Author: macha

The annual music festival and showcase “Eurosonic Noorderslag” will take place from the 17th till the 20th of January in Groningen, The Netherlands, and two Latvian artists – Elizabete Balcus and Makree are going to present Latvia this year.

“Eurosonic Noorderslag” is the biggest showcase in Europe, gathering approximately 300 bands and musicians, 4000 industry professionals and more than 40 000 listeners overall each year.

Elizabete Balcus is a musician and performance artist who creates neo-psychedelic dream pop that is simultaneously melodic and experimental. Her extraordinary records and visually impressive live performances have put Balcus in the spotlight, and her act in Groningen will be a stop in-between a two-week tour in Luxembourg, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Serbia and Romania.

Makree is an electronic music producer and DJ, he appeared on the music scene in 2014 with his track Clouds, released with Swedish record label Metron Music. His music has been acclaimed by labels, radio stations and colleagues across Europe and a little while ago he produced a track together with chart topping artist Secondcity. Their track is set to be released next year with Sony’ sub-labels; the legendary Ministry of Sound and Danny Howard’s label Nothing Else Matters.

10 delegates from several Latvian music companies will also participate in the “Eurosonic” conference this year. On 19th of January “Music Export Latvia” together with colleagues from Hungary, Slovakia, Austria the representatives of Latvia will host an event called ““Ceentral Party” Oost Dance and  Noghtclub”, where Balcus is set to perform.

Katrine Lukins, a participant of this year’s LTV Supernova contest, has released a video for her song “Running Red Lights”. According to the singer, this video best reveals the message of her song. The video is full of breath-taking events: a car theft, weed smoking, drunk driving and even crazy car destruction.

“The story of the video has its roots in my own experience, my relationships, only told through other events, using other, slightly more dramatic actions. I know that I would never go so far in my real life. I want to share the story of my life to encourage others who might be stuck in a similar situation to get it settled and become free. In my case, these were relationships with my boyfriend. On the one hand, it seemed as if everything was fine, but my senses told me that I was going against myself – running red lights. We all know that we should not cross the red light on the street, and still we do it  sometimes,” Katrine comments on her video.

Kaspars Dumburs, a star of the TV3 series “Svešā seja” (The Foreign Face) and actor of the Latvian National Theatre, takes part in the clip. “It was very easy to work with Katrine; although she is not a professional actress, she knows exactly what she wants and is very confident and flexible,” says the actor.

The answer is very simple: they all appear in the same video that Ryga has deliberately released right before Christmas to remind us what this holiday is all about. No, it is not about shopping, which has taken the world by storm.

This year, Ryga released its debut album Catch Her Groove, which is also available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the band held several concerts at the end of autumn. After these concerts, the band received offers to return for more performances elsewhere. Some German portals have published positive reviews.

After the tour in Germany, the band’s front man Mārcis Judzis travelled to Vietnam, where he experienced all kinds of wonders. It included filming the video for “Black Friday”, which features some political material.

Catch Her Groove is available on the MicRec website, can be downloaded from iTunes and streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, etc.

In November 2017, a new music show titled “Best.Cover.Ever.” premiered on the video streaming website YouTube. Contestants from all around the world compete on the show for the opportunity to share the stage with international music industry stars.

The show is hosted by the Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Ludacris who is joined by a different music industry star on each episode (such as Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, Jason Derulo, Charlie Puth, Bebe Rexha). In each episode of the show, two participants compete for the opportunity to perform live with the guest star. Each contestant performs a cover version of a popular song by the guest star, which is then judged. After the star and Ludacris proclaim the winner, the said winner is given a unique opportunity to collaborate with the star of that episode and perform a unique cover of a song with that artist.

Thousands of contestants from all over the world applied for each episode of the show, and among the lucky ones, who were invited to participate in the LA-filmed show, was the band “Double Faced Eels”, who not only represented Latvia, but who were also the only finalists from Europe. On the show, “Double Faced Eels” competed with the talented group “Two Less Lonely” for the opportunity to perform a cover version of Bebe Rexha’s song “In the Name of Love”. The Latvian band managed to win the sympathies of Bebe Rexha and Ludacris and the opportunity to perform together with Bebe Rexha.

At the end of the show, the winners were presented a special prize from the producers of the show and Bebe Rexha — a repeated paid trip to Los Angeles to perform at a special private showcase at the legendary “Roxy Theatre” club and present themselves to producers and representatives of the local music industry. “Double Faced Eels” will possibly be the first Latvian band to perform at the iconic venue in Los Angeles, which has seen the performances of Bebe Rexha, Ludacris and such legendary musicians and bands as Bob Marley, “The Ramones”, Peter Gabriel, “Guns N’ Roses” and others.

Bebe Rexha is an American singer and songwriter of Albanian origin, who obtained wider renown with her songs “Me, Myself and I” with the hip-hop artist G-Eazy, David Guetta’s “Hey Mama” and Martin Garrix’s “In the Name of Love”.

The premise of “Best.Cover.Ever.” is unique — the show is presented without any additional charges or limitations world-wide.

Inspired by the lessons learned during the show and using the momentum provided by its release, “Double Faced Eels” also present a new single and a video for their new song “Can’t Let Go”.

“The song “Can’t Let Go” deals with the thoughts of a person being stuck in a bad relationship. Regardless of your gender, age or even the type of relationship — whether it is your relationship with a lover, an employer or a teacher etc. Sometimes we understand that the relationship is going nowhere, but we are unable to take a decisive step,” tells the author of the lyrics to the song, Reinis Straume.

Australian-Latvian band Shades present the first single and video “Together (No More)” from their upcoming EP that will be released in Spring of 2018.

The story of Shades goes back to 2015 when the drummer and producer Janis Eglitis met singer and composer Chris O’Neill in Melbourne, Australia. Chris has written music for many international projects, including well-known video games like “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” and “Final Fantasy XV” and the BBC’s very first virtual reality documentary “Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel”. Together they wrote several songs with the idea of future collaboration and they called the project Shades as a reference to Australia’s hot sun. Almost by accident one of their songs won a newcomers’ radio show competition on Latvia’s “Radio SWH”, bringing the band radio rotation.

Having been set aside to work on other music and life projects, this autumn Shades has reborn into a fully-fledged band. This time, from two opposite sides of the world. Chris and Janis, who is now living in Latvia, were joined by bass player Martins Leja, also known as a member of Latvian rock band “Indygo”, and guitarist Janis Lide. The band plays indie pop-rock and is currently working on their debut EP. In 2018 Shades will be playing concerts in the Baltics and beyond.

Meanwhile their ballad “Together (No More)” has now reached radios and streaming services. “The song is about the power games, lust and suspicion in a broken relationship”, says Chris who is in charge of the lyrics. The song was written in various home studios and pulled together in the cloud, with the final version mixed by Janis at his studio “Ierakstu Maja”.

The single’s video features renowned Latvian contemporary dance choreographer Liene Grava and was filmed with support from “Kultfilma” and “Colortime”. It is available on YouTube and Vimeo.

After an almost a decade-long break we are excited and proud to release our new single “Rust and Gold” from the album with the same name coming up in September 2018. It is going to be our fourth studio record following the double “Recipe of the Golden Dream” (2008). A live release show is going to be announced soon.

After several kids born, books read, beards grown and hair cut, we have finally reunited and are currently actively working in the studio, awake and inspired as ever. We are lucky to have the great producer Adam Cooper working with us on this album. Adam has worked on one of our favorite and most influential shoegaze records of all time – Crash by Astrobrite (2001), he is also the founder of Alison’s Halo.

Latvian musician Justs has released a new single from his upcoming album, which is going to be available in Spring. New song “Are you there” is a work of musician and one of most promising new music producers in Latvia DJ Makree. Music video was developed by Ritvars Bluka.

“New single opens a question, which might seem easy to answer, but makes you really think, what makes you alive. I think that it is a question you can ask yourself every day. It is important to understand, what is your story and what is your path. You do not have to be afraid of it,” Justs explains message behind the lyrics.

With the song artist announces his debut album. “This albums content will slightly differ from what you have heard before. A lot of things have changed since the Eurovsion, impressions have turned into experiences, emotions have turned into skills. I want this album to represent more of my character.”

Music video perfectly represents the essence of the songs message and was captured by videographer Ritvars Bluka. Justs claims: “With this video my team and I wanted to show that every story is unique, and so is our characters. Sometimes it is hard to embrace who you are, but you have to be strong and resist the oppression.”

Justs Sirmais is a Latvian artist, singer and songwriter, who also was a Eurovision 2016 finalist. Now teamed up with perspective producer DJ Makree, he is exploring his capabilities through Pop, House and EDM genres.

Song “Are you there” is available on Soundcloud,  Spotify and Deezer. You can download song on iTunes.

Latvian four-piece Neon Saturdays released their new single titled Get Up on April 20th. This was a long-awaited comeback after two-year silence and took the local music scene as well as social networks by surprise because of the unconventional yet visually stunning music video that was shot during a spontaneous trip across Turkey.

“Each time we do something, we make sure we’ve raised the bar for ourselves. A new perspective, new sound or previously unexplored approach to music-making process – anything that pulls us out of our comfort zone and makes us focus during our creative process,” said the leader of the band Andris Evelis, explaining band’s silence during last couple of years.

The band teamed-up with the talented Scottish producer Lewis Gardiner to record and produce the new single.

Gardiner had previously made a name for himself working with Ellie Goulding and the winner of 2016 British X Factor Matt Terry.

Multiple Grammy recipient, sound engineer Randy Merrill (USA) was recruited to put on some finishing touches.

“I think I speak for everyone in our band when I say that our music comes from our childhood and teenage years. We’re driven by emotions and impressions we had back then – both positive and negative. The games we played, the music we listened to… Nowadays we talk about our thoughts and feelings a lot, the four of us – at times we spend a whole rehearsal just falling deeper into a conversation that should’ve lasted no more than 5 minutes. It was hard for us to grow up and now it is hard for us to commit to the daily life because it eats away at our creativity. I guess this song is about us, desperately searching for that wisdom we all had when we were children. I think we can all agree that childhood – no matter how tough or carefree – is not just a string of trivial and ultimately meaningless events. It shapes our personalities and inspires us to take certain paths in life,” commented Evelis, explaining the meaning of the song.

To celebrate the comeback, Neon Saturdays played an acoustic gig which was streamed live on Facebook:

There’s also a word that the band is preparing to release a second single this summer. A third release is planned for autumn and not long after that – a second album by the locally acclaimed four-piece should finally surface.

Neon Saturdays was formed in 2012. Since then the band has released its debut album, a number of singles, made it to the TOP10 of the biggest Latvian radio stations and toured the Baltic states as well as UK a couple of times.

In 2015 Neon Saturdays was one of the first Latvian acts to play The Great Escape in UK. In 2016 the band opened for the British rock band James.

Band’s music has also received a well-deserved recognition by Tim Fraser, an internationally well-known songwriter (Tina Turner, Billie Myers), partner of Artists United and a member of BASCA’s Songwriters Executive Committee.

The international song competition Eurovision will take place in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, in 9–13 May. Following the “Supernova” song competition, Latvia will be represented at Eurovision by the band “Triana Park” with their piece “Line”.

The official remix of the song was produced by DJ [Ex] da Bass: “It has turned into a tradition for me to create a remix of the Eurovision national selection winner. This is the third year running. Both previous remixes for the hit songs of Aminata and Justs earned critical acclaim at radio stations in Europe and across the globe, as they were played by countless deejays in clubs the world over, and remixes of Aminata’s songs, including mine, were issued in the USA.”

This Sunday, 2nd of April, the band will be playing at the special Eurovision fan event in London. Possibly, the new remix will be played at the party before and after the concert.