BEIT

And here's another millim oldie, before I move onto something newer tomorrow ^^



While I know next to nothing about yesterday's artist, I know even less about BEIT. I think they aspire to make power metal. They have male vocals in Korean. I assume the few songs available on millim are from 2001. That's about it.

Well, I do like power metal, which their song The Murder is a pretty good sample of. And I love rock ballads like the song below. They too should've made it by now. I'm gonna have to ask mrkwang to see if he knows what happened...

비 (Rain) [left click]

Protein Puppet

Here's another old millim favorite of mine. I don't think anybody that asked me for recommendations on Korean music a couple of years ago got away without hearing them :p



Sadly, I know next to nothing about Protein Puppet or 단백질인형, which is the actual name in Korean. They've been on millim since at least 2002 and late 2004/early 2005 they were still active as the original "demo" suddenly was replaced by two "demos". What I like the best about Protein Puppet is their amazing shoegazer influenced rock songs, but their modern rock and trip hop stuff too is incredibly good for a band unsigned this long.

Unfortunately, again, my favorite song is no longer available at millim. In fact, Raining isn't even listed on the site anymore. Well, the songs below aren't that bad either. The first song is a great example of the Protein Puppet rock style while the second represents their more electronic side ^^

Cry [left click]
To heaven(추모곡) [left click]

Incubator

Whenever I should be studying for exams I get ideas on various projects I'd like to do. More often than not those are related to the more alternative side of Korean music, and usually nothing happens once exams are over. The last such idea I will, however, try a little harder to realize as it's not as time consuming as those ideas usually are - making notes on any good artist I come across on millim.com. Here's an old favorite of mine ^^



Kim Min Hyuk, aka Incubator, has been in various Korean indie bands since 1998. He makes som really nice rock songs and has good vocals - Picture an early Korean Hideki. I'm really surprised that despite having his material up on millim since 2001, he still hasn't gotten a record deal for this alias.

Unfortunately the link for my favorite, Good Day, isn't working anymore, but here's one of his newer songs that I also like a lot. And an interesting cover of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, which isn't really representative for his other works :p

자유의감옥 (prison of freedom) [left click]
Billie Jean [left click]

Serenaide

Though they haven't released anything for a couple of years, five member band Serenaide of Singapore are still active playing live every now and then. Their first and so far only actual album, The Other End of the Reciever, was released by Fruit Action in 2004. Male vocals and a poppy sound - after listening to their songs a few times I was not surprised to learn that one of the members' main influence is Pulp ^^

Furry Animal Fury

Detektivbyrån

Sorry about not sticking to my write-every-day-for-a-couple-of-weeks plan, but I was not in any state to even sit up when I got home yesterday so it was probably for the better...



Swedish Detektivbyrån (lit. The Detective Bureau) are just about to release their second EP, Hemvägen EP, and like Hedvika I am already completely in love with their music. Last year I was all about Yann Tiersen. This is the same kind of instrumental music, only with plenty of electronic instruments - how could it not be love?

Go check out Hedvika's first blogpost on Detektivbyrån for more download links and go visit their MySpace to hear a few songs more. The song below will be featured on the new EP ^^

E18

adultchild

While writing reviews for every CD I buy hasn't kept me from buying too many CDs, at least it's made me learn more about them. Here's what I found a couple of weeks ago when researching for a review I should have done in March..



The Korean trio adultchild has been around since 2004, but it wasn't till this year that they first appeared on album. Being signed by Pastel Music (my favorite Korean label right now ^^) they participated with their song Sad Thing on the Cracker soundtrack - one of my favorite releases so far this year. Their music is nice and mellow whith female vocals making it all sound beautiful.

Down below are two of my favorite songs of adultchild. I believe 상실 is a live recording with just kkasi, so make sure you also get Star to hear what they'll sound like when they release an album ^^ Go check them out on millim.com for more!

Star [left click]
상실 (loss) [left click]

gruppa.fm

And here's something else I decided to check out after reading some random journal at last.fm ^^



Since my Russian is limited to just reading, there's not much I can tell you about gruppa.fm. However, after surfing their site I've reached the conclusion that gruppa.fm is a duo. And since the site is only available in Russian, I'm pretty sure they hail from Russia and not one of the former Soviet republics. Anyway, they're making some pretty catchy pop/rock with occasional electronic elements and the woman is the one providing the vocals, kinda like a poppier Zemfira. I like this a lot!

Check under "музыка" at their homepage to download all of their Made in Russia album, track by track. You should definitly get them all if you like the song below ^_^

Караоке (karaoke)

Bettlare & lösfolk

Since I'll be heading to school for some beer & music in less than an hour, I decided to check out one the bands I hadn't heard of before ^^



Bettlare & lösfolk are five people making ballads from the poems of Swedish poet Nils Ferlin. I think the best expression in English to describe their music would be singer/songwriter, but it's really a "trubadur" singing "visor" (something like Swedish folk pop) accompanied by a band. The singer's voice is not perfect, but this goes pretty well with the "vistradition".

Check out their pages at YouSeekMusic (Swedish) and MySpace to learn more about them and listen to more of their works.

I stolta städer (in proud cities)

Panda & Angel

Panda & Angel is a Seattle based five member band. They play some kind of gloomy alternative rock with interesting female vocals that is very appealing to me. Their self titled EP was released on Jade Tree about a month ago.

Their homepage is under constuction right now, but you can check them out on MySpace where you should make sure to also get Ohio December 24th. If you have a last.fm account you could also listen to full samples of every song from their EP on it's last.fm page ^^

Dangerous

Tigarah

It seems she's already gotten a lot of attention on blogs all over, but I didn't hear about her till last week, when I was wasting time reading journals at last.fm.



Japanese Tigarah mixes Brazilian baile funk music with hip hop in a way that makes me wanna hit a dance floor - Even though I could never dance to this kind of music... Her rhymes are supposedly clever, so if you (unlike me) are knowledgeable in Japanese, checking the lyrics out could perhaps be interesting. So far she has released one EP and an album should come out this fall.

Go visit her homepage to listen to all of the songs from her EP and download all remixes made by MR.D. You could also take a look at her MySpace for a few downloadable tracks from her EP, including my favorite below ^^

Girl Fight! (Left click)

And I'm back!

After an awesome summer and some exams (last one today!), I'm finally back online for real! Now the plan is to make a new post here every day for a couple of weeks or so and then I'll try to keep it at 3-4 posts/week. Also I'll be a lot more active writing reviews in my last.fm journal since I happened to spend too much of my salary on CDs when I got back...