Back In Business February 4, 2010
Posted by Paula in Muzak.Tags: Cathy Dennis, In Business, Mark Ronson, miike snow, Nick Hodgson, Santigold, Scissor Sisters, Version
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Mark Ronson will collaborate with Scissor Sisters, Santigold and Miike Snow among others on his new album In Business. Speaking to NME, Ronson promised that the album, released this summer, will all be original work.
There’s no covers, and no horns. It’s written with some of the people that actually wrote the songs I covered on the last album and that I didn’t actually even know at the time. It’s quite interesting to write songs from scratch with those people.
Given that Ronson’s 2007 album Version was an album of covers, it’ll be interesting to see how this new effort pans out. Other collaborators will include Nick Hodgson of Kaiser Chiefs and US rapper Pill. But I’ve saved the best for last. Ronson will also work with 90s pop/dance artist Cathy Dennis. Dennis was responsible for such masterpieces as Just Another Dream and Touch Me (All Night Long). She also wrote Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Outta My Head, and has co-written songs for various American Idol winners. Let’s see what she comes up with for Ronson.
Let iit Snow December 25, 2009
Posted by Patrick in Muzak.Tags: andrew wyatt, black & blue, bloodshy & avant, britney spears, christian karlsson, christina milian, kylie minogue, madonna, miike snow, pontus winnberg
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[Originally published in flashback‘s December 2009 issue]
First, let’s get one thing straight. Miike Snow is not one musician, it’s actually a group of three. And that misspelling of ‘Mike’ is no typo. Yes, this is slightly confusing, and Pontus Winnberg, one third of the band, is well aware of this.
“Yeah, we get that a lot and I guess it’s our fault because we called the band Miike Snow. We try to put it out there as much as possible. It was kind of randomly picked, the name, but we also liked the fact that it could be anything – it could be a guy, a DJ, a band – whatever. So I guess we just have to deal with that problem for a while.”
The trio are made up of Swedish production duo, Pontus and Christian Karlsson, and American singer/songwriter Andrew Wyatt. You mightn’t know it but you’ve almost definitely danced along to a song created by Pontus and Christian in the past.
Better known as production team Bloodshy & Avant, they are the brains behind well-known tracks like Britney Spears’ Toxic and Christina Milian’s AM to PM. They’ve also worked with artists like Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Sugababes.
But, at least for the foreseeable future, Miike Snow is the trio’s priority.
“It is definitely a full time thing for us. It’s probably going to stay that way, I mean we have shows booked until October next year and they keep coming, so I don’t think we’ll have time to do anything else but this.”
A full-time band may not have been in the grand plan for the production duo, but after meeting Andrew, their priorities changed.
“I guess it was just the timing and the fact that we met Andrew. When we met Andrew we cleared our schedule. We hadn’t done it earlier because we hadn’t really cancelled everything in our schedule because it takes up a lot of time.”
Marina and Miike Snow in eh…Carlow November 13, 2009
Posted by Patrick in Muzak.Tags: concert, digitalism, dinn ri, gig, heineken green spheres, live music, marina and the diamonds, miike snow
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We at Make and Deux made the trek to the Dinn Ri complex in Carlow (not just five but seven venues in one, we’re told) last night for the Heineken Green Spheres Digitalism, Marina and the Diamonds, and Miike Snow show.
Now, unfortunately we didn’t make actually make it to Digitalism’s set (we were pleased to find out that it had only been a DJ set in the end), but we were front row centre for both Marina and Miike Snow’s sections of the night.
The venue itself was amazingly decorated by the Heineken folks, with a predictable green glow all over the venue and less predictable men dressed in what looked like either a green screen body suit or a gimp costume. Dinn Ri itself is absolutely huge, big enough to have two stages in fact; one for Marina and Miike Snow, and another for Digitalism.
Although we missed Marina at her show in Dublin’s The Academy just one night before, she didn’t hold back for her show in Carlow. Her set was a mixture of stuff from her Crown Jewels EP and a ton of new stuff that will likely feature on her forthcoming album.
She even treated the audience to two versions of Mowgli’s Road; one a stripped down piano version and the other in its release form. Apparently the Irish fans, or ‘Emeralds’ as we’re now known, thanks, apparently to Joey Kavanagh, get the Mowgli’s Road single first for some reason. Sadly Marina didn’t play my favourite Simplify, but, shit happens.
Miike Snow opened their energetic set with Burial (not Silvia as I thought in my drunken stupor), and only actually played about four or five songs (or seven, but who’s counting?) Fan favourites like Animal and current single Black & Blue were there, but a good 50% of the set was actually made up of the members just jamming with no clear end in sight. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d have liked to hear more from their debut album in the mix.
We stumbled upon/followed some of the members of Miike Snow after the gig, and managed to get Paula into a photograph with them (below). Despite claiming they were looking for somewhere that did ‘shots’ (the bar menu for the night was Heineken or, well Heineken), the band retired to their room, or indeed ran away from us.
[Some images: Heineken Green Spheres]
Make and Deux 