So, what are you listening to these days?

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
Floor has finally started releasing material from her Live from Amsterdam album again. Today it's a lovely little number called "Bridle Passion" which she originally wrote with another musician for a one-off project called Northward.


Northward is a real musical hidden gem and has a bit of a weird history. Floor Jansen and Norwegian guitarist Jorn Viggo Loftstad first started writing music together when she was still in After Forever, c. 2007. While they wrote enough material for an album, their commitments to their bands (Jorn plays guitar in Norwegian band Pagan Mind) and record labels kept them from recording that album for another decade, by which point Floor had moved on to Nightwish and was basically on mat leave from that gig while she recorded it. The album finally dropped in 2018 with both the title and band name of Northward. It's hard rock rather than the metal that both play in their "day jobs", but it is some of the best written, most exciting hard rock I have heard in a long time. "Bridle Passion" stands out on Northward both for being the lone soft track and for how this exquisite gem of a song lets Floor and Jorn show off their talents in a quieter, more subtle way than the hard rock "bangers" that make up much of the album.

Sadly, Floor and Jorn have made it clear that Northward is probably going to remain a one-off for the same reasons that it took a decade to create. They are both simply too busy to do it again. Too bad. It's a heck of an album.
 
Last edited:
Another Podcast I enjoying

The Program
Is a series of stories set in a shared universe where suddenly on Earth "The Program" takes over to create a more just world


I am really enjoying the sf what if nature of the tales

And there is at least one that hit me hard at the end

There are some whimsical stories as well
 
My podcast of choice is still The Ancients, part of the History Hit family of podcasts. Tristan Hughes, the host, has been branching out a bit beyond just ancient history, hitting on prehistory topics like the evolution of dinosaurs and mammals and the arrival of humans in the Americas, as well as his usual Classical history (he's a classicist by training). He's been touching on Alexander the Great a lot since he recently launched his own book on the subject of the chaos that erupted in the wake of Alexander's death in 323 BCE. And he does occasionally get into Biblical scholarship, BTW, since it falls into "ancient history". Most recently, he had a scholar on talking about the image of God in the Bible and ancient Hebrew culture and how it evolved from God as a very physical, anthropomorphic being like the deities of other Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures into the more cosmic entity we think of today. Cool stuff.
 
Dinosaurs form the basis of the reptilian essence in the brain ... cranking out a lot of strange endogenous material into the neural and bloodstreams ... and really poorly understand ...

A mass of folk do not believe there is a connection between physical matter and the essence of the immaterial ... energy?

However this cannot be spoken of due to improper understanding by many in high physical positions expecting secession ... without adequate social qualities ... perfect autonomy so the alternate socials will not know ...
 
Last week, Nightwish gave a stellar performance at France's Hellfest, which I had the delight of watching live over a livestream. All members, including session bassist Jukka Koskinen, were firing on all cylinders, with special kudos to drummer Kai Hahto and vocalists Floor Jansen and Troy Donockley. Some are describing this as the band's best show since their legendary appearance at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2013. Tribal is from Human:||:Nature, their most recent album (though due to the pandemic, it is two years old even though they are touring it now).

 
One of the nice things about hanging out with other Floor fans is learning about what other music they are into. One Dutch gentleman is well-known in the community for being a huge fan of Marcela Bovio. Marcela is a Mexican soprano who lives and works in The Netherlands. She was in a band called Streams of Passion for about a decade (disbanded in 2016), has done solo work and guested with a number of other artists and bands, and teaches at a metal-focussed music academy.

The first video that came up when I was searching for her surprised me. It's a lovely rendition of a piece by English Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Had I not already known her primary work was in metal, I would have taken her for a baroque specialist soprano on the strength of this performance.


However, this song from Streams of Passion is more her usual. The band was co-founded by Marcela and Dutch guitarist-producer Arjen Lucassen after she guested on another of his projects, but Arjen left after one album leaving her to carry as the band's leader.


And this was actually the second video of hers that I watched. The song is a cover of a song by symphonic metal band Epica and the pianist is Epica's keyboard player. Who looks weirdly like a teacher or church pianist here but was very, very metal when I watched the band on a livestream last week. According to the description, Marcela had been singing backup for one of the band's recordings and recorded this afterwards.

 
Thanks for the video links Mendalla - I'll give them a listen :-)

Right now I'm listening to Moskitto Bar - they're doing a concert in my area in August & I saw their name on the PR material - sounded very interesting & fun - 'world music'. Augusta Av, by Moskitto Bar
 
Sancta Terra (Holy Earth) by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica is almost the Platonic ideal of symphonic metal. And that really shows in this performance which puts the band in front of a live orchestra and choir (they normally use recorded backing tracks) and pairs their wonder lead singer Simone Simons up with her friend Floor Jansen of Nightwish. Both are powerful classically-trained vocalists who have been fronting metal bands since their respective teens (Simone is a bit younger, though).

 
It may be hard to believe that this song is from the same band as above. "Solitary Ground" dates back seventeen years to the band's second album, Consign to Oblivion. They are currently in the run-up to a remastered release of their early albums plus a live album that has not been previously officially available. As part of that run-up, they are re-releasing the singles and video from those albums, as well as some videos from the live concert.

With just a piano and strings behind her, Simone Simon's beautiful voice really takes the show on this one. No loud electric guitars or pulsing rhythm section to distract.

 
Visions of Atlantis is an Austrian symphonic metal band that I came across a while ago (and I thought I posted about before but I can't find it). They feature dual male-female lead singers and the current female, French soprano Clementine Delauney, is fantastic. This performance is from a couple years ago and features the band with a live orchestra. The album is titled "A Symphonic Journey to Remember".



And a solo ballad with just the orchestra that is a real showpiece for Clementine.

 
Balaklava Blues
A Canadian-Ukranian band
Call themselves "Folk-Noir"
I find their music hits a certain itch...imaginative spiritual powerful and also delighting in life
Reminds me of the pow wows I have been in
And parties with good friends
 
I, like many, first heard of Taylor Momsen as an actress. However, she has been lead singer of the band The Pretty Reckless since 2009 and gave up acting in 2011 to focus on music (mental health apparently played a role in that decision). Good decision, I say. Her recent stuff, while maybe not heavy enough to go in the metal thread, is terrific music and certainly rocks pretty hard. She packs a pretty solid voice and the writing by her and other band members is excellent.

From their most recent release, 2021's Death by Rock and Roll.


 
Outlanders is the kind of project that can give one musical whiplash. The singer is Tarja Turunen, who is primarily known for the powerful operatic soprano she first brought the world as lead singer of symphonic metal band Nightwish. After parting ways with them, she continued to focus on metal in her solo career. But with Outlanders, Tarja teams up with EDM producer/musician Torsten to create a smooth, soft sound far removed from the power and occasional bombast of metal. Each track features a different guest guitarist. For this one, it is another figure from the world of metal, Marty Friedman, who played in Megadeth innthe nineties. But, as with Tarja, his sound here is a rather different one.

 
An amazing acoustic performance by Brazilian rock singer Violet Orlandi. Not clear if this is a cover or a new original. She doesn't credit anyone for writing it. That sultry alto of hers works just as well with a pair of acoustic guitars as it does in front of a full band.

 
My anticipated release of the week has been third solo single by Dutch powerhouse vocalist Floor Jansen. And she doesn't disappoint. Available as an audio-only post on Floor's Youtube channel (it should hit streamers at midnight), I have been through it twice already. There's a bit of a softer, sultrier sound to this one compared to her more anthemic earlier singles, but there is still ample opportunity for her put her powerful voice through its paces. This might actually be the best of the three, and is possibly the furthest from her metal roots.


And Floor is current on a break in Nightwish's 2022 (delayed from 2020) tour, taking advantage of the break to record more material for her highly anticipated 2023 solo album.
 
OMG, this is so good. Violet Orlandi just keeps nailing those low female vocals. Great backup band, too. This is a cover of a song by grunge greats Alice In Chains.

 
This is Adrian Sutherlands, "Walk With Me" from his Juno nominated album, When The Magic Hits".
He is from Atawapiskat and the nomination is under the category of contemporary indigenous music.
I'm loving the complex simplicity of the acoustics.
Walk With Me

 
Until 2021, Charlotte Wessels was best known as the longtime lead singer of Dutch symphonic metal band Delain. In February of 2021, the band as it then existed dissolved, leaving only found Martijn Westerholt (he has since recruited a new band, including a new lead singer). Charlotte set out on a solo career, producing an eclectic mix of songs, some with her metal roots showing, some not (which is why I did not put this in the metal thread). This week, Tales From Six Feet Under, Vol. II, the second collection of those songs, came out. And both it and the first volume are terrific albums, showcasing her immense talent as both singer and songwriter. "Venus Rising" is the first track on Vol. II and a video for it came out with the album.


And "Afkicken", which is sung in Wessel's native Dutch, was the release from the first album that really signalled Charlotte was headed in a new direction. It also has a very nice short film as the video.

 
More PODCASTS

Dear Hank and John
(John & Hank Green answer viewer questions. Anything. Much laughter)

Bureau of Lost Culture
Grab Bag of shortish delves into cultural figures like Tom Waits, Austin Spare, The Cabaret of the Nameless (fun early lgbtetc inclusive pre Germany explorations and culture)...

Distractible
Markiplier and friends spend around an hour talking aboot anything from bizarre cryptids (the Mountain Whale) to the hijinx of getting a fridge installed badly by installers

Gatecrashers
The tale of the trials and tribulations that US jewery had to go through in prestigious US universities


Hypothetical the Podcast
Each episode a new guest gets to make up a game that the hosts then have to play. Like "What is the least amount of money you would want to be paid for never ever using a bag."


Life's Library
Book reviews


No Such Thing as a Fish

QI related guests riff on interesting trivia they have discovered. Oh so much detail out there :3

Sci Show Tangents
Just like Sci Show :3

St. Elwick's Neighbourhood Association Newsletter Podcast
Fictional but played straight of a lone guy having to to do an audio newsletter. Dry smalltown British humour.

The Bugle
Humourus readings of current events by Aussie comedians and comediennes

The Truth
Wonderful and magical short radio plays that reminds me of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut Jr
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top