Hanne Hukkelberg

I've been a patient boy. And today all my quiet suffering and yearning pays off. Hanne Hukkelberg's new album comes out today and she begins touring the states this week. What Hukkelberg offers this time around on Rykestrasse 68 is fortunately more of the same: beautifully textured percussion, swaying rhythms and her exquisitely delicate voice. Her bicycle returns on this recording along with 29 other different instruments. The best way to listen to Hanne Hukkelberg is to simply shut up. Shut up your preconceived ideas of what a pop song should sound like. Shut up the glut of voices and sounds you've been listening to all day today and let her swab your skull clean, like a slice of aural ginger clearing your head of everything before it, and hear the world for the first time again.

A Cheater's Armoury [MP3, 5.3MB, 128kbps]

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www.hannehukkelberg.com

(Original Post 10/25/05):
My eight year old started up on the clarinet this year in school. Never having played a reed instrument, I took a stab at it. Wow. Blowing into that little hole to produce any sound besides that of cats mating was impossible. Lucky for us and our neighbors, it clicked with my son much quicker. Segue to a recent CD shopping spree and I bought this Hanne Hukkelberg album based on the cover art alone. Several tracks feature a gorgeous clarinet and I was anxious to play it at home. The rest of the album was simply a wonderful surprise. Ms Hukkelberg's calm, gentle vocals evoke a female David Sylvian, and her minimal, jazz-like compositions played on, among other things, pots, pans, wineglasses, and bicycle spokes, make for an organic version of Björk.

Ease [MP3, 1.9MB, 64kbps]
Balloon [MP3, 1.5MB, 64kbps]

Ferraby Lionheart

Lately, everything has just seemed charming. And my last few posts have reflected that. (Uh, I hope?) Ferraby Lionheart completes my "charmed cycle" and, with Clare and the Reasons and Jens Lekman, has been fillling my little apartment with happy sounds. He doesn't sound like Ryan Adams to me at all, but somehow when Ferraby Lionheart is playing, my brain is somehow right back in Chicago circa 2000 listening to Whiskeytown and driving down Lakeshore Drive watching the leaves change. Or I am in Minnesota listening to the Strokes first album for the first time. In short, this is music to mark time to. Mr. Lionheart is a mishmash--there are strings occasionally, some Otis Redding style whistling, tics sometimes, a little harmonica and a small, appropriate amount of irony mixed up in this man's music. But mostly its just pretty and solid, and tis the season for pretty, transporting songs.

Small Planet [MP3, 4.5MB, 192kbps]

ferrabylionheart.nettwerk.com/
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www.myspace.com/ferrabylionheart

Hem

My friend down the hall, Joe LaDuke, has tossed two excellent suggestions my way in just the last few weeks. The first was Pandora, a subset of the Music Genome Project. If you haven't seen it yet, Pandora is basically a personalized Internet DJ. Type in an artist or song that you like, and Pandora will break down your selection via a number of musical criteria and then offer up a selection of other artists that match up with your tastes. While it naturally can't acknowledge my desire to have something cool and ambient after a hot ska set, Pandora is fantastic for exposure to new music. We kind of like that here at 3hive. Joe's other offering was Hem, and based on what I've read about the band, it seems like someone should have told me about them sooner. Favorably compared to Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies, among others, Hem offers fat, lush, beautifully-written, unadulterated songs sung wonderfully by Sally Ellyson. "The Golden Day is Done," from an album full of covers and other band favorites, gives a good hint of Hem's unique sense of place along the backroads of the American South.

The Golden Day is Dying [MP3, 3.8MB, 128kbps]

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www.hemmusic.com