music such as Dubstep, Drum and Bass, IDM, Breakcore and Glitch Music to create an intoxicating and exotic brew guaranteed to get your feet moving.

Ludwik Zamenhof aka Andrzej Zagajewski is a producer, musician, dj and vocalist living in Cracow, Poland where he is a member of many bands. His primary instrument is tenor mandolin but he also plays banjo and saz. He sings in the folk-punk band Hańba! (translation: Shame!) whose lyrics refer to the political and social problems in Poland before Second World War. Other folk bands he is involved with are Bumtralala, Iglika and Kapela Hanki Wójciak. He also plays with UnitraProdiż, an experimental, noise, hip hop duo. Andrzej recently produced a fusion dance and Polish traditional music album for Południca!

Check out the post-apocalyptic music video for the first single, Balkan Glitch Step.

Graveyard Love Dissociate remixes

Remix EP of Graveyard Love’s Dissociate EP featuring TDeL2, Bright Child and Death and the Maiden.

You can hear the originals here.

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Mamaku’s seductive third album Twigs of Gold

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The Mamaku Project was born of the meeting of two French-Kiwi’s, with a passion for song, groove and travel. With one hand firmly in their roots and the other reaching into trans-cultural imaginings, the Mamaku Project have managed to create a reputation for compelling musical performances, embracing elements of Chanson, Dub, Bohemian Groove and Poetry. Their engaging, evocative show has taken them to numerous arts and music festivals around the globe, including Aotearoa / New Zealand, where they are based, Australia, Korea, Canada and Europe. The pool of talented musicians working with them, shifts and morphs over the years, revealing different incarnations of the music but always true to their antipodean roots. Collaboration with contemporary dancers and video artists furthers their theatrical exuberance.

Their debut album, Karekare (2006), was received by critical acclaim, and their music described in NZ as “a new national treasure”. Their second album, Mal de Terre (2008), took a bi-lingual approach to festive gypsy styles, the colorful sounds belying some of the more somber topics, such as the (bad)News culture. In both these records, the earthy presence of Aotearoa land and sea, meets with exotic inspiration.

The third album, 5 years in the making, marks a turning point. The Mamaku Project, shedding the “project” and standing purely as Mamaku, have fused electro and organic, dark and light, serious and fun, into a collection of original tunes they call Groove-Hop. Groove because the catchy bass and analog synth drives, in syncopation with funky and quirky beats, are the backbone of this music, designed to make you move. Hop because the richly layered, grit and honey aesthetic of Trip Hop (think Portishead) is clearly present, as well the apparition of rousing spoken work, both poetical and political, offering a clin d’oeil to early Hip Hop (think Gil Scott-Heron, Arrested Development).

Check out the video for the first single Mardi Gras here.

Album available here as CD or download.

Rooms Delayed’s gorgeously hypnotic new EP Nothing Lighter

Rooms Delayed (aka Vincenzo Nazzaro, Italian musician) draws trajectories exploring the deepest folds of the soul through merging sounds that fade into one another. Its poetic melodies and captivating, albeit mild, sense of melancholy guide the listener into a land where colors, shapes and landscapes slowly come to life.

After the EPs So I Can Feel Through the Trees, A Day in my Room and various collaborations, last summer he creates Nothing Lighter, in which guitars, e-bow, delay, reverbs, field recordings and, sometimes, vocals develop a dialogue that engages the listener into enlightening visions and memories. Rooms Delayed conceives a real soundscape in which, beyond the sense of space and time, we could easily find elements that become instruments of perception towards a new inner vision where we will freely wander. From the collaboration with musician and singer Cristina Pullano, he gave birth to the first single release Mia (featuring a video directed by videomaker Domenico Bizarro) and Suspicious Mind.

Nothing Lighter represents a suspension, a hope that something new and incredibly liberating can be found. Since certain things can be experienced only through listening, we have to be prepared for the unexpected.
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Robin Pahlman’s self-titled debut EP out now

After being involved in various bands and musical projects for more than a decade, releasing albums and playing hundreds of shows all over Europe, Finnish songwriter Robin Pahlman feels like he is only getting started.

Robin was born and raised in the small coastal town of Pargas, Finland. He has played with various musical outfits and has explored genres ranging from punk rock to bluegrass.

Following the breakup of his long-term band Agent Kooper, Robin stored away his band equipment and moved to Seattle, WA. By chance, he came across an old, beat-up acoustic guitar at the flea market. Inspired by the instrument’s quirks and limitations, he challenged himself to step out of his musical comfort zone in order to take his songwriting to the next level. While studying American literature and mapping out the city and the breathtakingly beautiful nature of the Pacific Northwest on foot, songs about space, place, and travel were born.

After relocating again – via Helsinki, Finland, to Vienna, Austria – Robin spent most of his time in his modest home studio, recording demos with the intention to produce his debut solo album. After writing and recording music on his own for about a year, he assembled a live ensemble with three local musicians, and played the first show with the new backing band Ghost Town in early 2013.

Robin makes his own blend of folk rock and pop, and his music has been likened to acts such as Iron and Wine, Ray LaMontagne, and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

TDeL2’s debut album Barnegat

Introducing the remarkable debut album, Barnegat, by Nebraskan resident, TDeL2 aka Tony de Luca. Featuring lush cinematic instrumentation, massive synth sounds, subtle guitars and understated vocals, the album deftly embraces electro pop, post-rock and ambient, marking the arrival of a promising new artist on the electronic scene.

Blog acclaim for TDeL’s first single Fearless Youth

“I can’t wait to see where TDeL2’s journey takes him.” Your Neon Heart

“You are transported over the rolling soundscapes of lush electro-indie into a warm fuzz of the last summer days. Your view is unobstructed for miles, there is hope after all, life is good. Smile.” Indie Dunes

“This guy’s music really stood out from the crowd.” Outersound Undergroud

“Think Royksopp duetting with Jose Gonzalez with some vocoder heavy but subdued vocals and a wistful, almost tender vibe and you’re pretty much there.” Listen with Monger

“The remarkable song Fearless Youth… it´s a don´t miss.” Kentucky Seven

“TDeL2, aka Tony DeLuca, has found a sound we can get behind with Fearless Youth. It’s lovely, enchanting, and just beautiful. “ My Noise Spinning

Graveyard Love – Dance Dark at the Dead Disco music video

Dance Dark at the Dead Disco is the second single to be released from Graveyard Love’s forthcoming EP, Disassociate. Preorder here

This music video features a mixture of subtle horror and prom movie references made on a shoestring budget in a nondescript hall somewhere in West Auckland, New Zealand.

With themes and ideas pulled from Thriller, Kairo Ghost and Silent Hill through to 80’s prom movies and Nena’s ’99 Luftballons’ this video draws from many influences. The ‘dead disco’ is intended to be anywhere, be it a hall, a gym, a church or simply memory of your first intermediate school dance. As the silhouetted band play as a back drop to beautiful but ghoulish dances, the driving bass and drums of this song create haunting but danceable arrangement of visuals and sound. The song “Dance Dark at the Dead Disco” in itself seems to be a homage to grinding zombie flicks and that desolate memory of vacant halls when everyone’s gone. While this video references the cliche, it does so in a slightly ironic manner; remaining genuine enough to convey the dark tonality of the song and in Graveyard Love’s music.

Debut album ‘Roundabout’ from The Major Pins out now

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Monkey Records is proud to announce the release of Roundabout, the debut album by Berlin-based indie-pop trio The Major Pins featuring German-born Katharina Garden (vocals, piano), Paul B Keeves from Birmingham (bass) and Henry Grant from New York (drums).

Having formed The Major Pins in 2007 in Berlin after studying music in the Netherlands and meeting her first band members at Popkurs in Hamburg, Kat decided in 2011 to record her first album, teaching herself how to do it at home with her granny´s honkey-tonk piano and singing under a blanket for an intimate sound (but also to keep the neighbours from knocking on her walls). Bass and drums were then recorded at Phil Freeborn’s Studio Kreuzberg and a bunch of friends helped out with violin, cello, guitar, clavichord, trumpet, glockenspiel and backing vocals.

Once she had recorded and produced the 12 tracks herself she brought on board Yensin Jahn, working at former Planet Roc and legendary GDR-broadcast studios by Berlin´s Spree. Yensin, who has also worked with Calexico, Lambchop, Get Well Soon and Mia, put together all the pieces of the puzzle and mixed the piano, Moog and Bontempi based alternative indie-pop album Roundabout.

Kat writes the music to be arranged in the trio. Her lyrics deal with personal experiences as well as inspiration from novels, movies or documentaries. Naked Slug for instance deals with the recent issue of chemtrails and geo-engineering, whereas Robots (the first single) is inspired by H. Murakami´s novel Kafka at the Shore. In her eyes being a songwriter gives an opportunity to handle socio-critical themes without preaching and she aims to bring to mind the power of collective consciousness and how mass media penetrates and manipulates the world.

Apart from performing with The Major Pins, Kat Garden has toured as a solo artist in Slovenia, Holland, Denmark, England, Ireland and Austria and created Playing for Integration, an EU-financed Songwriter-collective together with a bunch of amazing songwriters from several countries to start a network for handmade music and the co-writing scene.

Having recently relocated to Berlin from New Zealand, this album marks the release of the first non-New Zealand-based artist that Monkey Records has signed. Listen to the album here.