Tag: pumped up kicks

#Review: Klingande – The Album

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Klingande started out as a production duo back in 2012, releasing a couple of notable tracks. However, following the departure of one half of the pair in 2014, Cédric Steinmyller chose to continue using the moniker, as a solo venture. Since then and with a string of singles and remixes under his belt, the French DJ and tropical house producer, is now releasing his debut album, The Album. Here’s what we have to say about it…

Klingande - The Album

Klingande‘s aptly-titled debut album, The Album, sees the producer putting out a double-disc record. The first of which is a body of work that sounds sonically polished and wonderfully well collected together, whilst the second disc is more a collection of the producer’s previous hits and well-known tracks.

The first disc is definitely an album that has been inspired by the likes of the late Avicii, blending real instruments with electronic elements. It would appear that there are other influences being played with too, with a real sense of the Deep South of America interwoven throughout – such as ‘Sinner’ (featuring Stevie Appleton) with country-style acoustic guitars in the verses and bluesy guitar riffs in the chorus. Or ‘By The River’ that has slick guitars and features the raspy yet soulful vocals from Jamie N Commons. Even a harmonica finds its way onto the album (courtesy of French harmonica player, Greg Zlap) on the refreshing and rather frantic, surefire fan-favourite, ‘Ready For Love’ (also featuring vocals from UK singer-songwriter, Joe Killington).

The album opens with his latest single, ‘Amsterdam’ (the first of two collaborations with pop duo BRIGHT SPARKS) an acoustic-led, mellow dance track with a heavy underlying bass which sounds almost separate to the rest of the track, in a really interesting way. The second collaboration with BRIGHT SPARKS is previous single, ‘Messiah’ a subtle yet very catchy track, with some interesting fills, like a great dubstep-style wob-wob, leading into the final chorus.

‘Simple Man’ has some beautiful, distant gospel backing vocals, topped off with a deep lead vocal. This track is definitely a nod to his older sound, as it’s very saxophone led. Meanwhile, ‘Famous’ is quite different in tone to the rest of the album, particularly as it’s the first track on The Album to feature a female vocal.

The Album is a wonderful collection of songs that bring about an interesting new depth to dance music, making it stand out from a lot of other EDM.

Besides ‘Ready For Love’ (a personal favourite!), the final two tracks are possibly the best ones on the record. ‘Alive’ is a very positive track about things you won’t allow to get to you or defeat you and whilst the lyrics are not necessarily the deepest or most well-written, it’s catchy as hell and the message is great! Equally, closing track, ‘Only Breath’ (and the second to feature an unknown female vocal) is an airy and atmospheric song, with a synth rhythm that is pure euphoria – a wonderful track in spite of the inevitable dance drop.

The second half of The Album serves as more of a greatest hits, collating a bunch of Klingande‘s previous releases from the past few years – a time when he was more recognised for his prominent piano and saxophone use.

Whilst reviewing The Album, I chose to focus my attention mainly on the first half of the record, due to it being a more comprehensive collection of songs, however what the second half does do, is bring most of his previous releases together in one place and showcase just what growth this artist has been through, whilst the first half marks a new chapter in his career.

The Album is a wonderful collection of songs that bring about an interesting new depth to dance music, making it stand out from a lot of other EDM, but at its core, still uses tried, tested and much-loved dance sensibilities. This is a record that will be enjoyed by people of all ages and could quite easily be the perfect party companion. Given the growth demonstrated on this record, it’ll be interesting to see what direction Klingande goes in next!

Rating
4

‘The Album’ is out now and can be downloaded from iTunes – https://music.apple.com/gb/album/the-album/1484567866

The Album on Spotify

Amsterdam featuring Bright Sparks (Official Lyric Video)

Messiah featuring Bright Sparks (Official Video)

By The River featuring Jamie N Commons (Official Video)

Jubel (Official Video)

We hope you’ve enjoyed our review! What do you think of the producer’s debut album? What would you rate it out of 5? Please leave your thoughts in a comment or via our social media and feel free to share our review.

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#Review: Big Wild – Superdream 🏜

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Big Wild is the moniker of American producer, composer and DJ, Jackson Stell. Having been producing music since he was just 14 years old, it wasn’t until 2012 that he began producing music under the name Big Wild. It was in 2015 that the electronic music duo, ODESZA, asked him to support them on a couple of dates of their tour, having discovered him on SoundCloud. Now, 2019 sees the release of his debut album, Superdream. Here’s what we have to say about it…

Big Wild - Superdream.jpg

From the very beginning, Superdream is an album the doesn’t let up for a minute and has some of the most intricately crafted and beautifully delicate production, I’ve ever heard on a record.

‘City Of Sound’ launches straight in, with a funky, disco-like quality and big vocal harmonies that are very reminiscent of Foster The People‘s ‘Pumped Up Kicks’. From there, we’re almost immediately led into single, ‘Joypunks’ – a bouncy, uplifting instrumental track which uses broken-up vocal sounds to create a really unique-sounding, nonsensical hook which you can’t help but try to sing along with.

I could go on because there is just so much to love about this album, however there are four tracks that really stand out above the rest:

‘6’s To 9’s’ is a huge track; the production is truly top-notch – there are these wonderfully understated verse vocals, married with high-pitched harmonies that build from a calm intro and verse into a gargantuan chorus, with sensational, gospel-like elements – it’s a truly epic track with a stunning performance from Rationale. There’s something almost sensual about the song.

‘No Words’ has some serious St Lucia qualities to it, with a big, gang-vocal chorus and some natural, night sounds during the breakdown.

The whole record feels as though there are religious undertones throughout; maybe it’s just because it sets such a high standard for the genre?!

‘Alley-Oop’s infectious beat courses right through you, giving off some reggae-like vibes and features vocals from iDA HAWK. The chorus is huge, which a big instrumental push behind the “Oop” to really emphasise it. There’s something a little Paloma Faith about the vocal, in places.

The last of the four biggest tracks has to be ‘Purple Sand (My Home)’, a song with broken-up pan flute/whistle sounds riding throughout, giving it a real organic feel and tropical flavours. It’s a very reflective song, looking back to a place you miss and long to be.

There’s lots of other things to love about Superdream too – ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is a bizarrely captivating instrumental that weaves together a gritty bass line, retro, horror organ notes and a chopped-up accordion-like sound. ‘Maker’ is truly ethereal and sounds like a modern-day ABBA track, with the vocal melodies and some of the instrumentals. ‘Heaven’ features a big drop and is pretty club-like but with more depth and diversity than most modern club tunes – it’s very refreshing.

The album draws to a close with ‘Awaken’, another instrumental that has large, spacious moments to it and a modern, religious-like style to the big moments. In fact the whole record feels as though there are religious undertones throughout; maybe it’s just because it sets such a high standard for the genre?!

Some of the best things about Big Wild‘s production are the way he takes ordinary sounds and distorts them, to the point they’re almost unrecognisable, yet become instantly captivating. It’s also quite evident that he loves big bass booms to really hit the listener, but they’re used just the right amount, making for a massive impact!

This is already a contender for album-of-the-year, within the genre, and 2019’s only just begun! Big Wild has set the bar high for himself with this truly electrifying debut and this is surely set to catapult his career to new heights. I just can’t wait to see what he puts out next and watch as he continues to grow and evolve. Superdream is super sensational!

Rating
4-5

‘Superdream’ is out now and can be downloaded from iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/superdream/1438818174

Superdream on Spotify

Superdream (Audio Video Playlist)

We hope you’ve enjoyed our review! What do you think of this producer’s debut album? Are you as much of a fan as us? What would you rate it out of 5? Please leave your thoughts in a comment or via our social media.

Enjoyed this? Check out some of our other reviews here:

Muzik Speaks Album Reviews

Matt – Muzik Speaks
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#MellowMonday: Muzik Speaks’ 1st Birthday Playlist

Here’s a playlist of all the #MellowMonday songs we’ve featured during our first year…enjoy!

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This week, Muzik Speaks turns 1 year old and to celebrate, we’re giving you a themed playlist, for each day this week. The playlist will contain all of the songs we’ve featured on our blog during the past year, all themed around the corresponding day.

Today, it’s #MellowMonday and our playlist includes:

  1. Chris Malinchak – So Good To Me
  2. Coldplay – Magic
  3. OneRepublic – Can’t Stop
  4. Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks
  5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Same Love
  6. Miley Cyrus – Adore You
  7. You+Me – Unbeliever
  8. The Barr Brothers – Even The Darkness Has Arms
  9. ODESZA – All We Need featuring Shy Girls
  10. Passenger – David
  11. Lucy Rose – Our Eyes
  12. Shura – 2Shy
  13. Jesse Boykins III – Plain
  14. Grimes – Entropy
  15. Sigma – Changing featuring Paloma Faith (GoldSmyth Edition)
  16. The Pierces – I’ll Be Dreaming
  17. Janet Jackson – No Sleeep
  18. Chris Brown – Liquor
  19. Randy Newman – You’ve Got A Friend In Me
  20. Lana Del Rey – Once Upon A Dream
  21. Vindata – All I Really Need
  22. Sam Feldt – Show Me Love featuring Kimberly Anne
  23. Lost Frequencies – Are You With Me
  24. Etta James – At Last
  25. Hayley Kiyoko – Girls Like Girls
  26. Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean?
  27. Timeflies – Stuck With Me
  28. Ryan Adams – Bad Blood
  29. Chicane – Ibiza Strings
  30. The Japanese House – Cool Blue
  31. The Fray – How To Save A Life
  32. Years & Years – Eyes Shut
  33. Celtic Woman – The Voice
  34. Ella Eyre – We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off
  35. Cher – You Take It All
  36. Said The Sky – Nostalgia featuring Missio
  37. Will Young – What The World Needs Now Is Love
  38. Hearts & Colors – Fireflies
  39. Alex Parks – Get Out
  40. Snakehips – All My Friends featuring Tinashe & Chance The Rapper
  41. Maroon 5 – Animals (Gryffin Remix)
  42. Yuna – Tourist
  43. Sia – Breathe Me
  44. Timbaland – Don’t Get No Betta featuring Mila J
  45. Shura – Touch featuring Talib Kweli
  46. Lisa Goe – Still In Love

If you want to download the songs and use a custom cover for them, here’s one we’ve made for you 🙂

SONY DSC

Matt – Muzik Speaks
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Follow the playlist – https://open.spotify.com/user/muzik5peaks/playlist/5n77gdqWl0MDJ87zxNLxcz

#MellowMonday: Foster The People – ‘Pumped Up Kicks’/Jaden Smith – ‘Pumped Up Kicks (Like Me)’

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‘Pumped Up Kicks‘ is such a sensationally catchy track with an odd psychedelic, beach-like quality to it, which just captivates me. I can’t get enough of it!

It was initially recorded by Mark Foster (Foster The People) as (what he thought was) a demo, on a day when he wasn’t feeling at all inspired to write a song…and this was the product! If a song like this can be written on an uninspired day, imagine what an inspired day would sound like!


This song has also managed to inspire a whole host of other people and has been remixed, covered and parodied by the likes of Taylor Swift & Zac Efron, Kendrick Lamar and “Weird Al” Yankovic. One of my favourite versions, which I’ve also decided to include, is by Jaden Smith – I haven’t previously rated his rapping, but this particular song made me take notice of him and actually, he’s quite a talented kid – it’s got good lyricism and his rapping skills are pretty decent! A great cover/remix…er, thing!


Happy #MellowMonday to everyone and I hope you all have a good week! What track is easing you into this week?

Matt – Muzik Speaks
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