Carpe Carmina: carmina charm #23

Do you know that our soul is composed of harmony?

- Leonardo DaVinci

It's harmony that your soul and mind embraces again when listening to music. As sound surrounds you, only some melodies firmly resonate with you, get an immediate emotional response - whilst their approach is a smooth and soft one, whilst they slowly, carefully but steadily cling to you, these melodies eventually grab you with an intensity and force that overwhelms, that fully absorbs and stirs. It's these very melodies that are in chime with your mind and soul, it's music that leaves an imprint on your being and mesmerizes ... music that charms.

XXXXVII. Have You Ever Been Low

It's been a couple of exciting months for middlesbrough-born Alistair James; honing his writing skills and recording new songs in New York and Brooklyn in late 2015, earning his stripes as a performing artist in the U.S. gigging pool, the ambitious singer/songwriter is back with a much more mature and powerful sound (and that's not only owed to the fact that he is joined by Adam Morgan, Craig Gilbraith and Elizabeth Marshall - who are introduced as 'the Insiders' - on stage and in studio). Perkily peppy and boldly bracing, 'Have You Ever Been Low' doesn't allow its audience to feel soppy for its cool sonic vibe and vibrant charisma shines brightly intense. Infectious melodies, an upbeat rhythm section and confident vocal vitality put on a stunning show, promote playfully vivacious and edgy instrumental buzz, spirited and jubilant to an extent that there is no other resolution to this but letting a big smile play upon your lips whilst the song itself plays on (repeat) in a dynamically buyoant and dashing fashion.

Reach out & listen to Alistair James on ...

.. twitter ...
.. facebook ...
.. his official website ...
.. soundcloud ...

Enjoy Alistair's jaunty acoustic take on 'Have You Ever Been Low' (as featured on carmina suavia No. 38 and played on Radio Kaos Caribou in april) here.

XXXXVIII. You'd Look Better With A Bullet In You

artwork by SBÄM

Ready for some rock'n'roll ruckus, the listener gets a whole - brutally blatant - lot with Dirty Rotten Souls' latest outcry: audaciously adamant and relentlessly rebellious 'You'd Look Better With A Bullet In You' comes in handy for causing a (much needed) stir. Rightly so, as the stoke-on-trent trio kept it rather low-key on the promotional front (with no traces of their music online, the non-regular (non-local) gig-goer faces some trouble indeed when feeling the impulsive urge to rock out to the band's feisty sound in snatches). What has been boiling under the surface, however, strikes even sharper, more sonorously grim, now that it is finally unleashed: gritty and aggressive guitar ferocity, fierce vocal temper and clamorous drum thunder, all wrapped up in a tense, staggering melodic mood.

Hard-hitting and honest, an unstoppable musical force (prick up your ears for that fulminant closing guitar solo) is at work here; hardly possible to ignore, most likely designed to be played loud. And carpe carmina sure will!