The first impression of Shore To Shore is that Norman Palm is a great vocalist. Pleasant. The voice sounds like it was meant to do one thing. To sing.
My favorite track on the album is Easy. Pop, electro and stylish out in to the corners. With the right amount of bass playing in the background. This is art.
The album in its entirety is like a exhibition, in a dark gallery, you can imagine the songs as paintings. The artist Norman Palm knows how to paint a soundscape, breathtaking sometimes, enjoyable and powerful. All at the same time.
Integrating a great variety of instruments, like the guitar sound in the song smile, Norman Palm shows his width again and again.
Shore To Shore is nothing less than a 5 out of 7 K7’s. A large album. Something to write to your friends about. I am hoping for great things for Norman Palm in 2011. Which I am sure he will receive.
Haruki Murakami. This japanese writer, born 1949, has destroyed the thrill of reading other authors. He has rolled them into a carpet and thrown them in the cold river. I can´t see why I really should read anyone else?
It´s like when you first discover – truly discover – Bob Dylan. When you go from his 1960-songs to his 1970-songs and the ground beneath your feet starts to quiver, quake and finally disappear. You got no safety line, no protection, no turning back. You got no shelter from the storm.
Norwegian Wood is the third book I´ve read from Haruki Murakami. Kafka on the Shore and Sputnik Sweetheart is already done and I can´t wait to start reading stuff like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and the marathonbook What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
It´s a lovestory from the 1960´s. A sad, lonesome tale but still compelling and profoundly well-written. Toru Watanabe hears the Beatles-song Norwegian Wood and gets overwhelmed with emotions and memories. We go back with Toru to the university in Tokyo, his love for the fragile Naoko. Naoko goes to a Cuckoo´s nest in the mountains, Toru waits. It´s vibrant, between the lines, great stuff. It´s the heartache of growing up.
Haruki Murakami wrote this book 23 years ago. It just became a movie and is less of that magical realism you will find in Kafka on the shore, this is more of a straight shooting novel. Well, I like that side of this japanese moon as well.
This Rhode Island (a sauce in Sweden, a place in America) quartet got all the checks they ever gonna need. Facial hair. Check. Lo-Fi. Check. Checked shirt. Double-check. This is an introspective, honest bunch.
Smart Flesh aint no Oh my God Charlie Darwin – the bands breakthru from 2008. Then it was a splattered Wilco/Bon Iver/Tom Waits/Fleet Foxes-vibe. This is more of a one way street, recorded in a Pastafactory with an eerie sound. Some parts I don´t understand, like the instrumental song #6 Wire. Puts my focus elsewhere.
This is a beautiful album. It´s lullabies for the people, it´s rootsy ballads, it´s that folk-acoustic music that belonged before us, long before man and his guitar. It´s the greater picture and you will have to kneel down to the power of songs like Boing 737, Hey All You Hippies and I´ll Take Out Your Ashes.
Smart Flesh is a record who needs your full attention, or it will get lost.
¤ Judge says: 5/7 Kentuckyseven´s
¤ Best track: Hey, All You Hippies
¤ Drink while you listen: Anura Pinotage Syrah (heavy, southaf, darkred)
Kentuckyseven proudly presents Howard Eliott Payne.
In 2009 one record ruled them all. Bright Light Ballads, from the brit HEP. An album which still mesmerizes, captures and clings. It’s been on heavy rotation since I first bought it.
Howard has been writing stuff for other artists, but lets us know that he is planning something for himself. For us.
The artist is dylanesque, to say the least, yet very personal and gripping in his singing. If you have missed his album, go get it, right now.
We got in touch with the man:
What are you listening to?
– Elvis Costello and the Attractions: This Years Model
– Aaron Neville: Hercules
– Elliott Smith: XO
– Dr John: Gris Gris
Best book read during 2010?
– Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound, The Rise And Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown
Who deserves a breakthrough in 2011?
– Ren Harvieu, She’s something else.
Let’s say you haven’t heard HEP, please check him out here @ YouTube
Drive-By Truckers have three singers (Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood, ShonnaTucker) and have recorded eleven albums. Go Go Boots puts them right where I like em.
This is a step into the bona fied countrygrass, a familiar place for the Truckers yet not always their most abraded runway. It suits them perfect, like a strong cup of coffee in the morning sun.
As always you hear the roots, the Neil Youngs and the Tom Pettys, the blues, the soul and the heartland of great americanamusic. It´s a soundtrack to that movie you love. Long, slow, steelpedaltunes. Three great voices. And a couple of songs that really makes a difference.
As DBT state in the first song: “I do believe, I do believe, I do believe.”
Fair enough.
¤ Judge says: 5/7 Kentuckyseven´s
¤ Best tracks: Everybody needs love, Used to be a cop.
Glad to introduce Måsen, a beer expert from the heart of Vallda, Sweden. Thru his life in Denmark, Germany and Sweden he has always loved the art of craft-beer. A student of the University of Beer. He will deliver his thoughts on new releases. Starting? Now.
Mohawks vs Goldings
Sigtuna Brygghus
29,90:- /50 cl
A nice english-hopped beer with that elegant Kent-style from the swedish microbrewery Sigtuna Brygghus. Fresh taste, nice summerstyle, tasted good in company of Champions League. A sweet aroma filled with love and a taste that reminds me of the sun. Lacks unfortunately a bit of the bitterness in the end that would add spike to this fully respected and exiting beer, I will definitely buy it again this spring.
5/7 Kentuckyseven.
Epic Armageddon IPA
Epic Brewing Company
34,90:- / 50 cl
A beer that has everything. Cool label, right size and a confidence of a champion. From New Zealand via the awesome Galatea Spirits AB to the green sign of Sweden. The scent tells me that this a full-bodied beer with strength, attitude and carisma. When you taste it, it onlý gets better. Your anticipations are high, and immediatlety you get the right answer. This is hop-heaven, a ludicrous amount of hop, a hop monster that gives you that true grapefruit finish. You got to love this beer, a masterpiece. If it was a painting? The Mona Lisa.
7/7 Kentuckyseven (close to an eight)
Oppigårds Spring Ale
Oppigårds Bryggeri
16,80:- / 33 cl
I decided to test a new release from my favourite brewery, Oppigård. The Spring Ale. As always they deliver. This is not a powerful beer but despite that it´s a pleasure drinking it. This is a family brewery, I´ve tasted everything they produced, and I really like their stuff. The Chinook hop is allright, but I do prefer the Amarillo or the Cascade. If I were CEO of Oppigårds I´ll do exactly as they´ve done but add Amarillo and some more alcoholic strength to enhance the experience. Today it is at 4,9 %, I´d like it at least 5,9 %. But keep up the good work!!!
The high standard of bands out of Denmark the last years is tremendous. The Kissaway Trail, Oh No Ono the list can be made long. Now it is time for the world to say hello to Treefight For Sunlight.
With their first album on Bella Union, the band gives us a taste of what’s to come. The sound is sprung from bands as Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Beatles and other era-making bands. Treefight takes the sound and makes it their own, in the 21:st century-style. Harmonies mixed with melodies and dreams. My favorite songs on this album, Rain Air, Facing The Sun, and the invigorating What Became Of You And I?
This is one of those albums that will make you listen more than once, just to see if you missed anything. There is a lot to discover. To listen to again. And again. This is my kind of music.
Treefight For Sunlight is definitely a band to follow. They are bound for something big. I sure as hell hope so.
The verdict: 6/7 this is the album to buy this spring.
Listen to What Became Of You and I? Courtesy of Bella Union…
