Author: macha

For the first time in 58 years of Grammy awards history, works of Latvian artists are eligible for consideration to be nominated for the Grammy among 21000 other records from all around the world.

Because of this, year 2015 is the first when Latvian company “Mikrofona ieraksti” is submitting its artists for the prize and one of them – band “Ryga” featuring American singer Corey Andrew with their single “Give Me Your Love” – is shortlisted for the award in category “Best Dance Recording”.

Although the rules of the Academy voting forbid to publish full list of shortlisted artists, it’s known that in total there are 240 records shortlisted for the award, most of which are made by some of the biggest names in the genre like The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Royksopp feat. Robyn, Tiesto, Paul van Dyk and Armin Van Buuren among others. Best five out of them who’ll have received the most votes from the jury and will be nominated for the prize will be announced in the beginning of December.

“Give Me Your Love” was released in June 2015 and since has received a lot of airplay not only in Latvia, but also in Scandinavian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Danish, Netherland, English and American clubs and radio stations. There are several popular remixes of the song, out of which the most popular is Latvian producer’s “XYPO” deep house version that has been viewed on “Youtube” almost 100 000 times.

Indie rock band “Carnival Youth” from Latvia, awarded with European Border Breakers award earlier this year, have released their second LP “Propeller” on 1st of April, following their successful debut “No Cloud Allowed”.

“Carnival Youth”, formed in 2012, is one of the most acknowledged new bands from the Baltic region. They’ve played shows all around Europe – “The Great Escape” (UK), “Eurosonic” (Netherlands), “Sziget” (Hungary), “Open’er” (Poland) etc, their previous singles have had a lot of radio play across Europe – Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music), John Kennedy (XFM) and Chris Hawkins (BBC 6 Music) are a few of the DJs who have included “Carnival Youth” music in their radio shows.

The new album “Propeller” unites groovy indie rock songs with catchy lyrics and tasteful elements of alternative rock. “Carnival Youth” have been compared with “Arcade Fire” and “Alt-J”, but their latest material resembles more “Wolf Parade”, “Temples” and “Arctic Monkeys”. The mix of careless, thoughtful and danceable tunes on this album brings a more focused and distinguished sound than ever before.

Latvian Eurovision sensation Aminata has released a music video for her new single “Fighter” that has been directed by Andžejs Gavrišs. “Fighter” is the first single from her new album “Red Moon” that will be released later this year.

In order to prepare for shooting, Aminata spent two months training every other day in boxing with a help of a professional fighter Jevgēņijs Aleksejevs who reprises his role as her coach in the video as well. “To me, it was a whole new experience! In the beginning, I was afraid to hit someone and always apologized after every hit. But I really enjoy boxing so I got used to that and will continue training even now when the filming of the video is over. I’m really proud of what we have made – filming was very difficult and physical but there were no stunt doubles and fighting scenes are almost real. Both of my opponents in the video Sabīna Kukute and Karīna Saule are professional boxers and did their best to make it look real and protect me at the same time. Especially difficult was the last scene that was filmed in “Arena Riga”. We wanted to show real fight in a real arena with lots of fans and in the end, we succeed. Many thanks to my sponsors, actors, crew and the director – without you I couldn’t have done such an amazing job!”

Director Andžejs Gavrišs notes that he always had wanted to film a boxing story. “I always have been interested in sports movies so I always have wanted to make one of my own. So thanks to Aminata I had the chance to do so! We prepared for this video for approximately two months finding perfect locations, filming scenes over and over in order to make them as real as possible. Before this, I didn’t know any boxers, but now I believe that they are the nicest persons in the world!”

RYGA is a Latvian band performing in the so-called and provocative happy hardcore genre. Their brand new single CandyMan is an ironic story of the currently most well-known Australian orgy master Travers Beynon, or CandyMan. Travers is a wealthy managing director at Freechoice Tobacco and a favourite of the yellow press, who always appears in photos beside stunning, scantily clad women, with a wad of money in his hand and dressed in suggestive clothing. CandyMan is at the top of the Australian women’s rights activists’ most-hated list.

The man in question has seen the video of RYGA and deemed it good enough by dropping a line to Mārcis Judzis, the author of the song and the leader of the band, on his Facebook page.

RYGA is growing increasingly popular both in its country of origin and abroad, and its last year’s single in collaboration with the American singer Corey Andrew even got through the first round ballot of GRAMMY awards in the Best Dance Song category, competing with Prodigy and many other famous names for a place in the top five. Even though it didn’t make it, the song was approved of by DJs around the world and it is still played in clubs and on radio, while the remix by DJ XYPO has been viewed more than 111 000 times on YouTube.

“I Love You Records” was among five young European labels honoured by “IMPALA” (Independent Music Companies Association) during “Tallinn Music Week”.

As part of its fifteenth anniversary, “IMPALA” launched a new monthly feature “FIVEUNDERFIFTEEN” to put the spotlight on young independent music companies across Europe. “Tallinn Music Week” was hosting the first “IMPALA” “Young Label Spotlight” event on Saturday 2nd of April, with a panel featuring all five labels, followed by an award ceremony.

Five labels receiving awards at “Tallinn Music Week” were “I Love You Records” (Latvia), “Porridge Bullet” (Estonia), “Soliti” (Finland), “S1 Warsaw” (Poland) and “Despotz Records” (Sweden).

“IMPALA” Executive Chair Helen Smith comments:”We want to shine a light on the deeper and wider story of the independent sector. It’s great to start with the panel in “Tallinn Music Week” with five young labels all telling their own stories. And this is what real music fans are interested in. They want the whole picture. Where their music comes from, what it stands for, whether it’s fair, what a label’s work tells them. All artists are born equal and these labels underline the importance of making sure that means something.”

“IMPALA” is an independent music companies association with a mission to grow the independent music sector, return more value to artists, promote cultural diversity and entrepreneurship, improve political access and modernise perceptions of the music sector.

From 28th of March to 3rd of April Estonian capital Tallinn will host 8th annual music conference/showcase festival “Tallinn Music Week”. Among more than 230 artists to perform in Tallinn there will be 7 Latvian acts as well as a showcase show presented by record company “I Love You Records” and “Positivus Festival”.

Latvia will be represented in Tallinn this year by seven acts, more than 40 delegates and a showcase show presented by “I Love You Records” and “Positivus Festival”. This showcase on Saturday in “Kino Sõprus” is already starting to become a tradition of “Tallinn Music Week” and this year among other performers from USA, Germany, Austria, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia it will also host Latvian singer-songwriter Alise Joste, whose album “Hardships Are Ships” won “Austras balva” in 2015, the Latvian equivalent of British “Mercury Prize”.

Other Latvian acts scheduled to perform in “Tallinn Music Week” are hip-hop legend Ozols, “Instrumenti” frontman Jānis Šipkēvics with his new project “Shipsea”, indie-pop sensations “Rīgas Modes”, talented beat maker and producer NiklāvZ, colorful indie band “Triana Park” and Latvian masters of funk “Very Cool People”.

Heavy metal band “Relicseed” (USA/LV) has announced the first bunch of the “Serial Surgery Tour” dates across America and Europe supporting their latest studio release “Slaughterhouse” (“Microphone Records”).

The band has published the first 2 of the entire 6 tour chapters which will begin on April 20 in Muncie, IN and wrap up by the end of November in Europe. All together it’s 13 US dates including Philadelphia, Huston, Indianapolis as well as Queens and 9 European dates including Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary.

“Relicseed” will tour together with various bands including “Losing September” (U.S.), “BLAMING HOLLYWOOD” (U.S.), “Darker Half” (AU) and others.

“Relicseed`s” journey begun back in 2004 when four Latvian musicians started experimenting with different playing and singing styles. The debut album “60 minutes of a dream” was released only in 2010 (Relicseed). The album was the start of defining the band`s character which is brightly represented in their second studio release “Slaughterhouse”. Constantly remaining the only original member Edgars Rakovskis (guitars, vocals) has led “Relicseed” across his native Latvia`s borders entering various alternative music markets around the world as well as created the new international form of musicianship together with the great Nathan J.C. Mercado (drums).

Edgars: “We`re extremely happy to finally get on the road again and do something we love together with likeminded musicians! Excited and willing to see everybody in the pit!”

Band Laime Pilniga has written a title track for documentary film trilogy „Savējie sapratīs”(„We knew”) and grants it for free.

The Great Escape is excited to announce that they have teamed up with Music Export Latvia and The Lithuanian Music Business Association as their lead international partners for 2016, bringing to Brighton the very best of up and coming Baltic talent.

Highlights of the amazing international line-up of artists will be Lithuania’s Without Letters, who bring together tenacious techno beats and psychedelic twists in an eclectic mix of surreal sound, along with the cabaret-tinged acoustic tones of Alina Orlova. Joining them will be Latvia’s finest; the feel-good indie awesomeness that is Carnival Youth and the weird and wonderful avant-pop duo Howling Owl.  

Latvian singer, songwriter, producer and DJ Markus Riva released a new single “Take Me Down”. With this song he participated in Supernova 2015 which is the Latvian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite being one of the favorites of Supernova he finished second at the final.

“The new single is called “Take me down” and it is a story about unconditional love and emotions – if we love, then till the end. If you going to fall and brake – I am coming with you. Very dramatic but honest at the same time,” tells Markus.

This is the first big-budget music video for Markus, despite the fact that he has released over 12 music videos in home country. “Take Me Down” is made by well-known Ukrainian director Alan Badoev, who has filmed over 100 music videos for a lot of Russian and Ukrainian music acts, including Valery Meladze, Via Gra, Vera Brezhneva, Polina Gagarina, Dan Balan, Kazaky, Max Barskih, Loboda and many more. Collaboration between Badoev and Markus Riva started after the prime-time TV show “Want to Meladze” last fall where Markus was only one step away from the victory. Music video was filmed in Kiev and it has 2 versions – one in English and another in Russian, which is the first single for Markus Riva for the Russian spoken audience.

Markus Riva is a Latvian singer, songwriter, producer and DJ from Riga. He is best known for his singles “007”, “Lights On” and “We Dance For A Reason”. As of Today he released three albums named „Ticu“, „Songs from NYC“ and “How It Feels”.

“Take Me Down” is available on iTunes and Spotify.