Dec 22, 2009 Posted by Herko on Dec 22, 2009 in Personal notes | 2 comments

Listmania: the music of 2009, Herko edition!

It’s that time of year again, where you look back and –well basi­cally, make lists. So, in keep­ing with this won­der­ful tra­di­tion on the inter­webz here’s my list of music related good­ness of 2009.

Award shows on TV keep the best for last in order to keep their audi­ence hostage and their adver­tis­ers happy, but the web appar­ently doesn’t work like that. So,lets get this show on the road!

Album of the Year 2009

This has got to be the album I’ve lis­tened to most this year –and it is in fact the album I’m lis­ten­ing to as I write this post. It is the truly epic sound­track to The Crim­son Wing: Mys­tery of the Flamin­gos film, a Dis­ney Nature doc­u­men­tary. The music is by the ever awe­some The Cin­e­matic Orches­tra. Take a look at the trailer to get an idea of what the movie is about.

If you know of The Cin­e­matic Orches­tra, you’ll note that the trailer uses a song from their album Breathe. The song does not fea­ture on the Sound­track, but it does fea­ture Louise Rhodes, a guest star on the Breathe album and of Lamb fame.

The Crim­son Wing sound­track is writ­ten by J. Swin­coe, lead man of TCO, who has the full use of the Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Orches­tra to cre­ate a melo­dra­matic, sub­tle and at times epic sound­track. The album starts small and frag­ile with harp, piano and gui­tar, but with the LMO’s strings and brass sec­tions accom­pa­ny­ing them, the tracks get a full body and character.

My favorite track is ‘Trans­for­ma­tion’. I haven’t seen the movie (is hasn’t been released here in the NL), but you can clearly imag­ine the sun ris­ing, the world wak­ing, and hope flood­ing the world. The cen­tral theme just breathes that ‘every­thing will be alright now’, cul­mi­nat­ing into a grand finale wor­thy of the biggest con­cert halls.

Track­list:

1. Open­ing Titles (2:53)
2. Arrival of the Birds (2:38)
3. The Dance (3:21)
4. Soda (3:11)
5. Hatch­ing (5:12)
6. Marabou (3:56)
7. Exo­dus (7:17)
8. Trans­for­ma­tion (5:16)
9. Hyena (1:49)
10. Life of the Bird (3:33)
11. First Light (4:06)
12. Crim­son Skies (Fea­tur­ing Lou Rhodes) (3:24)

New Dis­cov­ery of 2009

Please note that this cat­e­gory –this whole post for that mat­ter– is extremely sub­jec­tive and rel­a­tive. There’s so much great music out there, this is just what I found and enjoyed. My dis­cov­ery for 2009 is DJ/producer/singer Ben West­beech. Mr. West­beech is from Bris­tol, UK, a hotbed of cre­ativ­ity, or so I’m told. He’s trained as a cel­list and vocal­ist, and he uses his soul­ful singing tal­ents dur­ing his DJ sets.

I first saw him per­form live at the RAW Rhythm fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam, where he was truly giv­ing the fes­ti­val some needed fla­vor and spic­ing things up a bit. His DJ set –some­times com­bined with the Jaz­zanova crew who were sched­uled to per­form next– was awe­some. He played some of his own tracks too, from his album ‘Wel­come to the best years of your life’. Ben gave a CD con­tain­ing his first sin­gle “So good today” to a friend in Lon­don. Two months later she played it to Gilles Peter­son who snapped it up. This led to Ben being signed to Gilles Peterson’s new label, Brownswood Record­ings. His debut albumWel­come to the Best Years of Your Life was released in March 2007.

Later this year, he did a set at the Ams­ter­dam Dance Event Strictly Defected (in da house) night over at Club Panama*. His tal­ent is in both truly enjoy­ing him­self when spin­ning the decks, show­ing a pas­sion for good music and dif­fer­ent styles –funk, house, jazz, soul, and using his smooth voice to cre­ate an extra dimen­sion to his sets.

For those of you who are into that sort of thing, you can fol­low him on Twit­ter as well: @benwestbeech. Keep an eye out for him, as he’s going to get big­ger and bigger!

Best Pod­cast of 2009

Yes, I have an iPod, and an iPhone, and a Mac, so I do lis­ten to pod­casts. But choos­ing the one I liked best in 2009 is going to be dif­fi­cult, as it’s a close call between 2 excel­lent pod­casts, really. The first is @dennisruyer’s Radio 538 Dance Depart­ment podcast.

This is the online ver­sion of the lead­ing Dutch radio sta­tion Radio 538’s dance music show. It’s been in the iTunes top 10 most down­loaded pod­casts for quite a while now, which should tell you some­thing of the qual­ity of the music fea­tured on the show. Basi­cally, it show­cases some of the best new dance tracks and artists, and is a great show to lis­ten to in just about any cir­cum­stance. Den­nis has many friends among the world’s top DJ’s and pro­duc­ers, giv­ing him access to many not-yet-released tunes and some of the hottest gos­sip. But it’s more then that, Den­nis is also a gifted DJ and aspir­ing pro­ducer (with his mate Prin­s­jan), giv­ing the show a great ten­sion buildup and rhythm of its own. This makes almost every show a great show to lis­ten to, with never a dull moment.

The other pod­cast is the Solid Steel pod­cast, which is a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ninja Tunes’ DK and Ser­ato, pro­duc­ter of sofware for DJ gear (for any­one who feels the urge to buy me some­thing expen­sive, please look for their Numark S7 solu­tion –not that I’m any good at DJing, but you’ve got to start some­where! ). The Solid Steel pod­cast has some true gems, and some where I go ‘meh’. But the gems make up for all the ‘meh’s. DK is an excel­lent DJ, who is able to com­bine hip-hop with drum-and-bass and warm soul and clas­sic jazz. It’s this that makes the Solid Steel shows leg­endary. Plus, some of Ninja Tunes’ finest have fea­tured on Solid Steel radio mak­ing it a great archive for pro­gres­sive nu-jazz and whatnot.

So, sub­scribe to both pod­casts, now!

Pop­u­lar­ity: 9% [?]

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2 Responses to “Listmania: the music of 2009, Herko edition!”

1. herko says:

   22 December 2009 at 14:19

   New blog post: List­ma­nia: the music of 2009, Herko edi­tion! http://www.herkocoomans.net/2009/12/listmania-the-music-of-2009-herko-edition/

   This com­ment was orig­i­nally posted on Twit­ter
2. herko says:

   22 December 2009 at 14:50

   named @benwestbeech one of my fav artists of 2009: http://www.herkocoomans.net/2009/12/listmania-the-music-of-2009-herko-edition/

   This com­ment was orig­i­nally posted on Twit­ter
3. Tweets that mention Listmania: the music of 2009, Herko edition! | Herko Coomans [dot] net -- Topsy.com says:

   22 December 2009 at 14:50

   […] This post was men­tioned on Twit­ter by herko, herko. herko said: New blog post: List­ma­nia: the music of 2009, Herko edi­tion! http://www.herkocoomans.net/2009/12/listmania-the-music-of-2009-herko-edition/ […]

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