Inside Nokia Music

A new addition to the Nokia XSeries family comes today with the announcement of the new Nokia X5. Colourfully expressive, musically charged and built with ease of use in mind for social networking & messaging on the move. In a world gone mad for touchscreen phones, the Nokia X5 thinks outside the box and offers a full sliding QWERTY keyboard for those who desire traditional keypads, as well as unique design without compromising on social networking features – Be there, be square!

Social features?

Access to Social Networking sites Facebook, Twitter, Hi5 and Myspace are all covered, all your favourite IM accounts supported, and the ability to log in to multiple email accounts makes it fun and easy to stay connected on the move.

As part of the ongoing XSeries standard, your favourite contacts can be accessed from the home screen, and now includes the new Message Box feature – Just shake the phone to reveal the number of unread messages!

Tell me about the music!

Excellent sound quality? – Check!

Loud speakers? – Check!

Easy access to the device’s music collection? – Check!

Space for all my music? – 2GB memory card for up to 1000 tracks. Upgradable to 32GB

What about special features? – Of course!… Spin your X5 during music playback to select a track at random with the new ‘Surprise Me” application (Your head should be filling up with party game ideas right about now!) and ‘Dance Fabulous’ which lets you use your own music on the device to play the game and create dance moves.

The Nokia X5 will also be available in a ‘Comes With Music’ edition in selected markets – TBA

That’s great, but what about self expression?

We all know that in the decade of the twenty-teens it’s all about the bold and the overstated, and so the Nokia x5 will be available in Pink, Azure, Graphite Black, Yellow Green, and Purple with an estimated retail price of €165 before taxes and subsidies.

For more details check out the Nokia X5 Data Sheet

The Nokia X5 is available soon in the Southeast Asian Peninsula, Eurasia and Latin America

It’s been a whirlwind week for me and Miss Caitlin Rose, I only got her debut EP “Dead Flowers” on Tuesday and fell so hopelessly in love with it that on learning she was fortuitously touring the UK I went to see her last night (and I’m planning on going again on Saturday when the smart folks at Screen on The Green Islington have her singing before a late night showing of Badlands – a match made in -slightly disturbing- country heaven).

Hailing from Nashville, and with a sense of sass and humour beyond her 22 years she hates it when people call her indie and is fervent about her country stylings. Now, I’m a sucker for songs about whiskey & cigarettes & heartbreak anyway, but combine that with the most gorgeous of all Tennessee twangs and smart and funny wordplay that would sound just as at home on a Plan-It-X release and I’m sold.

Last night miss Rose treated us with an hour of songs from her debut EP and a few from the upcoming album, due out in July (the one about New York is actually incredible) and a Fleetwood Mac cover, in between regaling us with tales of Bobbys Dairy Dip, nightmares about Ashton Kutcher& Kate Hudson and her hatred of romantic comedies. She’s everything I expected her to be and much more besides.

Do yourself a favour and pick up Dead Flowers, and then wonder how you survived up until now without these 7 songs in your life.

Hello there, this is my first post from inside the Nokia Music castle and I’m sure I can find ways of telling you about myself in later posts, but I’ll start by introducing one of my fave bands. Let the music do the talking, as it were.

Way back in 2003, during my ‘higher education’, I was introduced to a band by a good friend. Little did I know that this introduction would drastically shape my musical preferences from then on and send me down a path to becoming fascinated with music’s power to take me places, beyond the histrionics and teenage angst of my previous years.

(Before you think… oh god, another hippy, I’ll move on).

In truth, I didn’t like them at first and was promptly told that I was obviously an idiot. Unfortunately, not just because of this single mistake, but I do now know this to be true. Each of their releases has taken a similar time for me to adjust to and although I think everything they have done is nigh on incredible, that first album holds a resonance within me that will most likely always stay there.

In the past I have tried to describe Oceansize with such conflicting understatements as ‘massive, trippy, epic, heavy, beautiful and complicated.’ They are also often plotted alongside the term ‘New Prog,’ but I prefer the band’s own words:  ‘Oceansize loves texture, dimension, fucking about with time, discord, dissonance, the element of surprise and (sometimes) taking a long time to make a point. ‘

I can see that this may come across as pretentious nonsense, so descriptions aside, Oceansize should be admired for musical ability in every sense and for being one of the hardest working bands in the UK. Last year alone they released an E.P, played through Europe & Australia and recorded and released a massive 7 disc DVD. The latter contains live performances of their complete album discography, recorded over a three night residency at the Roadhouse in Manchester. Needless to say, these were hot tickets. People came from all over the globe, including one legendary fellow who wet himself mid show in order to not miss a single moment. Although their popularity seems ever growing, Oceansize seem frustratingly unknown by the masses. For us fans however, the bar of our musical appreciation will be permanently raised.

I think I might have expressed my love for this band enough, and at risk of breaking my promise of ‘letting the music do the talking.’ I’ll just leave you with 5 tracks that would make a good starting point. Beware though, if you don’t like it first time round, you could quite obviously be an idiot.

You Wish, from the Album ‘Effloresce’

Paper Champion, from the ‘Music For Nurses’ E.P

Long Forgotten, from the Album ‘Effloresce’

On the Nokia Music Store [Internet Explorer only]

The Charm Offensive, from the Album ‘Everyone Into Position’

Unfamiliar, from the album ‘Frames’

I tend to relate lots of music to my life and music has this great power of reminding you of certain times, places and people. A lot of songs I listen to will instantly make me smile when I’m upset, or even make me cry when I’m perfectly happy, just because of memories they are associated with. In this blog I wanted to share some songs I have attached to certain times in my life and make a sort of growing up playlist. I think a lot of my emotions when I hear a song come from the memories I associate with the song. For example, I remember my mum blearing out Queen’s I Want To Break Free whenever her and my dad had had a bust up. And then Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You whenever they had made up. While in the next room my dad would have AC/DC’s Highway To Hell pumping out the stereo anytime he was uptight about something.

I guess these early shades of music paved the way for my awkward teenage years listening to Guns N’ Roses. I think Guns N’ Roses forever changed the way music could and would sound to me. One of rock’s greatest bands, they combined the dark and dangerous with style and glam and their debut album Appetite For Destruction was stuck inside my tape player for a good while. My favorite track was Paradise City and, let me tell you, they don’t write them like this anymore. It took arena rock to the next level. I remember starting secondary school and hanging out with a kid called David. I used to follow him around everywhere. David listened to a band called Nirvana and wore converse trainers and torn jeans. He introduced me to Nirvana’s Nevermind album. At the time I loved ‘hair bands’ like Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses and was pretty happy with the status quo, but when I first heard the opening 30 seconds of Smells Like Teen Spirit something changed inside of me. I bought the CD and continued to listen to it till the music felt like a part of me, till it was a part of my life.

It now amazes me the role Nirvana has played in my life, it changed everything for me. Because of Nivana, by the time I was 18 I had found bands like Black Flag, Devo, Sonic Youth and The Pixies but it was The Beatles I started a fascination with. I bought as many albums as I could get my hands on and just listened and listened. Their songs were so fresh and innovative to me. They mixed a lot of things together. Their music is just wonderful. I have a few favourite Beatles songs but the stand out for me is Let It Be. The piano lends a degree of intimacy, then there is a gospel element and an anthemic guitar solo. I know the song has a sad undertone but everytime I hear it I feel a maternal warmth. After The Beatles I became more aware of British pop culture and groups such as Blur, Oasis and Radiohead.

I later got into the whole 1979 punk movement and bands like The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and Generation X. The Pistols started the whole punk revolution, but for me The Clash definitely carried the torch when the originators were long gone. For sheer diversity, The Clash was number one. London Calling was one of those records that opened up my ears to other ideas about what ‘rock music’ means. With big slabs of things like reggae and rockabilly mixed in with the punk. No one can believably make this music anymore, they could do it as homage or a way to show off their influences but ironically, just as it shows me something that’s always been there, it also reminds me of something that is eternally gone.

I’m now 27 and U2 is my favorite band for many reasons, but most specifically because it was the first music that really spoke to me and changed what kind of person I was and what I wanted to be. The Joshua Tree was my first experience with U2 and I had never heard anything like it, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I have so many favourites tracks – Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and With Or Without You. Actually, there isn’t a bad song on the entire album.

It’s that time again where we reflect upon the year and what we’ve done with it.  For my first post I’d like to introduce you all to the wonderful world of Modernaire, feel special and lucky for you are about to be privy to one of electro’s best kept secrets.  So without further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen I bring you my gig of the year… *drum roll *

Parisians are apparently not known for their natural bouncing enthusiasm where attending gigs is concerned, however by the end of their first song Modernaire had cast their hypnotic and energizing spell over this audience of largely reluctant movers. Since last experiencing the joy of Modernaire live they have now added live drums and guitar which have given a bit more depth to their sound, but with such great stage presence from the singers, Chesty La Rue and Cruella De Mill (noms de chanteur) , this is just an added bonus.

This electro disco pop trio from Manchester are deliciously dark and dramatic but luckily their music is just so infectious that one can almost forget that most of their songs are lurid tales of murder and revenge. Taking their name from an unsoundtracked song from Purple Rain by Dez Dickerson, which in itself is commendable, Modernaire, somehow, manage to mesh robotic synth backing with an austere 1940s boogie woogie syncopated vocal style.

From the off they kept up enormous energy and the backing, led by music maestro Oscar Wildstyle controlling the synth, was incredibly tight, which was just as well really considering the immense skill of the vocals. Stagecraft is somewhat minimal, with a highly animated Chesty dancing barefoot around the stage occasionally stopping to tell the odd anecdote, while Cruella, somewhat shyly, tilts her vintage floral crowned head away from the audience and towards her bandmate, as though they’re viewing this show as a bit of fun rehearsal time rather than a public concert, but this merely adds to their charm.

At first glance one might wrongly tarnish Modernaire as pretentious with their glacial pop noir and chic motifs but, happily, on further scrutiny there is clearly, most definitely a sense of humour bounding round the stage, as the crowd pleasing number Bloodshed In The Woodshed showed. The girls’ sweet and deceptively innocent harmonies partially mask the tale of a scorned woman taking justice into her own hands. “Gutted, garrotted, noose ready knotted, sharp scythe, rusty knives, bedroom full of beehives,” they trill, complete with the infamous synchronised stabbing dance move. Faites Vos Jeux was another highlight of the evening, which has made it on to a few upcoming indie-electro band compilations, a dark story about murder in Monte Carlo.

Met with rapturous applause and a host of whistling, the band seemed slightly bemused with the many outcries of “encore.” Later singer Ruth, AKA Chesty, professed in a conversation we had over the merchandise table that they had in fact run out of songs. And that is what is so delightfully captivating about Modernaire, they don’t take themselves too seriously and are having a lot of fun with it.

Check them out now!! DO IT!

http://www.myspace.com/modernairetheband