There have not been much music released lately that I liked enough to recommend here on Fogelberg.com. That was until yesterday when London based Haelos released their second album Any Random Kindness. Lots of great tunes and melodies on this one. Their music has been described as “dark euphoria” and an “angelic combination of male-female vocal interplay and atmospheric soundscapes.”
Amen to that. Instant favorite for me.
This is one of my own modded Game Boys. It used to have a cyan blue screen but yesterday I decided to try out a silver screen that I had recently acquired. I also tried new off-white silicon buttons. It looks great I think, though I have still not decided if I like the feeling of the new buttons.
One of the things I have found when choosing color combinations for modded Game Boys is that it usually looks better if there is a high contrast between the color of the shell and the screen. Meaning if you choose a dark shell, use a lightly colored screen and vice versa.
I haven’t listened to The Chemical Brother for a very long time. Saw them at the Sonar Festival a few years ago but apart from that I think I stopped following them somewhere around Push the Button in 2005. Don’t know why really, but I suspect I just grew tired of their sound at the time.
Fast forward a decade or so and their latest album No Geography is out.
I’m surprised to say it’s really really good. I like it a lot. Good tunes.
For close to one year now I have been refurbishing and modding old Game Boys. It started out as a fun project where I wanted to learn something new and test the limits of what was possible to do, without investing a lot of money or time. It has been fun but this Game Boy pictured above is likely one of the last I will do, if not the last one.
I’ve grown a bit tired on doing this and since it’s getting harder and harder to get hold of second hand Game Boys in Sweden that are in good enough shape to work on, now seems like a good time to move on to do something else on my spare time, like making more music again. Also my source for most of the spare parts are located in the UK, which as you may know are very likely to not be a part of the EU soon, meaning there will be extra costs for customs for everything ordered from there.
Anyway, so please enjoy this last or one of my last modded Game Boy DMG-01. It’s an original shell in great condition with new green plastic screen and see-through buttons. All the usual mods for greater image quality and sound. Perfect for the serious retro gamer or LSDJ / Nanoloop Chip musician. Available on Ebay as I’m writing this.
In this week’s list of recommendations automatically and specifically handed to my by the all-serving algorithms of Spotify I found this newly released gem from Amsterdam-based Harm Coolen and Merijn Schotte Albers, aka Weval.
As usual these days, no doubt the result of me training the recommendation engine for god knows how many hours, it was once again correct in assuming I would like this. So thank you once again Spotify for showing me another gem that I would probably never have heard otherwise.
The songs on Weval range from blissed-out retro-chill-pop to more experimental trips into the land of 60s string reverb. Somewhat similar artists with this sound, at least in my mind would be Washed Out, WorriedAboutSatan and Chrome Sparks, to some extent. There are singing or pieces of singing on all the songs and it’s always run through some sort of effect, like pitch, phaser or harmonizer. The selection of effects heightens the overall retro-feeling on The Weight. It sounds 60s, but yet modern and fresh.
My favorite pieces of music so far are the title track, Are You Even Real, False State of Mind and Same Little Thing.
Released on Kompakt.
Finally the latest full-lengther from Apparat has been released. It’s a satisfying collection of beautifully contemplating ambient pieces built around the pleasant voice of Mr Apparat himself, Sascha Ring.
There are three tunes here that stand out above the other for me. The first one is DAWAN, which was the first single released a couple of months ago. Then we have CARONTE where Mr Ring’s voice is heard through a harmonizer effect supported by a whole section of cellos, violins, guitars and a slightly distorted bass sound. This is also one of the tunes on the album which most reminds me of the sound of Moderat, of which Apparat of course also is a part of.
My third favorite is IN GRAVITAS, the finishing tune on the album, which is the most, I suppose, dance-ish piece on LP5. All in all a great album which I will listen to again and again in the near future.
Here is my fifth and final Chilled Beats playlist for Spotify. This one I will continue to add great music to as I find it, so make sure to follow it if you want to keep up with the best chilled tracks out there.
It’s time for another recommendation of some great music. I found this expertly selected collection of tracks called “A Winter Sampler” on Spotify. It was released recently on All Day I Dream.
Laid back Deep House music made just the way I like it. I think you will too.
Found some interesting releases on Spotify the last few days, like DRIFT Episode 2, the latest EP from Underworld and Radio Scarecrow, a full album release from The Black Dog.
My number one favorite so far though comes from Yorkshire based duo Worriedaboutsatan and is called Revenant. It has six great synthesizer heavy tracks loaded with beauty and dark atmosphere. Released on Burning Witches Records.
Here is another modded Gameboy DMG-01. This is my second one which has a great condition original Clear case together with green screen and buttons. I really like this color combination. Of course it has all the usual internal mods as well: