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Self-taught multi-instrumentalist Julie Peel is preparing to unleash her debut full-length album, Near the Sun, September 2009 on American Laundromat Records. Previously featured on ALR compilations including Just Like Heaven (a tribute to the Cure), Gigantic (a tribute to Kim Deal), Dig for Fire (a tribute to the Pixies), and Cinnamon Girls (a tribute to Neil Young), this will be Julie’s first solo full-length release. She counts Aimee Mann, Beth Orton, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell among her influences, and their impact is not hard to discern on Near the Sun. Julie’s lo-fi, guitar-driven pop recalls the likes of Ida, Anna Ternheim, Caithlin de Marrais, and Mirah, but bears her own distinctive indie sensibility and style.
Born in Cannes, Julie was raised between France and Canada, and sings entirely in English on this album. As a child, she tended toward self-determination. “At 5,†she explains, “I would take my bike and go for long rides in the countryside... Sometimes I would go fishing by myself.†Though her mother worried, Julie always came home “like it’s normal a 5-6 year old kid would go out all day so far away.†That independent spirit is evident throughout Near the Sun, which Julie recorded, mixed, and produced on her own. She plays most of the instruments as well, though she is also joined on bass, cello, and upright bass by Cyrille Catois (who she met in 2005 and has worked with consistently ever since) and on drums by Andreas Dahlbäck (drummer and producer for Anna Ternheim).
Spontaneity was key in the creation of this album, as evidenced by tracks such as ‘Innocence.’ “I composed it and wrote the lyrics in under an hour, and recorded it very quickly right after,†she reveals. “... I guess this song is what represents me the most.†The swell of the cello under her honest, melancholy lyrics turn this stand-out track from simple to understandably sophisticated. “Most of the tracks were first takes,†Julie notes, which manifests itself in a sense of both immediacy and intimacy throughout the album. The undeniably catchy track ‘Living in a Movie,’ replete with irresistible hand-claps, seems sent straight from the soundtrack to a film by Michel Gondry or Sofia Coppola. A sweet and somehow cinematic tune that demonstrates Julie’s capability to craft pop songs at once familiar and dream-like, deceptively minimal, ‘Living in a Movie’ is just one of the songs off Near the Sun that compels repeated listens.
Though her contributions to the ALR compilations were noteworthy in their own right, this collection of original material bears testimony to Julie Peel’s own dynamic pop sensibilities. Keep an eye out for Near the Sun, and look for her hitting the road across the US later in 2009.
Get a FREE MP3 of Julie Peel's tracks "Unfold"
Get a FREE Ringtone of Julie Peel's "Living In A Movie"
Photo by Benjamin Wahiche (C) 2009- Details
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Dr. Hugh Everett III, Ph.D., was what Scientific American magazine calls "one of the most important scientists of the 20th century." A quantum physicist who authored The Many Worlds Theory, Everett inspired countless science fiction books, movies and Star Trek episodes with the concept of parallel universes. As a young teenager he exchanged letters with Albert Einstein, debating whether it was something random or unifying that held the universe together.Until the age of eight, Hugh Everett lived in Washington, DC with his mother, Katharine Kennedy, a troubled poet and author, and his father, Col. Hugh Everett, Jr., US Army. As an adult, Dr. Everett settled in nearby Virginia, with his wife Nancy. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Ann, and a son, Mark Oliver.
Mark Oliver Everett showed no talent for physics, or even mathematics. He was much more interested in the records his sister was playing in the house.
At the age of six, Mark found himself at the next door neighbor's garage sale where he saw the toy drum set that would change his life. He begged his parents for the $15 it cost to buy the set, and they relented. Most children that get a drum set play it for a week and then leave it in the closet until their parents have a garage sale. Unfortunately for the Everett family, Mark played those drums everyday for the next 10 years.
As a young teenager, after a period of trouble with the law, being arrested and thrown out of school, Mark started to pay attention to the acoustic guitar gathering dust in his sister's closet. He had already been making up little songs on the family's upright piano for years.
Mark had several friends that were coincidentally named Mark. To avoid confusion, they would refer to each other by their initials. Throughout his teens Mark Everett was "M.E." Gradually it was shortened to the even easier "E".
By the time he was 20, E was obsessed with writing songs and recording them on his secondhand 4 track cassette recorder. He wrote and recorded virtually every day of the next seven years.
At the age of 24, feeling stifled by the lack of inspiration and creative community in his Virginia neighborhood, E packed up everything he owned into a car and drove 3,000 miles across the country to Los Angeles, where he knew not one person.
He eventually moved into a tiny apartment above a garage in Atwater Village, on the East side of Los Angeles, and resumed his antisocial routine of waking up, writing and recording 4 track cassettes, going to one of many shitty jobs that he hated, coming home, writing and recording more, and going to sleep.
As time went on, from the time he started his obsessive song writing, the quality of the songs and production of his tapes slowly improved. Eventually someone heard some of his songs and asked him to record for a record label.
It's been four years since the double EELS album "Blinking Lights & Other Revelations". If that album was about the human spirit, the new EELS album "Hombre Lobo" is about animal instinct. "I wanted to write a set of songs about desire. That dreadful, intense want that gets you into all sorts of situations that can change your life in big ways," says EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E. \
HOMBRE LOBO : 12 Songs of Desire
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Glam Sam and his Combo is the brain child of Mats Samuelsson, a Stockholm-based writer and music lover.During a year of inspirational fun, these 18 tracks evolved and got filled with all the things Glam Sam loves about music: the jazz, the disco, the funk and the soul, the grooves and the coolness as well as fun samples and top vocals.
The bubbling jazzy and funky rhythm section is accompanied with swaying pianos, rhodes, groovy guitars and organs, playful horns and, yeah, some vibraphones as well.
“Love your tunes!! Puts me back in the Friday mood. Mmmmmâ€, says the wonderful Hilde Louise Asbjornsen, Norway's number 1 jazz singer.
Yeah, it’s good! It’s groovy! So, groovers of the world, unite and get ready for Glam Sam and his Combo.
Yes, "Groovy!", the first album from Sweden's Glam Sam and his Combo, is out NOW on Itunes, Beatport, Amazon, Junodownload and all other good portals. Worldwide, dudes and ladies. Stay tuned, stay cool, stay groovy!
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Five Seasons is a music project of Daniel Voss - known from the common projects with his brother Roland Voss (Lemongrass, Weathertunes, Jasmon and Green Empathy). He is also the co-founder of the label Lemongrassmusic.
Five Seasons was founded in 2007, having released the first productions on various compilations. The debut "On The Road" came out on iTunes (Lemongrassmusic) on July 28th 2009 and combines amazing warm vibes, latin-flavoured grooves and gentle Deep House beats.
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Timewarp Music collaborated with Brazil's Royal Soul Records for this release showing once again music has no borders. This is Lounge meets Tech and Funky Breaks combined with a nice House feel. It is the combination of different styles that Rodrigo Ulson enjoys as well as using different musical elements. "A culture of sound, bringing us back the positive beats."
Check out the release Trotter - Positive Culture