Norwegian record-pusher Christer Falck got hold of a country version of "Sign O' The Times" done by a drunk Joachim Lund, and that spurred the idea of a tribute album for Prince. 20 text messages were sent out to different Norwegian artists, and 19 replied positively. Falck hit a nerve, ...

This is a very odd compilation. It's probably trying to capitalise on Prince's massive profile last year, but there are a couple of obvious problems right from the start. First, have a look at the tracklisting . Rather than being a specially commissioned album of Prince covers, it's clearly been an exercise in searching around by the label ( Rapster ) to find an odd collection of versions of the purple one's songs by a bizarre range of artists. Some of these tracks have obviously been around for a long time. For instance, I remember the Soulwax cover of [...]

We've got even more Nordic songs for you today. For the Norwegians, I've got a nice goodie here: One of Norway's most popular popstars, Ravi (a.k.a. Ivar Chr. Johansen), has done a lot of interesting things in his career, including being a member of Jaga Jazzist. Here's a Christmas-song he recorded on his own, long before his Ravi-thing happened. The song "Hvit Snö" is from a compilation called "Beate Samleplate", which was compiled by a bunch of friends and given away to their friends. ("Hvit Snö" translates "White Snow" - and is originally written with a norwegian ö, - an [...]

" With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless. He thought the month was October but he wasnt sure. He hadnt kept a calendar for years. They were moving south. There'd be no surviving another winter here ." -- from Cormac McCarthy 's The Road photo by douglas roesch [...]
Via Retecool : prachtige versie van Purple Rain . Geen idee van wie. Ze klinkt iig als Nina Persson. Die hele open dir staat vol mooie liedjes maar dat heb ik niet gezegd.

This cold, a harmless cold (right?), has swallowed me whole. Cast me into a sea of strangeness. I've been running a low fever for a few days now. "Winter Killing" - Stina Nordenstam There is something about fevers that makes you feel like a poet. Some broken-down, but prophetic, poet. It's akin to being high, I think. And as I shuffle through my iTunes playlist, I'm noticing that tracks I previously ranked as "two stars" sound entirely different to my germ-saturated, mucus-filled mind. [...]
Thanks (again) to all of you who have hung with the ups and downs of my blogging over the last year. Since I don't say very much, I thought this would be a good time to say hello and explain what's going on as we head into Ashley Plath version 4.0. I am truly stunned at the volume of email I've received and especially pleased that the song/picture/lyrics format was so appreciated. When this blog was titled Lessons From Things I posted hundreds of songs, using "anonymous" pictures I found all over the web, and had [...]

"You'd made a lover out of me and spring was coming." Stina Nordenstam ~ Winter Killing from The World Is Saved by Stina Nordenstam
Het is alweer een lange tijd geleden dat ik zoveel losse nummers had lig-gen. Toch wilde ik die eigenlijk wel op de site plaatsen, want deze gewel-dige nummers wil ik niemand onthouden. Laten we dus maar snel begin-nen met (toch alweer) de negende log van de rubriek Just A Few Songs.Het eerste nummer had even tijd nodig om door te komen, maar toenhet eenmaal in mijn hoofd zat ging het er ook niet ...

This week in my musical life was a seven-day sojourn of sifting through my CD collection in an effort to re-acquaint myself with some old friends I'd lost touch with. The funny thing about writing about music is that with new bands, new material and new shows popping up on a daily basis it seems, I have a tendency to be overwhelmed with a sense of what's coming up next and unfortunately some favorites get temporarily buried in the shuffle. I was almost equally overwhelmed by the amount of records and cd's I'd nearly forgotten [...]

There's something about the female figure that has this special je ne sais quoi.... The female voice, now that's the true esence of sensuality.... don't you just love women? So here are a couple of songs of women I find irresistably sensual. + Stina Nordestam - I Dream of Jeanie + Dani Siciliano - They Can Wait + Mono - Silicone (Les Rythmes Digitales Remix) + Roisin Murphy - [...]
6 Cardinal Colors: Purple Larry Clinton, Deep Purple. Art Tatum, Deep Purple. The Clientele, The Violet Hour. Sebadoh, Violet Execution. The Kooks, Indigo Lights. Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dance of the Lilac Fairy. Prince, Purple Rain. Stina Nordenstam, Purple Rain. Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze. Scott Joplin, Heliotrope Bouquet. Eva Taylor, Jeannine I Dream of Lilac Time. Jeff Buckley, Lilac Wine

I don't think this song is particularly new, and to be honest, it only caught my attention initially because it was remixed by The Knife , but it turns out that Stina Nordenstam is pretty great herself. This doesn't "feel" so different from most of Ms. Nordenstam's catalog, from what I can tell; the vocals are considerably more ominous and menacing, and its a little icier, maybe, but it's still gorgeous. At the same time, it wouldn't sound out of place as a Silent Shout b-side, either. Perfect for solitary late [...]