Let Me Like It

▸ Official Website
+ Spotify

Monday, April 11, 2011

Birdy

Normally I'm not that big on artists getting fame by releasing cover songs, but when I heard this incredibly beautiful cover version of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" I had to adjust those views immediately. Loyal readers know I'm a sucker for piano driven music, and this stripped down version with piano instead of guitar managed to grab me from the very first few seconds. It's still a cover, but still sounds very original. Can't wait to hear what her own songs sounds like! Birdy is one Jasmine Van Den Bogaerde, a fourteen-year-old (!!!) singer/songwriter from Lymington, England whose self-released version of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" has broken through on the U.K. charts. It already reached the 25th place and got her a deal with Atlantic UK records and an beautiful new Sophie Muller-directed musicvideo. Let's just hope that Jasmine stays true to herself. If so, she'll have a bright future in front of her.

@ Lymington, UK

♫ Acoustic, Piano, Pop

♥ Skinny Love (mp3)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Free Music: Elastic Summer

Now that spring is coming closer and closer, I already cannot wait for summer to start with long days of being outside and doing nothing. If that is the same for you, then already get in the mood in the mood with the happy carefree indie pop of Elastic Summer. A friend of mine recommended Elastic Summer, and when I listened to their EP I just could not believe they're offering their EP for FREE! Elastic Summer is a pop band based in Brooklyn, New York. It was founded by Rebeca (vocals) and Michael (drums) in the Summer of 2010. They then recruited Joe (guitar) and Bryan (on the bass) with an incredibly successful Craigslist ad. Rebeca is a Brazilian from New Jersey. Michael is from California, Joe is from Texas and Bryan is from Berklee College of Music. Together they enjoy asian cuisine, tequila shots, and playing the board game taboo. The average band height is 6 feet and 1/4 inches. The average age is 22. Their first EP, “Elastic Summer,” was engineered and mixed by Rebeca at her house, and released in February of 2011. And now can be downloaded for FREE from their Bandcamp.

@ New York, USA

♫ Indie Pop

♥ Super Powers (mp3)

+ download FREE EP

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Armistice

When reading the name of the today's post you probably would not have immediately noticed, but there is new music from Beatrice Martin (aka Coeur de Pirate)!!. Armistice is the collaboration between Beatrice Martin and Bedouin Soundclash frontman, Jay Malinowski. With music and lyrics written, the pair headed to Los Angeles late last summer to record the album at Big Game Lodge with El Bronx. Martin and Malinowski first worked together artistically when Beatrice lent her voice to the track, “Brutal Hearts” on Bedouin Soundclash’s fall release, Light The Horizon. The song was proclaimed a highlight of the album by critics and the public alike. Out of this came the idea to join forces to create Armistice. Beatrice Martin, most commonly recognized as the enchanting Coeur de Pirate, took home 3 Victoires in France and and 2 Felix, including Breakthrough Artist of the Year, in Quebec, for her self-titled debut album in 2009. Selling over 600,000 albums worldwide. It would be too easy to say that all new music by Beatrice is welcome, but at the sound of the EP with five all beautiful songs, it's safe to say that I would 've loved this EP even if I wasn't aware she was part of it! If you take for instance the featured track "Mission Bells" the undeniable magic between Martin and Malinowski's voices. So even if you've never heard of Coeur de Pirate, listen to the featured song or listen to the full EP beneath.

@ Montreal, Canada

♫ Folk Pop

♥ Mission Bells (mp3)

+ Full EP Stream

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Free Music: Pearl and the Beard

"Pearl and the Beard loves you the way you’ve always been". With an opening sentence like this you can't go wrong in my book! So a few months back when I visited The Family Records website, to find some info on Wakey!Wakey!, I discovered this wonderful trio. Pearl and the Beard is three voices, one cello, one guitar, one glockenspiel, one melodica, several drums, one accordion, ninety-six teeth, and one soul. Former strangers Jocelyn Mackenzie, Emily Hope Price, and Jeremy Styles were united in the great city of New York. Each had migrated there from a far corner of the nation with naught but food in their pockets and money in their bellies. Each had the same true love. Since then, the three have nested, and their unique brand of brightly melodic songcraft continues to blossom of its own accord. When I recently found out they're now offering a free EP it seemed like the perfect opportunity to share this gem with you. So don't hesitate, and download!

@ New York, USA

♫ Alternative, Folk, Pop
♥ Black Vessel

▸ Official Website
+ Free EP

Monday, February 21, 2011

Little & Ashley

Tonight's feature is another artist I discovered through a commercial, LA based songwriting duo Little & Ashley was formed when they recorded “Fly Me Away” to accompany an Amazon commercial contest entry, which also starred Annie. Ultimately, the contest entry won both the Audience and the Amazon Jury prize and Little & Ashley, with the help of trombonist Alanna Vicente, finished recording a full-length version of the song which is included on the Stole My Heart EP. They also have completed a deal to compose additional material for Amazon’s Kindle commercial series. Their song, "C'mon Let's Go", "Fly Me Away" and “Stole My Heart”, featured in Amazon’s Kindle commercials for TV are available on Amazon’s music site. Annie Little has starred in over 40 national commercials and hit TV shows including Mad Men, Scrubs, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Longtime musician Marcus Ashley writes and records with Los Angeles band American Weapon, and is currently completing a third release. In addition to music, Marcus has guest starred as an actor on numerous TV shows including Bones, CSI: NY, Scrubs and Ghost Whisperer. Additionally, he has starred in over 50 U.S. national and European commercials including Volkswagen, Heineken, Ford, Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Budweiser, and Kodak. But with their first steps in the music business, Little and Ashley hope to live up to earlier expectations: in high school, Marcus was voted Most Talented and Annie was voted Most Likely To Sing In The Metropolitan Opera.

@ Los Angeles, USA

♫ Indie, Pop

♥ Stole My Heart (mp3)

▸ Official Website
▸ Spotify

Friday, February 4, 2011

Christina Perri

Not a lot of artist featured here on LMLI are already as succesful in the charts as today's feature. Despite her succes and big record label deal I still thinks she deserves your attention. And definitely should not be labeled as the standard pop artist because this girl shows real promise and authenticity. At just 23, Christina Perri has already lived a handful of lives. She's toured the world as an assistant to a rock band, spent a year at a prestigious university, became a wife and then an ex-wife, produced popular music videos, made olive oil in Italy and even served as a fashionista barrista in Beverly Hills. The whole while, music had been tapping her on the shoulder, trying to lead her down a path as a musician. It seems that fate grew tired of this shoulder-tapping approach as well and went for an old fashioned sucker punch. Last June her song when her song “Jar of Hearts” was featured in So You Think You Can Dance, and became a major hit song with the track sold 200,000 downloads in three weeks. Suddenly a hot property, Perri signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and is in the studio finishing up her debut album, with an eye toward a late fall release. Though she's a newcomer to the pop charts, Perri has actually been preparing for this moment since she was a child. Perri first sang in public at her Holy Communion at age six. Piano lessons began at age 8, followed by musical theater from age 11. At 9, her piano teacher "fired" her (as she puts it), because "I would change the endings to all the songs because I didn't like the way they were written. I liked my version better." Perri picked up a guitar and taught herself to play from watching VHS tapes of Blind Melon (whose guitarist, Christopher Thorn, recently sent her a congratulatory email via MySpace). The songs Perri is recording for her debut album are all about love. She excels at setting dark, tumultuous emotions to stunning, pretty melodies, something Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette excelled at back in the day. "I would love to bring that back for a younger generation," Perri says. "I had them to listen to when I was young, but girls today don't really have their Fiona or Alanis. And writing about love and heartbreak is just who I am. I've tried so hard to write about other things, but ultimately this is what comes out of me. I have zero capability to do anything that is inauthentic to who I am.

@ Hollywood, USA

♫ Folk Rock, Pop

> Jar of Hearts (mp3)

> Bang Bang Bang (mp3)

♥ How Long It Takes (mp3)

Monday, January 31, 2011

Amy Stroup

TV shows have always been a source for great new music for me.. One of the artists that has been featured in shows quite often is Amy Stroup. If you listen to her music, you immediately know why. Her smart folky pop songs sung by her tender voice just fit in about any significant scene in most drama shows. Amy Stroup communicates what she knows is true about life in melodic lyric and verse. Amy has released four albums under her own label including, The Other Side of Love | Session One. On her latest release, she has taken a less conventional approach and collaborated with a few good friends and producer Thomas Doeve to release the next three sessions of The Other Side of Love. Session Two features “Hold Onto Hope, Love”, “Chin Up”, “Odds of Being Alone”, and more as heard and featured on ABC’s Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, One Tree Hill, and more released under her new venture Milkglass Creative. Amy’s single ‘Backed into the Corner’ was featured on this season premier of Grey’s Anatomy. In addition to television placements, her songs have been featured on national television ads including e Harmony and Walmart. Not long ago she released session Three featuring that song and more. “I try to focus on writing simply a great song, one song at a time, and when you are working with people you genuinely enjoy and live life with, the music naturally comes and speaks,” says Amy. Amy draws from a range of geographic locales and musical influences, having called Boston, Texas and now Nashville home. There, she earned a liberal arts degree in marketing and classical guitar from Lipscomb University. Growing up, her musical influences included songwriters Ennio Morricone, Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin.

@ Nashville, USA

♫ Indie, Pop

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday Lane

Although this might be a blog about music, photography is something I love as well. When I discovered Sunday Lane's music and looked at her amazingly beautiful photo page , which I recommend all of you to do right while listening to her songs, those two united. Sunday Lane is a classically trained pianist, who writes articulate lyrics about social injustices in our society, young love, and growing up. Her soulful approach to songwriting expresses the depth of her musicianship. "I am most in my element when my hands are on the keys," says 20-year-old Tulsa native. After receiving critical acclaim in her home state, Sunday Lane decided to pursue the only career path that made sense... music. She is currently attending the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Sunday has been playing some of the most sought after venues in Los Angeles and winning over new fans nationwide. Her debut EP, Bring Me Sunshine, displays her ability to write relatable songs with idiosyncratic phrases. The combination of the gloomy summer photo's, catchy and cheerful tunes and to be called SUNday this can only mean she was destined to bring some us some summer glow into our lingering winter days.

@ Tulsa, USA

♫ Folk, Pop

♥ Lack of Color (mp3)

♥ Who Are We Fooling? (mp3)

▸ Spotify

Friday, January 21, 2011

Brooke Fraser

Although I've been listening and loving her music ever since I heard her song "Lifeline" I think 5 years ago, I've always thought she was already way too known to post on this blog. But when I started listening to her last album "Flags" a few weeks ago I realised that no matter how many of my readers already listen to her music she deserves that extra attention, especially after releasing an album as great as "Flags". New Zealand born Brooke Fraser has a life-long history steeped in music. Her mom discovered her plinking out “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music on the piano when she was two, and made sure her daughter had access to instruments. At seven, she began piano lessons. At 12, she began writing songs after a music teacher asked her class to compose an original tune about Christmas. “I discovered that I felt at home in the process of creating words and melodies,” she recalls. “And I’ve been writing ever since.” In 2002, when she was 18, Fraser signed with Sony Music and moved to Auckland where she played regularly at local venues while she wrote the songs that would appear on her debut album, What To Do With Daylight. That album, released in New Zealand in 2003. In 2005, Brooke took a trip to Rwanda, 11 years after a genocide that claimed the lives of nearly one million people. During the journey, she met and befriended a number of Rwandans who entrusted their stories to her, including an orphan named Albertine, the namesake of her second album, which was released in the U.S. in May 2008. Now she’s starting anew with Flags, the title inspired by her writing trips into the more remote parts of the U.S. “Our lives are like flags – flying for a short while, a stake in the ground, marking our territory,’” she says. “We fly our colors – our history, belief system, culture, identity – but eventually our flag will wear out and return to the ground and someone else’s flag will replace our own. I feel like that theme weaves its way through my new songs, like ‘Ice On Her Lashes’, ‘Crows and Locusts’ and of course ‘Flags’. The characters in these songs were flags, and now we’ve come to plant our flags in the ground where they once were.” Don't miss out!

@ Sydney, Australia

♫ Folk, Pop

♥ Betty (mp3)

♥ Choice Notes (mp3)
♥ It'll Be Better (mp3)

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Free Music: Alex Winston

Just in time for Christmas, here's a little present from LMLI (in fact it's from Alex ;-) ) It's an FREE EP of Alex Winston. While it’s a great accomplishment to play a single instrument well, it’s a truly rare gift to play many perfectly. With The Basement Covers EP, singer Alex Winston proves she is one of the exceptional few. Classically trained in opera and bred on musical Americana, Winston’s truly unique and refreshing sound, comparable to innovative musicians Lykke Li and Kate Nash, thrives on her self-recorded EP. The beautiful Detroit- native remarkably played each instrument—guitar, piano, drums—on the four-song EP which she recorded in her actual home basement. But for now you can freely download the EP HERE it features versions of songs by Mumford & Sons, the Rolling Stones and Jack Peñate, as well as by Teddy Bears and Francis and the Lights.

@ Detroit, USA

♫ Indie, Pop

Friday, December 10, 2010

Hayley Taylor

If you're getting a lot of music, it happens that albums get to the bottom of the pile, and some stay there unfortunately way too long. The same happened with singer-songwriter Hayley Taylor debut. But once he was discovered, it remained in my CD player. Hayley was born in Michigan and raised in Los Angeles, began performing at a young age, working as a professional actress into her teens in TV and film. Though she began playing music and singing early on, it wasn’t until college that she realized music was her true passion. Her music has been featured in commercials, TV shows, and films, including How I Met Your Mother (CBS), Royal Pains (USA), Privileged (CW), Heartland and most recently a Vick’s commercial. On the ten-track debut One Foot in Front of the Other produced by Dan Romer (Ingrid Michaelson) and Eric Robinson (Matt Nathanson, Kate Voegele), Hayley touches on the heartstrings without running over. Her voice conveys her emotions as honest and unflichingly clearl and catchy as her melodies. A real treasury for the ear. It features performances by an all-star cast of players, including Michael Chaves (John Mayer), Ben Peeler (Alexi Murdoch), Adrienne Woods (Josh Radin, Jonas Brothers), Elliot Jacobson (Ingrid Michaelson), and producer Marshall Altman (Kate Voegele) and is not to be missed out on if you love catchy indie pop songs.

@ Los Angeles, USA

♫ Acoustic, Indie, Pop

♥ Felt Like Love (mp3)

♥ No More Wishing (mp3)

+ Spotify

Friday, November 12, 2010

Rumer

According to the Slow Songfacts, Sarah spent the early years of her life in Pakistan, where her father was the chief-engineer of the enormous Tarbela Dam, 30 miles to the northwest of Islamabad. The youngest of seven children, living in an expat colony without TV or newspapers, Rumer and her family would often sing and write songs together. Her brother Rob gave Rumer her first guitar; which she taught herself to play, and on which, years later, she wrote all the songs on her debut album, Seasons of My Soul. The singer/songwriter spent her teenage years in Carlisle at Newman School before leaving at 16 to pursue her ambition. It has been a hard slog but years later she is finally hitting the big time and gradually becoming a household name. She now hopes her success will inspire other young people to follow their dreams. Having had her single listed ahead of its release on both Radio 2 and Magic FM, she is also preparing to support Jools Holland on his UK tour this autumn – the finale being a show at the Albert Hall.

@ London, UK

♫ Jazz, Acoustic, Pop

♥ Long Long Day (mp3)

▸ Myspace

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Josefina Sanner

Not too long ago I discovered this talented female singer-songwriter through a last.fm group called "Scandinavian Girls" Imagine a magical fairy-tale forest, in Värmland (in the middle of Sweden) - soft dark green moss, large gray boulders, stars and sunlight, which is screened through the dense pines. And then move reminiscent of a noisy back street in Paris, with weary steps on rain-soaked sidewalks, cigarette smoke from the small crowded cafes and a false playing saxophone with a few coins in the open saxophone case... there are two distinct environments with Josefina Sanners voice and her songs becomes a very own world. A world full of opportunities, on the border between fantasy and reality, where unexpected things can take shape and form. Josefina Sanner is one of Sweden’s most prolific female singer/songwriters with over 700 written songs. When she now releases her second solo album “Love Case Scenario”, she has drawn inspiration from her childhood landscape. The result is a collection of glittering pop songs that, while being readily available also holding willfulness and exciting secrets and really touch in depth. She and producer Andreas Dahlbäck (who previously collaborated with Anna Ternheim, Thomas Andersson Wiij and Eskobar among others) together have created a minimalistic and enigmatic sound, where Josefina’s unique voice emerges more beautiful and headstrong than ever.

@ Stockholm, Sweden

♫ Pop, Acoustic, Folk

♥ Beatiful Day (mp3)

♥ Row Your Boat (mp3)

▸ Myspace