Le Parc de la Vilette is a rising area for music in Paris. The most renown place might be La Grande Halle de la Villette, an infamous and patrimonial XIX century metal building, which was hosting the Pitchfork music festival not so long ago.

In the very north of Paris, the area around the park counts many locations to attend: Le Cabaret Sauvage, which has been hosting successful house parties and rock concerts. Le Zenith, its high capacity for 6000 people is targeting mainstream acts only. And La Cité de la Musique, a great institution and also a high-performance room with its very large movie screen and the ability to remove the seats to adapt the settings for every act – obviously when Steve Reich pieces are performed or the Contemporary Music Ensemble is playing, that is the least you need.

The new addition is named La Villette Enchantée, a club- bar (friendly prices) and restaurant with a nice Funktion One sound system and luminous windows, a place that offers an eclectic selection of parties on weekends and quickly becoming a kind of schoolyard for all the main promoters in the city. Check this out here!

The Trio; Jeans Wilder on drums, Billy Jeans singer/guitar player, and Jr. Jeans on bass are going on tour this month throughout California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas ending with a SXSW show or two.

I’ve had the pleasure of partying with these hilarious guys and I’d be super bummed if this article didn’t convey how funny these fellas are. I’m sure you can tell from their songs that they don’t take themselves seriously. But what you might not know is that they abbreviate everything and use ‘prolly” way too much…prolly. They love taking shots of girly drinks like Jager bombs, (they call them Jageys), or Tic Tacs which consist of orange flavored Bacardi and Red Bull. And when I texted Jeans Wilder while writing this article to ask for a joke or something I could quote him on letting him know my deadline was less than 12 hours away he responded, “U ass! I’m at a meatball party. Howmy sposta deliver da goods?” Not his best work, but I’ll take it! Check out their Facebook if you want to be constantly entertained by their one-liners.

All the funny stuff aside, these boys can play, and I mean, really truthfully play. Billy Jeans even used to teach metal guitar to kiddos. He says of it, “I was a major league shredder, The Berklee School of Music, they gave me a major paycheck to go teach youngsters how to shred. And ’cause I knew how to shred I said, “All right—I’ll shred it.”

Chmara Winter is a music duo created by Bartłomiej Chmara and Krzysztof Winter. From the beginning they wouldn’t discuss the project much, they just started to make music together.

Chmara Winter project was born in 2010 in Bydgoszcz, their hometown. Chmara -a composer, vocalist, guitarist and music explorer- works in the field of contemporary music and improvisation. Winter is a multimedia producer, DJ and recording artist, graduated from the SAE Institute of London.

Big Fkn Gun has exploded onto the scene this year with the release of two singles from their upcoming Ep titled “Pop Models”. 

Pop Models isn’t the group’s first release, in 2009 they dropped “Stick Up The Hifi”, a fourteen track mixtape, which laid the foundation for their current and more stylish brand of hip hop.

So far, the two singles, “Pop Models” and “Wunga” were dropped as free downloads, providing BFG fans with a little taste of their new sound. BFG frontman, Bra Sol stands out with his highly unique voice. He comes into his own on the Ep with booming vocals and a more suave flow, delivered mostly in zulu. Soulfaktor, the group’s beat-shaman and producer backs him up nicely with modern, housey, bass beats.

An official date for the release of the Pop Models Ep has not been set, a source close to the group has suggested that it will be within the first two or three months of 2012. The singles from the Ep have already been making the rounds amongst influential circles, making Pop Models one of the most anticipated releases for 2012.

It’s a hole-in-the-wall restaurant found in the back alleys of Hongdae,  a district full of vinyl-spinning basement bars, shoe-packed boutiques, cook-at-your-table barbecue and hand-drip coffee. And yes, This is Chicken is definitely worth looking for.

A couple of years ago, you might have seen Ji W. Kim riding around Hongdae on a scooter delivering fried chicken. But he chose to start this place, a restaurant he can call his own, and with a grammatically unwieldy name to boot.

This is Chicken features a short menu, with Woody Chicken and Rude Chicken among its house specialties. There’s also beer on tap, to keep the customers spirited amid scratchy recordings of old reggae and ska music playing in the background. Named after the 2006 British skinhead movie This is England, this restaurant may seem like a Frankenstein of ideas stitched together– a Korean chicken restaurant, reggae, ska and British skinheads.  You might start to question your own sanity. What is going on here? What brings these random things together?

Simply put, Ji loves chicken. He’s fascinated by the culture portrayed in This is England, and he can’t get enough of reggae and ska. Rather than make a restaurant to suit other people’s tastes, he conceptualized one for the person he knows best: himself.

Will This is Chicken be a hit? Will customers connect with the owner’s eclectic and obscure vision? If you navigate through the back alleysof Hongdae and stumble upon this establishment, you’ll find Ji happily frying up chicken in the kitchen, listening to his favorite songs. Then you will realize that Ji has already achieved success in his own right– as he does what he loves best and plays by his own rules.

But you better order your chicken early, because This is Chicken is 86’d on all their stock almost every night.

Every single day, a new music video premiere is on TV or the Internet. This model, canonized by MTV and then later transported to video sites like MySpace and YouTube has become a standard for premiering videos, however, this convention is already being challenged by young creative artists who are pushing boundaries in the music industry.

That is the case of young singer Mallu Magalhães, who just premiered a video of her song “Velha e Louca” (Crazy Old Lady) in an exclusive cinema session for the press. The project is the result of a partnership between Hungry Man Projects and Sony Music. In the film, directed by Paul Gandhinagar, Mallu appears on the terrace of a building in the city of São Paulo, singing, dancing and riding a bicycle, all very delicate and subtle, while her band plays in the background.

The musician and singer’s boyfriend, Marcelo Camelo, a member of cult Brazilian indie band Los Hermanos, also appears in the clip playing some instruments. ”Crazy Old Lady” one of the tracks of her latest album “Pitanga”, released last September and produced by Camelo. The general audience can get to watch the new music video from this Friday (20) in one of the several theatres throughout Brazil exhibiting it. Less than 3 minutes long, it is shown along with teaser trailers at the beginning of feature-length movies, such as the new Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin.

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Videoclipes chegam à telona

Clipes musicais são lançados quase diariamente na TV ou na internet. O modelo canonizado pela MTV e depois transportado para sites de vídeos como o MySpace e YouTube, no entanto, já está sendo desafiado por jovens artistas criativos. Quem está por trás da novidade da vez no Brasil é a jovem cantora Mallu Magalhães, que exibiu com exclusividade o clipe da música “Velha E Louca” para a imprensa em um cinema. O projeto é resultante de uma parceria entre a Hungry Man Projects e a Sony Music.

No clipe, dirigido por Paulo Gandra, Mallu aparece no terraço de um edifício da cidade de São Paulo, cantando, dançando, pedalando uma bicicleta, tudo muito delicado e sutil, enquanto sua banda toca no fundo. O músico e namorado da cantora, Marcelo Camelo, integrante da banda indie Los Hermanos, também aparece no clipe tocando alguns instrumentos. “Velha E Louca” está no álbum Pitanga, lançado em setembro passado e produzido por Camelo.

O público poderá conferir o clipe a partir desta sexta-feira (20), quando ocorre a estréia em diversas salas de cinema em todo o Brasil, antes da exibição dos longas, como o novo de Steven Spielberg, As Aventuras de Tintim.

Festival Centro was a great opportunity to see artists of any gender and from all over the world. The third edition of the fest took place from January 18th to 22nd.

Four days of music condensed in a beautiful environment such as (one of my favorite places) Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño, located in the heart of La Candelaria which is a must place to visit when you come to Bogota.

These are some of 2012’s international artists:

We Are Scientists
Nacho Vegas
Anita Tijoux
Carla Morrison
Atom™ (Señor Coconut)
Tremor

And a Colombian dose:

Los Golden Boys
Monsieur Periné
Panorama
Papaya Republik,

A total of 38 shows, and this year two new venues have been added to the formula: Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango and Centro Colombo Americano.

Learn more about the fest here.

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Festival Centro fue una gran oportunidad para ver a artistas de cualquier género y de todo el mundo. La tercera edición del festival tuvo lugar del 18 al 22 de enero.

Cuatro días de música condensada en un entorno muy bonito como lo es (uno de mis lugares favoritos de Bogotá) La Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño, ubicado en el corazón de La Candelaria, que es un lugar obligatorio de visitar cuando venga a Bogotá.

Algunos de los artistas internacionales:

We Are Scientists
Nacho Vegas
Anita Tijoux
Carla Morrison, Atom ™ (Señor Coconut)
temblor

Y algunos de la dosis colombiana:

The Golden Boys
Monsieur Periné
Panorama
Papaya Republik

Hay un total de 38 shows y este año dos nuevas sedes se han añadido a la fórmula: Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango y el Centro Colombo Americano.

Más acerca del fest aquí.

By 2010 the scene had gone through pretty much every phase and was reaching the ‘rebellion’ stage. This was the moment where Dubstep came in and stole the limelight, infecting youths and aging hipsters with a tenacious desire to rebel against the cyclical rhythmic structures of the 4/4 beat. But alongside the clubs full of sweaty youth jamming out to dubstep as if their lives depended on it, a new, quiet rebellion is taking place. The revenge of the breakbeat.

Breakbeats have been around since the beginning of electronic music, but has (until recently) been often associated with dirty hippie ravers wearing dreadlocks and fat pants. However, an interesting phenomenon has been recently emerging: breakbeats have matured, morphed, and are now being integrated with increasing regularity into typically 4/4 DJ sets. What does this mean? Artists like Tipper and Ectomorph can celebrate a revival of some of their older tracks being ‘rediscovered’ within this emerging style.

4/4 DJs can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the excitement of mixing a set that includes a variety of rhythmic structures. And newer producers like Extrawelt and Answer Code Request can rebel against monotonous rhythmic structures by writing broken beats, and can even market and promote these tracks under the umbrella label of ‘electronica’ so that house, techno, minimal, and electro DJs won’t be afraid to mix them into their sets.

The Weeknd has been one of the most buzzed about Toronto musicians of 2011. The 21 year-old, Abel Tesfaye, self-released a triptych of albums over the year, making them available for free via his website. These prolific, progressive or post R&B tracks have rapidly garnered the attention of big players – however, the future of The Weeknd remains as illusive as the artist himself.

If staying out of the spotlight is the secret to getting hype – then The Weeknd is doing everything right. He avoids interviews, refused his invitation for the Polaris awards ceremony, and hasn’t toured much despite his fame. Tesfaye’s most recent career move has been forming an alliance with Drake called OVO XO and his inclusion on several tracks off Drake’s new album.

Tesfaye’s sound is nocturnal, smooth, dark and spaced out, next level production with self-reflexive, haunting vocals that comment on the artists hard partying lifestyle – drugs, infidelity, women, fame. These topics are nothing new, however, the way in which The Weeknd delivers conveys a melancholic, sincere and even disturbing perspective (in a David Lynch kinda way).

Lyrics commenting on the trials of fame seem to be an increasing trend in top-40 urban music, perhaps trying to shake the pretense that often goes hand in hand with the genre.  And yet, The Weeknd appears to be right up on that with an authenticity and uniqueness, offering up a fix of dreamy, narcissistic malaise that have hooked even the indie audiences.

Time will tell what is in store for this young artist, while he keeps a low profile and is groomed for the big leagues by Drake, I wonder what kind of identity and inspiration will emerge.  For now, this is the track that I can’t get out of my head – so good :

And the end of this is soooo….

Her hit, Gucci Gucci, is a hilarious indictment of hyper brand conscious hip-hop culture. Sometimes she sounds so much like a foul mouthed child it is startling. But her bravado is admirable for a little white girl from Oakland. “I got the swag and it’s pumpin out my ovaries.”

Her mixtape Kittys x Choppas was rad and I’m anxiously awaiting her studio album due out this year. She was nominated for Best New Artist on the MTV Awards, so I’m expecting that her shows are gonna be mobbed at SXSW this year, but I’m looking forward to seeing this wunder girl in person.