Los Angeles born Anji Bee has contributed lyrics and vocals to many bands over the past decade, but joining forces with Ryan Lum (of Projekt recording act, Love Spirals Downwards) as the chillout music band, Lovespirals, remains her main focus. Lovespirals’ music has been featured internationally on network and cable television including: MTV, VH1, ETV, WE, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Their CDs are available via iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon and many other online and in store outlets.
Anji is very active in the podcasting and Web 2.0 community. Since 2005, she has created and produced a series of podcasts and vidcasts including Chillin’ with Lovespirals, The Chillcast with Anji Bee, Chillcast Video, Lovely Ladies and Unwind. She was also a hostess the People’s Choice Podcast Award winning ShowGirls and has guest hosted or appeared on numerous shows including The Daily Source Code, Rumor Girls Uncut, Dave’s Lounge, In Over Your Head, Let’s Get Naughty and many more.
Anji is excited about the release of her 3rd album with Lovespirals, Long Way From Home which you can order directly from the band to have Anji and Ryan autograph personally at lovespirals.com/longway ! The CD is also available for sale on iTunes, Amazon and Amazon Mp3, eMusic and other fine online retailers. Watch lovespirals.com for more news and announcements!
Based out of Oakland, California, Bloodwire began in 2001 when Shawn Brice, formally of the acclaimed goth/industrial outfit, BATTERY, wrote an instrumental piece for I-Li Chang as a gift. I-Li was so moved by his music that she immediately wrote lyrics and melody for the song. She sang this newly formed song to Shawn as a gift back to him. Soon, this shy girl developed a taste for creating music inspired by this talented musician. The transformation began and Bloodwire emerged.
Since then, this compelling duo has been creating music together, working on their first album titled “Transformation”, due to be out in Spring 2005. Their songs are deeply personal and yet accessible, ranging from dreamy to raucous – sometimes in the same song! They are equally comfortable creating epic grooves or succinct pop songs, always with an emotional core. The amalgamation of I-Li’s rich and sultry voice with Shawn’s technical acumen creates a musical experience that is heart-pounding and electric, indeed where heart and circuit are intertwined. In 2006, the brilliant Patrick Harte (The Rosemarys, Mellow Drunk) was recruited to play drums. The trio are currently writing new material.
Evolve’s chilled out grooves and breaks are produced by Red Broad. Their debut outing, Happy Hour In The Gene Pool is a delightful blend of lounge pop, subtle beats, found sound, and mellow jazz influences, a lounge lizard’s idea of heaven on Earth. The overall vibe is predominantly mellow, and the arrangements ooze sophistication and depth. Singer Margo Reymundo features on two tracks contributing her distinctive raspy, Billy Holiday-esque jazzy vocal stylings to “Couldn’t Be More Wrong” and “The Way Back”, with rapper Tantrum providing the testosterone on “By Definition: Cool” and “Mice On The Ice”. Happy Hour In The Gene Pool manages to stay focused and coherent throughout its sixty plus minutes while providing enough diversity to maintain interest, and enough depth to sustain repeated listenings. Most of the tracks presented here are ripe for the plucking by nearly any of the hundreds of chill out mix albums being released. The album is equally enjoyable to chill out to whether on headphones, at a cocktail party or on a long drive. Happy Hour In The Gene Pool contains a little something for every electronica music fan, which, in this case, is a good thing.
Lola Dutronic are a French Pop/Electronica duo, who sing in both French & English.Lola does the singing and Richard looks after the music. They divide their time between Berlin and Toronto.
They’ve put out two albums so far: The World Of Lola Dutronic and The Love Parade. Their songs have been featured in many films and television show, including The L-Word, Godiva’s, Blood Ties & Perfect Strangers. They have also written the theme song for CBC RADIO CANADA
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Second Sky is Billy Medina, William Lascek-Speakman and Wes DiIorio. The group’s sound defies categorization; blending elements of soul, trip-hop, electronica, and reggae, with Arabic, Indian and Latin flavors. This fusion comes naturally to Billy, William, and Wes; who revel in the sounds of classic bollywood soundtracks, early electronic music, and blaxploitation funk. The subsequent sound reveals a sonic world of sultry beaches, thrilling car chases, exotic scenery… and women too beautiful not to be very, very dangerous. As a live act, Second Sky has performed across the east coast with bands such as The New Deal, Moonraker, Particle and Dub Trio; and on occasion, some members can even be spotted performing with friends See-I. As producers, Second Sky’s music has been featured by such companies as L’Oreal in its “Garnier Fructis” promotions, and has released several singles and EPs (both digitally and on vinyl) on labels including Bellarine Recordings, Escada Music, Cloud 9 Music, and Swordtail Records, before recently finding a home at Rhythm and Culture Recordings, based in Washington, DC. Look for the band’s first release on Rhythm and Culture: “Under the Line” later this year. As at home creating moody instrumentals as they are at pop structured vocal tracks (with a twist of course), Second Sky’s music is as versitile as it is eclectic. Kevin Krieger, Weekender Correspondent, says: “An electronic jam that deftly combines acid jazz and trip-hop and marries them to a funky backbeat for a totally modern sound.” Carla Di Fonzo, Intelligencer Journal, says: “Second Sky laces together space-age electronica and global-village funk. The result is archaic-futurism that you can dance to.” Second Sky’s music has received plenty of internet and satellite radio airplay recently; featured on broadcasts including Willy Sanjuan’s “House Kingdom”, DJ Clairvo’s “Downtempohead”, Beatfreaks Radio, and Opencoud’s “Open-Up”, as well as XM Radio’s “The Move”. Currently, Several collaborations are also in the works, with such artists as Sleepy Wonder, See-I, Harry Payuta, Sancho & E-Lation, Native and Upstairs Recordings’ Solus.
Solus is the production alias of Matt Coogan. He began his journey with Upstairs Recordings in 2002 with the track ‘Red Lights’ on the acclaimed Blue Light One Compilation. A largely self-taught mixer/recorder who’s beginnings trace back to jamming in rock, funk, and improv bands around the Philadelphia area. He turned to the sounds and structures of contemporary based electronic music in the late 90s to achieve autonomous expression. Solus’ music is strummed and recorded out of a home base studio on a number of instruments, including guitar, sampler, drums, and wurlitzer. He exploits modern technology to make compositions inspired by past styles, such as 70s funk, dub, rock, hiphop, and the sound of the acoustic guitar. On Lights In the Valley Matt fuses songwriting with beats progressions and melodies against synthetic textures and tech ostinatos.
Take two complete strangers, leave them in their respective rooms on opposite sides of the country with internet access, and what might you get? You might get nothing, or you might get an album running the gamut from aggressive electronic rock to smooth ambient soundscapes. The latter is what we see in the case of Stabilizer. Brought together on the internet, Brad Podray and Ian Siegert began working on their album in mid-2005 without letting the hindrance of never knowing the other musician slow their creative productivity. Within 6 months, Ian’s vocal and guitar work perfectly melded with Podray’s synthesis and they had given their new band a distinct sound. Along the way, guest musicians including Dan Dolan of Blood&Batteries, John Ploskina of Luminous Ether, and vocalist Morgan Long joined the fray. In the end, A Project Called Red incorporated talents from Texas to Philadelphia to Florida to Taiwan. This album is groundbreaking in its diversity and innovative in its construction. It is definitely not to be missed.
Today, Dan Dolan has entered the band as a full member and they’ve released a second album. The new album features guest appearances by Disparition, Emily Rose, and Rik Ahern. “A Fuse Slowly Burning” is a 22 track, 78 minute journey through rock, electronica, salsa, hip hop, glitch, industrial, pop, etc. We tried our best to incorporate as many different genres as possible while still retaining an underlying theme of original sound. The album can be downloaded for free at different places along the web and we appreciate any purchases of the physical CD that are placed.
The Artificial SeaThe Artificial Sea is a collaboration between Kevin C. Smith and Alina Simone in which her impassioned vocals and impressionistic lyrics are set to his bedroom soundscapes and melodies. Embracing a spectrum of sounds and techniques including vintage synthesizers and drum machines, obscure samples and found sound, circuit-bent creations and homemade electronics, as well as good old guitar, bass, and drums, these disparate strains are all tied together with a restrained aesthetic and fearless beauty. Recorded almost entirely at home they have rejected over-production (for aesthetic as well as practical reasons) and instead welcome any rough edges as integral to the work. The result is at once pleasing and unsettling, comforting and tense. Kevin and Alina write their parts in isolation and usually have little to no say in what the other does. Despite this isolationism (and a virtual lack of common musical touchstones) their individual contributions combine to form a cohesive, organic whole. Their first alum City Island found a home on France’s excellent Travelling Music and a follow up is currently underway.
A band that could really re-ignite the flame that Radiohead sort of left burning into incense and mood lighting years ago is clearly The National Pool. Based in the center of the music scene in Nashville, The National Pool maintains an omniscient presence of clarified indie rock, electronic musings, and art rock creativity. Brokering with some of the best vocals you’ll hear in an “indie” band, the National Pool seem destined for a greatness that so many other groups dream of.
The Moscow Coup Attempt is the music and film endeavor of Los Angeles based producer, composer, and covert operative of disenchantment, Derek Whitacre. The 2005 album “The Failure of Shortwave Radio” was the first release from TMCA. The album is a stream of unconscious interpretation of failures in communication of not just nations, but persons. A grand scale assessment of individuals.
The artistic base of influence for the album lies in “Numbers Stations” and their influence on world politics, the cold war, espionage, and musical themes. Many of the motives of “The Failure…” are derived from the musical interludes of these Numbers Stations. “The Failure of Shortwave Radio” attempts to capture the creepy and mysterious essence of Numbers Stations as a broader outlook on humanity and breakdowns in communication wrapped up in the music. What appears on the surface to be an ambient electronic adventure turns into the soundtrack of a film. The purpose is to wrap the listener in an environment that is comfortable, yet unnerving… like a good suspense-thriller. The second release by TMCA for 2006, “Insomnia,” is a continuation, and at the same time, an expansion of the ideas and themes expressed on “The Failure of Shortwave Radio.” Starting where the first album leaves off, “Insomnia” is an uninterrupted 6-movement piece covering 40 minutes of sound and film. The album features the beautiful vocal work of Vera Ostrova, the voice of Russia’s “TheBlueStorm,” on the track “Do You Fear Sleep?” The last portion of the album takes the form of a hypnosis inducing recording of a truly amazing Numbers Station combined anomaly… 2 overlapping occurrences with added sound experiments by TMCA.
