Dustyhawk :: Broken Mirror

. Alicia Keys born and bred in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, Keys was strongly influenced by music from all different generations and disciplines including the essential music of Nina Simone, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder; classical compositions of Frédéric Chopin, Erik Satie, and Leontyne Price; and urban lyricists such as Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and the Wu-Tang Clan.

In 2001, she hit the airwaves with Fallin’ from the Grammy Award-winning debut album Songs in A Minor. The world fell in love with Keys and in the following album, The Diary of Alicia Key… she did not disappoint her fans.

Now, this is the most awesome part of all…. at Singfest 2008, You can get to watch, listen and feel the keys by the Keys herself. Serge is expecting to hear her play songs from her first album up to her latest album, which is titled As I Am.

As I Am, is Keys’ third studio album which since The Diary of Alicia Keys. Within 10 hours of being serviced to radio, Alicia first single, “No One,” became one of the fastest moving and highest charting single on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. This also marks the highest first single debut for a female artist in 2007 on the R&B Monitor’s Urban Mainstream chart!

What are you waiting for ? Get prepared and head on for Singfest and also do get her albums.

Serge just discovered this awesome Finnish guy named Matti Paalanen. Matti is the one man army, composer and guru to the Celestial Aeon Project. An album that is influenced by great composers such as Nobuo Uematsu and Danny Elfman.

Produced in a home studio with virtual instruments and sample libraries, the soundscapes by Matti has a pleasant feeling. One of the best white noise, Serge has heard and Aeon is something he recommends getting. In the Celestial Aeon Project -Aeon- , it comprises of 11 songs. Each song has a unique feel to it.

A feeling of hope and love is the main -feel- of each song. Hope for Rebirth is one such song. The marching drums as the secondary background percussion brings forth a sense that we can change the world, even though it might go against us. The xylophone-like sound is to Serge an ocean that is calm and calls out to us, that peace is possible.

Serge is getting part 2 of this project and Matti’s other two project entitled Project Divinity and Hollow. You should to, mainstream music is nothing. Orchestral music by a one man army, now that is something worth looking into.

This album is rated at 4/5 stars and the following is the link to download Aeon and we hope that you support Matti.

Hope for Rebirth (preview)
Aeon - Download
Aeon 2 - Download

Do distribute this album. Yes, you heard Serge right… Distribute this album as long as the following is met :

#Give credit to the artist
#Don’t use this album for commercial purposes
#Distribute all derivative works under the same license

Enson

Masaki Endo

1. Sousei no Aquarion
2. Butter-fly
3. Arashi no Naka de Kagayaite
4. Muv-Luv
5. Kimi ga Dame
6. Ai o Torimodose!!
7. Go Go Power Rangers
8. Kimi Karadatta
9. Ashita e no brilliant Road
10. In The Chaos
11. Mononoke Hime
12. Wing Of Destiny
13. Ano Kawa o Koete

(more…)

J-Rock group Bump of Chicken has just released their 8th album entitled Present from You. This album contains 13 tracks, with the longest track entitled Everlasting Lie; which spans for 8.39 minutes while the shortest is at 3.27 minutes, called Holiday. Some of the songs you might have heard of it before as Present from You is a B-side compilation album.

Out of the 13 tracks which Serge is listening to now, ラフ・メイカー, 真っ赤な空を見ただろうか is his personal favourite, another good listening track is ガラスのブルース (28 years round) . The tracks are not your usual Bump of Chicken style, this are B-sides.

Serge would have to say that their previous album Orbital Period was better and had the Bump of Chicken essence in it. Nevertheless, this album is given a 3.5 out of a possible 5 stars. As always do get the original from Yes Asia or if you want to sample, click on the links above.

Serge has been listening to Connie Talbot for the past day or so, those who knows who she is will know how wonderful her voice is. For those who does not know, let Serge begin his story.

Connie Talbot is this 7 year old girl, yes 7 year old; who took part in Britain’s Got Talent. This is a talent show where the winner of the series received £100,000 and are given the opportunity to perform at the Royal Variety Performance in front of members of the Royal Family at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool.

In one of the episode, mainly the one where pre-semi final Connie sang the song Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Her voice was like heaven sent and in the Youtube video which Serge will embed in this post, Simon Cowell who is a judge in this show was utterly impressed by her voice. Which he commented was perfectly pitched.

As not to be judgemental about just one song that she sang, Serge professionally acquired her first album entitled, Over The Rainbow. She has a good voice, a little pitchy when Serge first heard the album for the first run. But later on, one such as Serge got used to it.

For those who is interested, in this entry there is a link where you can download the song. It is with great pride to say that Connie Talbot has talent and her 7 year old cute factor is just charming.

And as promised the video.