Music Matters 2010

Music Matters is conducted in the heart of the world’s most dynamic region and is Asia’s only annual conference dedicated to the business of music. The event was created with and for the Music industry, bringing together major players from the entertainment eco-system to discuss, debate, do business and watch some of the hottest up and coming acts in Asia.

Music Matters 2010 will take place over a jam-packed three day programme (26-28 May 2010 in Hong Kong) including face2face sessions, high-powered discussions, keynote presentations and in-depth analysis along with fantastic and, often late night, networking events including Asian music showcases, parties, lunches and sector-themed breakfasts.

In 2010 Music Matters culminates in the inaugural “Music Matters Live” – Hong Kong’s first ever streetside, urban music festival – featuring some of the very best independent bands from around the world.

The event plays host to another truly global line-up with some of the most innovative and dynamic figures from across the music industry and beyond. Here are a few programme highlights:

• World-Class Keynotes: Including Spotify’s “game changing” Daniel Ek and The Agency’s, Neil Warnock, one of the best known agents in the business.
• Touring and Live: New, innovative marketing strategies for the live music industry from some of the biggest names in the business.
• Live Music Showcases: Over 30 bands performing from as far and wide as Australia, Canada and even Mongolia.
• Digital Dealmakers: What’s up next for the world’s largest digital communities? The global digital heads are back in Hong Kong.
• Breaking Asian artists in the West: More of a matter of WHEN not IF.
• Emerging Asia: Vietnam is a market whose time is now.
• Spotlight on Publishing: With the Music Publishing Associations of Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.
• Mobile Music Matters: Asia is the world’s # 1mobile music market, what’s new and which business models are winning?
• Namaste India: An update on the world’s second largest country.
• Three Strikes and You’re Out!: The ISP debate heats up.

Click here for full programme details. View the updated speaker list here.

Attack of the drones

The London electro-pop trio have moved on massively from their first kitchen sink gig at a friend’s house in the spring of 2008, to being among the first slew of bands announced for next year’s SXSW festival. The band have been among the ‘ones to watch’ lists for some time. However, the limelight that shone on the majority of solo female electro acts (La Roux, Little Boots) in 2009 is set to radiate their way in 2010.

The band – which describes their sound as “8-bit Casio drone-disco” –  has performed as part of the Levis One’s To Watch platform, Gaymers Camden Crawl, and toured with The Virgins. In addition they have run the full gamut of the festival circuit over the summer – a far cry from their live debut gig, singing astride a washing machine.

Tigs, who provides vocals, straddles a line somewhere between the looks of Katie White (vocalist and guitarist for the Ting Tings) and Scarlett Johansson, with a vocal sound reminiscent of Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The two Casio tone knob twiddlers in the background are Will and James; who appear only too happy to take a back seat from the energetic antics of their lead singer. Despite some possibly misplaced comparisons, Crystal Castles they are not, with the staccato 8-bit opening for ‘Solo’ serving up a far more commercially accessible sound than ‘Air Wave’ ever could. Another release, ‘Salt Air’, with its ‘You’ve been drinking” captivating drawl from Tigs, overlaid onto  an 8-bit surge and subtle tapping wood block, is evocative of their simplistic, yet poignant, sound.

Their first video, for the single Solo – on the French label Kitsune – saw them having a tea party in the snow at an abandoned communist theme park in Berlin.

Visit their MySpace site to download the second track ‘Slick’  from their forthcoming debut album, which has being lovingly crafted by Bat for Lashes producer David Kosten. Tigs recently described it in an interview as  “a body of work [that is] going to differentiate us from a lot of the people we’ve been unfairly compared to – it’s future classic pop.”

Chew Lips are playing live across the UK from 19th Nov to 2^nd Dec, for full details visit their website here.

Scratch and Riff

“My name is Nate, and you can consider me your neon green plastic hand-shaped backscratcher”.

Nate Campany will scratch your back if you scratch his. He may even scratch it with a used CD of the Backstreet Boys song he once penned.

Nate refers to himself as having a “normal life”. He “has a beard, credit cards, and a job”.  That job is creating pop records, for the likes of The Backstreet Boys as previously mentioned, and others such as The Click Five and platinum selling Dutch artist Ilse Delange. However, he also manages to carefully intertwine his pop sensibilities with deeper roots in the homespun, heartfelt emotive values of Americana. The Track ‘Shown’ is a clear standout on his MySpace page. A driving rural lament that simultaneously echoes the pioneering spirit of working on a chain gang in dust bowl USA whilst retaining enough pop melody to evoke a sense of real escapism. You can almost hear the US drama music supervisors clamouring to get to his door with a series of emotionally wrought visuals for him to serenade. Unrequited love in Lost, a sudden death in Grey’s Anatomy, in the right place a very powerful song.

So where does the neon green backscratcher come in? Well, in Nate’s words: “Have you ever been to one of those 99-cent stores, going up and down the aisles, not really needing anything but trying to find something to buy because it only costs 99 cents?” Nate wants you to spend that $0.99 on something he believes in – his music. He joins a growing trend among artists that are self-financing their work by utilising the devotion of a personalised fan base. He set up the website helpnate.com encouraging donations from friends, family, fans and strangers in order to help release his own material. The ‘Serenade’, is the name he gives the musicians he records with. He also includes the people who he believes have encouraged him through the site under this collaborative title.

The labour of love result, after being locked away with 12 musicians recoding live – without a trace of a pitch shifter or well vanished pop lacquer – is “The Estella sessions”. From this body of work comes the ‘The Only Bridge I Need’ EP which is due for release on 1st June 2009. A full album, ‘Estella’ will be released in late 2009.

Nate embarks on a solo acoustic tour of the UK throughout May supporting Kim Richey, Thomas Dybdahl and Great Lake Swimmers.

http://www.myspace.com/natecampany

http://www.helpnate.com/

Waking the dead

“Kooky and spooky”, said one reviewer of this singer – and the Addams Family similarities don’t stop there. Catherine A.D. sings like a gothic mermaid version of the grim reaper, luring those who hear into her warm blanket of decay and beauty – before smashing them against the rocks (as it were).

Her folk-noir sound is as effortlessly sultry as it is dark and brooding, and sees her wading into waters that are inhabited by the likes of Tori Amos, Regina Spector, and Joanna Newsom. Courtney Love went as far as referring to her as having a “gorgeous sick beautiful voice”. Her voice, in truth, is a paradox; it evokes both a haunting, ethereal sense of foreboding, tinged with glimmers of wrought desire and hope.

The whirling backing music to ‘Carry Your Heart’ sounds like the ice cream van at the end of the world – spinning out its melancholy jingle as the end draws ever nearer. ‘Grow Out’ is reminiscent of Muse’s Matt Bellamy at his intro-warbling best as it spins a death-scented novella of honey-laced lyrics over a piano that sounds as if it is tumbling off the edge of reality. ‘Unravel’ showcase’s Catherine at her evocative best; as her voice weaves a delicate web, it ensnares the listener in its carefully constructed threads.

She writes on her blog that she wants to “send satellites out to every 13-year-old [girl] who might be dying a slow death in Suburbia, nowheresville,” and be “scratched into the door of some boy’s locker as a reminder of why he has to move to London in the next two years”.

The siren is calling and those rocks are coming up fast, so it’s time to don your emotional lifejacket and enjoy a swim in a voice that’s described as like “a lake of black honey”.

Catherine A.D. is currently working on tracks for her debut album.

http://www.catherinead.com/

http://www.myspace.com/catherineannedavies

They’re cool and bored

Imagine, if you can, a remote island, devoid of all human contact, except for the musical offerings of CSS, Yelle, Robots In Disguise, Chicks On Speed, Le Tigre, and… er, Daphne & Celeste. Now imagine it has a population of three and you’ll be somewhere in the sonic region of Le Corps Mince de Francoise’s The Thin Body Of Francoise.

For those of you who thought CSS’s second album, Donkey, was a little too mainstream, then this band will have you jumping for joy in your ill-fitting Technicolor catsuit. The “three sisters of sitting bull” (Emma, Mia, and Malin) hail from Helsinki in Finland and cite “big teeth” and “Mahatma Gandhi” among their influences. The bowl haircut-sporting trio seem as comfortable covered in Post It notes and constructing cardboard guitars as they do chucking out laissez faire electro Yell Pop.

Forthcoming single ‘Rayban Glasses’ hits you with its school-chanting skip-along lyrics, and M.I.A Gangalang horn section, like a horde of well-meaning hoodies (hell bent on painting your comfortable two bed semi a shocking shade of fluro green). ‘Bitch Of The Bitches’ is Peaches through and through; minimalistic, and yet with a pop accessibility that the grandmother of electro filth could never have. The Russ Chimes Remix gives it that ‘Techtonik’ touch that seems to grace all French electro offerings these days – and it’s all the better for it.

“These experimental pop chicks with their energetic live performances and stupid hairdos are gonna be rulers of the world,” states a review on their MySpace page.

Le Corps Mince de Francoise play as part of Helsinki In Berlin at the PopKomm Festival on 9th October. They also play at the Social Club in Paris on 15th and Notting Hill Arts Club in London on 24th October.

The Ray-Ban Glasses EP will be out on 29th October on Finnish indie label NEW JUDAS.

http://www.lcmdf.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/lecorpsmincedefrancoise

Caught in the middle

“The sun is hot in the sky / Just like a giant spotlight,” sings Lenka as she takes her turn in the literal spotlight as a solo artist. Straddling a fine line between Fiest and Edie Brickell – and to a lesser, but comparable, extent, Katy Perry – Lenka is no stranger to music. She previously fronted the electronic/ambient outfit Decoder Ring in her native Australia, a group best know for the critically-acclaimed soundtrack to the Australian film Somersault.

The daughter of a jazz musician, Lenka originally sidetracked music for film completely, embarking on an acting career (having trained alongside Cate Blanchett at the Australian Theatre for Young People), featuring in a string of independent films such as The Dish and Lost Things.

However, her subsequent time with Decoder Ring sparked an interest in solo material, with an early composition ending up in a particularly ‘hands-on’ scene in Courtney Cox’s TV series Dirt. TV placements have come thick and fast since her signing to Epic Records. (“They’re a major label, but have the philosophy of an indie,” says Lenka.) The track ‘The Show’ has featured in Old Navy’s back-to-school TV ad campaign and in hit US comedy series Ugly Betty. All of which – plus 476,700 downloads as iTunes’ free song of the week – helped push her full album into the iTunes’ Top 10 albums chart. The TV integration, however, doesn’t end there, with ‘Don’t Let Me Fall’ appearing in the newly-invigorated Beverly Hills 90210 premiere episode.

The songs themselves are evidence of a girl who cites that “her first friends were trees”. Described in reviews as an “ethereal songstress”, a “pocket rocket”, and “breathy, strangely haunting,” this is crossover folk-tinged pop at its best.

Single ‘The Show’ climaxes with a seemingly drunken rabble shouting, “I want my money back!”

I don’t think you will, though.

Lenka plays a series of dates in Australia at the end of October, before embarking on the Hotel Cafe Tour in the US from 11th November

http://www.myspace.com/lenkamusic

http://www.lenkamusic.com

Donkey

They might have lost their bassist, but the Brazilian band haven’t lost their mojo on their second album. Consistently one of the best live bands around, their electro party music is still intact (think of it as a polish to the first album rather than a sideways step). While nothing has quite the bounce of ‘Alala’, ‘Off The Hook’, or ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’, there’s still more than enough vim here to see them bring their catsuited joy to festivals for years to come.

Fly you to the moon

Back in the 1960s, the world was treated to a vision of the future, a helmeted man whizzing round the skies of Disneyland with a tinfoil flying device strapped to his back – which was supposed to be a jetpack. “I believe in our lifetime we will see jetpacks used in commuter service between office and home, in the police department and individual family life,” said Robert May, the developer of the Rocket Belt jetpack. However, over 40 years later and we’ve still got our face squashed against the glass on the Tube and some police are still on horseback.

Glaswegian quartet, We Were Promised Jetpacks (although all only born in 1987) bemoan the false promises of science shows like Tomorrow’s World – the very people who told us CDs were indestructible. The as-yet-unsigned band, comprised of school friends Adam Thompson (vocals, guitar), Michael Palmer (guitar), Sean Smith (bass), and Darren Lackie (drums) originated in Edinburgh. The group – who describe themselves as “older than Leon Jackson” but “younger than Leona Lewis” – performed their first ever gig at Craigmount High with a cover of Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl?’. We get promised jetpacks and all we get is Jet. The world is so cruel.

So what do they sound like, you say? Well they namecheck Bloc Party, Biffy Clyro, We Are Scientists, and The Strokes; and to be fair the influences are apparent. It’s all a little bit ramshackle in places and, at times, sounds like standard Student Union fodder; but when it doesn’t, its jangly exuberance really holds its own. The 2007 self-released, self-titled EP contains some fairly raw gems. ‘Quiet Little Voices’ and ‘Moving Clocks Run Slow’ scratch out a frenetic pace and energy – as if they were being driven on the very hydrogen peroxide that propelled those Sixties space cadets. Plus – and this is an important ‘plus’ – they really do have one of the best band names we’ve heard in ages.

WWPJ will take to the Your Soul Bandstand at the Hydro Connect festival on 29th-31st August, alongside Attic Lights and Broken Records. In the meantime strap a bottle of fizzy pop to your back and fill it with Mentos. This is about as close as we are going to get to our shiny jetpack utopia.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm

That 60s Jetpack Guy

Stop Drop & Roll!!!

Yes, it’s those pesky Green Day ’scamps’ operating under yet another pseudonym. In the wake of the massive global success of American Idiot, they’ve chosen to write a love letter to Sixties beat-pop rather than taking their cue from the post-Dickies US punk scene that has defined their day job. It’s in thrall to all those (mainly) UK acts who attempted to crack the States, all full of dumb chords and wheezing organ (and, on ‘Dark Side Of Night’, spooky-flute). The early gnaw-marked Kinks are the obvious reference point, but the foot soldiers of the pre-Nuggets Brit invasion such as Herman’s Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, and even The Monkees (they were 25% British after all) snake around this album which is big on stoopid choruses and, more importantly, big on fun.

You Can Do Anything

Third album from the Liverpudlians and their first since Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse made ‘Valerie’ a radio playlist standard. Producer George Drakoulias adds extra ‘beef’ to their sound while the arrival of new guitarist Paul Molloy gives their sound more bite and the band a renewed purpose. They haven’t strayed too far from their original template (swampy blues, R&B, tootling Roxy Music-style sax that veers into ska, pop, skiffle), but considering their sound is a melting pot of the best of the last half-century of popular music, they’re unlikely to coast for too long. Tales of longing and curtain-twitching snippets from the dark side of their hometown elevate them above many of their contemporaries. They can still do rousing glam-alike singalongs (’Always Right Behind You’, ‘What’s Your Problem’), but it has always been their introspective tracks that worked best (’Dirty Rat’ and ‘Don’t Get Caught’) and which stuck in the brain the most.