Category: News

Twin sisters duo DVINES, partnered up with a talented, rising producer RA (Reinis Ašmanis), present their new summer collaboration “Falling 4 U”.

“The song has got a modern, electronic sound, it’s definitely not hardcore dance music, but most certainly will fit perfectly into any music playlist of this summer” – say DVINES.

DVINES is a twin sister duo, songwriters and performers, who are mostly recognised in Latvia for their appearances on various TV shows, right now DVINES are working with electronic pop genre and actively collaborate with dance music producers.

RA, who’s real name is Reinis Ašmanis, just recently started his path as an electronic music producer, plays as a drummer for Jelgavas BigBand and other Latvian artists.

An artist Jānis Romanovskis has created a dynamic music video to the song «No Wine» from the debut album of Katrina Gupalo & the Black Birds «Gentle & Done» — the action takes place in New York, and the video features Michael Douglas.

This is a story about the first encounter with New York, the music and arts mecca where everything is possible. Meeting the famous Hollywood actor Michael Douglas right before midnight at «Grand Central», as well. That is a story about overwhelming feelings, when one meets the big city lights, rhythms and unstoppable nights for the first time.

In the making-of process the artist Jānis Romanovskis has been inspired by «Vinyl», the TV collaboration of Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese. Alternation of quick and slow shots is dizzy and ecstatic. Million faces and impressions bring one into a united mind chaos. Documental fixation of the moment ends up in a musically fulfilled visualised videoframe. «You can press pause for almost every moment of the video to sneak peek into New York sights or some colorful character» — Jānis Romanovskis characterises his work.

«New York is a feeling, that’s an art, that’s an opportunity, that’s a miracle. «No Wine» in New York is a stepping stone for the creative flight: the next stop is mine, no phonogram, no wine, I’ll tell you everything, all dreams in one line.» — tells the author of the song Katrina Gupalo.

 «No Wine» song recording featured Miķelis Vanags on guitar, Gatis Gorkuša on drums, Kristiāns Kosītis on bass, Elvijs Endelis on drums, as well as sound engineers Artūrs Sedriks Sinkevičs and Pauls Dāvis Megi.

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.

At the end of this summer Madara (Múr) introduced everyone with a nostalgic preview of the album – first single “Confirmations”, but today Múr is releasing a song with a completely different vibe – “One weak breath away”.

Both songs let listeners understand that the upcoming album “Under allure”, which is coming out soon, is filled with different sounds and emotions. 

A bit more than one year has passed since the moment Renars Kaupers (“BrainStorm”) and Evert Sundja (“Ewert and the Two Dragons”) locked themselves in Renars’ home kitchen and started to work on a new song. By now, seven co-authors have joined the two “kitchen members” and as a result of this, a collaboration between the two bands has born – “Ewert and The Two Dragons” and “BrainStorm”  – present a new, sunny song “We wait for the light”.

Once the demo was ready, the first recordings of the song took place in Tallinn, where the song got new melodic lines, but after the work with the song got stock for a while. Swedish friends of “BrainStorm” –  Povel Olsson and David Larson, came to the rescue and gave the song its final touches.

Ewert himself comments on the collaboration: “A little more than a year ago I got a call from an unidentified number.  Well, it turned out to be Renars Kaupers from “Brainstorm” who had a plan. And the plan was to write a song together. So that was exactly what we did, got together and started jamming. The result is here now – nice upbeat, kind of easygoing pop song with a summer-vibe.”

“We wait for the light” has been made with the power of three countries – Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. And with great happiness, we are sharing the song with you!

Every year „Reeperbahn” – one of the biggest showcase festivals in Europe – selects from the strongest and brightest new musicians who will be given a chance to perform in Hamburg at the end of September. This year this opportunity is given to two Latvian musicians – Elizabete Balčus and Chris Noah. They will be enjoying the exclusive attention of the world music industry.

„I’m very happy to be part of a festival where it’s possible to behold the newest and most interesting in the world of music and art. I’ll be taking part in the festival with my electro-acoustic performance where I synthesize electronic and academic music. An important role is given to free-jazz flute improvisations and soniferous vegetables which I use as a synthesizer. This spring I had a chance to perform at „The Great Escape” festival in Brighton that brought forth a lot of new turning points and useful contacts for my future creative work. I hope to show myself from the best side in the „Reeperbahn” festival, widen my audience and find new opportunities and contacts,” – Elizabete Balčus shared her thoughts.

Chris Noah also feels honoured: „I’m glad I can be part of this festival and share the stage with musicians that I highly appreciate because of their music. I wish to prove myself outside of Latvia and I’m especially happy that one of my first foreign stage performances happens to be the „Reeperbahn” festival.”

The festival will be held for the 12th time and will offer 800 various experiences: new musicians, musical shows, newest films and literature, presentations and conferences.

Latvian Music Development Association / Latvian Music Export Office with collaboration with their Lithuanian colleagues are organising a presentation event of both countries „Meet Music Latvia and Lithuania” that will take place on the 22nd of September in the club „Nochtwashe”. On the 21st of September Latvian Music Development Association / Latvian Music Export Office will collaborate with colleagues from Hungary, Check Republic, Russia and Lithuania to organise a Central-Eastern Europe music industry event „CEEntral Party” that will take place at „The Mad Hatter”.

The band RYGA, which recently released its debut album “Catch Her Groove”, as well as took part in festivals “Saldus saule”, “Laba daba” and “LĪVIfest” and has already become known for its confrontational videos, is now releasing a new and thought-provoking video of the record “Give Me Your Love”.

The song is included in the soundtrack of the Daile Theatre performance directed by Dž. Dž. Džilindžers “The death of Banny Manro” (“Bannija Manro nāve”). The performance will return to the stage in late September. This year, the band leader Mārcis Judzis was nominated for this record in the annual theatre award “Spēlmaņu nakts” and received outstanding reviews and critical acclaim of music professionals. Actors of the Daile Theatre Ģirts Ķesteris, Ieva Segliņa and Kaspars Zāle (the Devil) take part in this video.

Mārcis Judzis: “The protagonist of the story is the Devil. He is exceptional in what he does, and now he has chosen two candidates. The evil one, in fact, has a good sense of humour and can dance very well, which is probably why the “clients” are easily caught on his prongs. He also has his magic potions that cause hallucinations so intense that even giraffes start to prance. This is not one of those love stories that end with a white dove set free in a wedding ceremony, but rather with a guitar solo on devil’s prongs as performed by the devil himself, because he is pleased with his achievements and, feeling satisfied, he moves on to new, vulnerable, weak, tired, self-depleted, burnt-out candidates, who have been spat on by oligarchs, because they are the easy targets. Perhaps he is, in fact, a purifier who does not allow the seed of tired and tortured men spread any further?”

The author of the video is Artis Dzērve, who also created the previous video of the band RYGA for the record “Bunny Munro Waltz”, which only recently was broadcast by the German TV channel 3sat. And it was not by accident. At the end of the year, in co-operation with the company “Rough Trade”, the album of the band will be released and distributed also in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Negotiations are under way regarding a tour of the band in clubs of Germany at the time the album is released.

The up-and-coming Latvian psychedelic rock quartet “The Bad Tones” have released a new single called “Just A Boy” along with a music video. The clip is made using VHS recordings from their childhood.

Most of the used footage is more than 15 years old and filmed by their fathers – Dedzis Andrejs Broders, Juris Levics un Uldis Ozols. Editing has been done by Pēteris Vīksna.

On 26th of August “The Bad Tones” performed in the city of Sigulda as a warm up act for “Carnival Youth”.

“The Bad Tones” was previously known as “The Pink Elepahnt” – their catalogue consists of two albums. Currently the members of the band – Edvards Broders (guitar, vocals), Rūdolfs Ozols (guitar), Alberts Levics (bass) and Kalvis Sležis (drums) – are studying music in the Netherlands. They are working on their next record that will be released early next year.

Latvian musician and host of TV show X-Factor – Markus Riva just released new music video for his composition "This Time". Markus is also participating with this song at SUPERNOVA 2018 which is a National Selection for Eurovision Song Contest.

“This Time” was released in…

Controlling water fountains, fireworks, 3D visualisations, light animations and all the music with the Ableton Push sample pad is not just a futuristic vision about binding contemporary music with visual design, but instead those are the opportunities of modern technology, which are demonstrated by Rick Feds.

The main drives towards new challenges for the multi-instrumentalist is creation, control and excellence. Breaking boundaries for the musically creative minds and urge for innovative artistic expressions. This year’s tour to USA is one of such challenges.

On February of this year, the virtuoso artist is going to the U.S. where he will carry out audiovisual performances in New York, Washington and Philadelphia. Rick Feds, who is rated in the top 5 finger-drummers in the world today, describes his upcoming performances as a combination of the analogue and digital world, which will consist of creative sound design and energetic show. The musical saturation will be also complemented by his drumming, which is musician’s former specialty.

His shows will fascinate not only lovers of electronic music and interactive art forms but anyone who appreciates world-class mastery on a music instrument.