++Magazine

So another day here at ++HQ and thanks to our international crew we bumped into this not-yet discovered gem! The band is called Kim Ki O and consists of two girls from Turkey. They have a Woody Allen-esque humour in their lyrics and their music is something like ambient-synth-pop with a hint of indie rock. All that in one CD? Yep, all that and more, because even though we don’t understand their lyrics, we have been told that they are incredibely funny, dark and intelligent without trying to be any of those!

And what’s even more exciting is that you can download this record from the official Kim Ki O website. There you will also find their first home-studio released EP and if you’re digging them as much as we do you can even get a T-shirt to show some serious respect!

We’re not going to bore you their bio because you can read it on their MySpace, but be sure to read it because it’s hilarious! Word on the web is that they might have a record deal with a Swedish label because ++favourite Jens Lekman supposedly really digs Kim Ki O’s music. And you know that if people like that back you up, there can’t be that much wrong with you. Top tracks off this six song Self-Made Home Record are ‘B Yuzunun Ikinci Parcasi’ and ‘Ne Yapsam Anlarsin?’

‘Bonjour Monsieur! Je voudrais le cool musique et plus de cool musique et un petit omelette du fromage avec une baguette! Ooh La La!’ So that’s what we thought ‘No Way Down’ by Air France was going to give us, but it turned out these French bastards were Swedish!! No baguettes, no monsieurs, but they gave us something a bit more important: an incredibly good EP!!

So these two guys from Gothenburg didn’t just make us happy, because at Pitchfork Media they are already given the ‘Best New Music’ rating, but don’t let that stop you! Imagine a new album by The Avalanches, but then with a bit more uptempo discopop and you get Air France out of your blender! Just listen to the title track and you’ll feel exactly what we are unable to describe here with words. It’s someting nice, so soothing and so exstatic. You just want to lick yourself! ‘No Excuses’ and ‘Collapsing at your Doorsteps’ are the other songs you have to listen to first so you know what all this commotion is about. We’d be really sad if you ignored our recommendations and would check out Last.fm or Wikipedia first to find out if anybody agrees with us!

With only six songs and 22 minutes in playing time, I think I speak for everyone hear at ++ that the only thing is that we really need more of Air France. Everybody’s dancing around the office and we’ve even decided to only fly with Air France from now on!

Vive la Sverige!!

The best album of the month is here! So what that the album has been in stores for five months now?! So what that everybody has seen them live by now, since they’re performing on almost every festival in the world?! So what that they sound a lot like Cut Copy, The Infadels and a shit load of other bands?! This is the shit! This is what we’ve been craving for amongst all those mediocre albums we had to listen to because some idiot in Rolling Stone Magazine told us we should watch them!

Foals’ members united in Oxford (yeah, so we’re just guessing that there also incredibely smart!!) to make some nice math rock (whatever that might be). Now a couple of years later they have moved on to a bit more uptempo poppish rock with some electro elements in there as well. And it works the full 45 minutes!

Among the best songs are ‘Red Songs Pugie’, ‘The French Open’ (so freaking catchy!!!), ‘Olympic Airways’, ‘Balloons’ and the definite number one of the album ‘Cassius’!! Normally we would say just buy it for the four songs that are really good, but this time we’re telling you to buy the album (or steal it) and be sure to have the bonus disc as well. Another five brilliant songs on there so it would be pretty shameful if you would miss out on that!

‘Shawty Is Da Sh*t!’. Now that’s how you start an album! Terius Youngdell Nash AKA The-Dream is not just another R&B bling bling ‘Give me something to poke’ guy. He’s a true ‘artiste’. Ok, that’s a little bit too much maybe, but he’s really talented.

Having written stuff for a lot of artists including Rihanna (’Umbrella’), J.Holiday (’Bed’ well that is his only song right?!) and even for Usher (’Moving Mountains’ maybe isn’t something you would put on your resume applying to be accepted to the ‘artiste’ community, but still they did sell a lot of records!

And now Def Jam Records showed Mr. Youngdell that he could go ahead and chase his dream. We should be happy that this album came out, because maybe it’s not a masterpiece, but it has some great songs on it. And it’s something different than the indie rock, electro, whatever everybody that claims to be ‘artistic’ listens to!

The best songs are: ‘Luv Songs’, ‘I Luv Your Girl’, ‘She Needs My Love’ (not with an ‘u’ this time and sounds a lot like a Timbaland track!!). But the best two songs are the before mentioned ‘Shawty Is Da Sh*t!’ Ft. Fabolous and ‘Nikki’. So maybe the rest of the album isn’t that good, who cares? You get five good songs to pump in your car when you’re driving in the hood! That should be enough.

By the way did we mention that he’s an accomplished artist and has created many paintings and sculptures! Put that in your ‘Artiste’ community application!!

The Last Shadow Puppets is not a totally new name to the indie rock scene. The band consists of Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys (with his recognizable voice) and Miles Kane of The Rascals (who is also young and pretty like Alex). So if you add these two together with some songs produced by James Ford who is part of the duo Simian Mobile Disco (if you don’t know them, stop reading and go buy their album because whatever anybody says about this album, we can promise you that it’s not as good as SMD’s ‘Attack Decay Sustain Release’) you’ll get a guaranteed succes album.

Of course we’re not trying to bitch but their voices sound so familiar to us that we hoped, before listening to this album, that they would give us something new with ‘The Age of The Understatement’. And they did! Because the whole album has this James Bond ‘From Russia with Love’ vibe with string orchestra’s, moody and gloomy melodies and a lot of dark lyrics! Just take a look at their first video from this album and you’ll understand what I mean. The best songs are ‘Standing Next to Me’, ‘Black Plant’, and ‘Calm Like You’.

If you have a Vodka bottle at home and you’re alone put this album on and start drinking your sorrows away!!

Nneka is back and she didn’t forget her nice mellow music, her soothing voice and her too religious lyrics!

After her massive succes with her debut album ‘Victim of the Truth’ the expectations were that she couldn’t top her first album, but she actually managed to make something very similiar.

And that’s the thing with ‘No Longer At Ease’, it sounds exactly the same as the first one. So, you either loved the first one and are so happy that you have another 45 minutes of Nneka! Or you had enough of her ‘I’m African, God and Roots blabla’ and you hate this album. The other option is of course that you just listen to the music and like it or not. We liked some songs (’Come with me’, ‘Death’ and ‘Kangpe’) and didn’t like other songs (’Niger Delta’, ‘Running Away’ and ‘Suffri’).

The first single off the album is ‘Heartbeat’ and is already a pretty big hit in Germany! If you’re in to Jill Scott, India.Arie (you really spell it like that!) or Leela James you should definitely check this out!

I don’t think The Cool Kids are that Cool. I never was into oldschool hiphop where it’s just a rugged beat and a guy rapping without any emotion over it. I feel kind of ashamed that I didn’t like ‘m because they are so hyped and Rolling Stone Magazine even told me to keep an eye on these cats. But hey, just because oldschool sneakers are back in fashion doesn’t mean I want to listen to Run DMC and Beastie Boys 1988 style albums.

The members of The Cool Kids, Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish, met in 2005. They were inspired by hip hop in the 1980s and artists like Eric B. & Rakim. Like I said before, if you’re a really, really, really O.G. you’ll probably love this. It’s like entering a time capsule and being back there watching ‘Wild Style’ while listening to ‘Grandmaster Flash’. Even if you’re relatively new to the genre, you could still love it because the lyrics and beats are refreshing compared to a lot of the crap out there right now. But if you’re like me and you grew up with Dre, Snoop, Ice Cube, Nas and you have listened to the Run DMC, Eric B. & Rakim and the Beastie Boys because you wanted to know how it all started and really hated it, then you won’t like this…

But the rest of The Cool Kids is so nice. Look at the album cover! Pretty cool right?! And they look like nice fellows as well. Well marketed, like they’re not really marketed but independent. Bet ‘The Bake Sale’ is going to be a huge hit!!

Slagsmålsklubben (AKA SMK) is a popular Swedish bitpop band. The name Slagsmålsklubben is a Swedish translation of the title of the movie Fight Club (some nice useless Wikipedia info). ‘Boss For Leader’ is their third full length album.

‘Hant’ is the name of the first song and is one of the happiest openers to an album targeted for adults. It’s just so happy we might make it the ++Anthem! ‘Sponsored By Destiny’ is a more mature sounding song but still has positive sounding elements in it, especially towards the end of the song. But then they go wrong, like the ‘shrooms they took just kicked in.

‘Speedboats’ is just really awful and reminded me of “Barbie Girl’. It actually almost made me want to throw away the CD, but then I remembered I didn’t buy the CD! And if a ‘Malmo beach night party’ really sounds like the song, then I’m quite sure I’ll never set foot on a Malmo beach at night, or even in Sweden at night!

‘Dysparennia’ is picking up where ‘Sponsored By Destiny’ had left us and shows us that SMK is capable of putting some good songs out there. But then they manage to fuck this whole positive vibe up again with ‘Spanska forhoppingar’ and really make me want to commit suicide with ‘Han Som Tuggar Med Oppen Mun Dor’. Don’t think I’m really a big fan of Slagsmålsklubben but still check out the first two songs of the album!

Ok, so normally we wouldn’t do this at ++Mag, but because there are four really crazy good songs on these two albums we’re doing a one-for-two review!

The first album is ‘Play Music For You’ by Thieves Like Us. They are a Swedish American trio from New York. You could describe their album as a poppy, funky electro à la Hot Chip, Cut Copy and The Whip (which is the subject of the second half of this review).

One of the four tracks that should be in any electropop loving person’s collection is ‘Drugs In My Body’. If you can keep your feet still while listening to this you must be a mute! The heartfelt and very melancholic sounding ‘Love Lets Down’ is the other ++song. It makes you think of that love that was so good, but still didn’t work out in the end. Oh, how I miss him!

‘Declarations’, ‘Fass’ and ‘Sugar and Song’ are also pretty neato, but not as outstanding masterpieces as the previous mentioned songs. The rest of the album is crappy so no need to download those songs.

The second album is ‘X Marks Destination’ by The Whip released in March 2008. The Whip is a four-headed electro band from Manchester. Their album isn’t that stunning as well, but ‘Divebomb’ is the one to listen to first. Weird ass beat, freaky electro sounds and a very nice build up towards the climax of the song. ‘Throw It In The Fire’ is a good song reminding me of The Infadels a bit, but darker and the electro is more like Ed Banger!

The other good songs are ‘Trash’, ‘Muzzle #1’ (both released as singles), and ‘Save My Soul’. Especially ‘Trash’ is very catchy and could be considered as a back-up for the top four songs if one of them doesn’t suit your taste.

So combined these two albums have a total of 10 good songs which makes this new combo album a must buy (or download)!

Please kill this bitch! Wait, I’m sorry this is ++Mag. Don’t kill her, just cut her tongue or her throat a little bit so she’ll shut up. Damn, we don’t need another R&B gal throwing that verbal BS all in our face, do we?

Well, just to show you ++ doesn’t mean that everything we put on this site is good, and of course to help you to avoid this cd and not make the same mistake we did, this was the review!

Oh, by the way, please don’t really die Leona! That would make us feel a bit bad. Like we were the ones that made it happen or something. But on the other hand it would also make us feel strong, powerful and divine! So actually you do just what you do and we’ll see what happens!