Ok, it doesn’t really feel right calling MØ “new” as such, she’s literally everywhere, 17 of my facebook friends like her (Italians, English & Germans). Not mentioning her would be wrong too though. MØ is two years younger than me, I should officially feel old now and chuck in my dreams of ever becoming an artist. Her gig at The great Escape was full of industry peeps and it’s not surprising. How to describe  MØ’s sound? A glitchy mix of AlunaGeorge, Grimes & Lykke Li maybe. Maybe let’s just ditch these comparisions and make up your own mind.

Download it for free here.

When it comes to live music Vienna hasn’t by far as much to offer as London or Berlin. But I really have to say, that this season they somehowmanaged to get some really interesting bands and musicians in town.

One of them without a doubt is Kurt Vile, who will be playing at Vienna’s WUK at the 18^th of June.

The 33-year-old American musician and former member of the indie rock band The World on Drugs, has often been compared to Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. Accompanied by the band The Violators, June Kurt will now present his new album “Walking on a Pretty Daze”, which has been released back in April.

Support band at this night is the vienna based band Mile me deaf. It’s definitely woth it checking them out as well!!

You can get  tickets for the 18th of June here.

In case you followed our shenanigans on instagram you might have had the impression that we spent The Great Escape festival with hanging out by the beach, eating and drinking; and partially you’d be spot on! But inbetween sleeping on the beach and enjoying free booze we managed to watch a couple of bands. Not as many as planned – blame Brighton. We’ve met nice people, bumped into our friends from Is Tropical & made new friends with an Australian band. Sometimes we even managed to squeeze in a couple of gigs:

Mac DeMarco
Mac DeMarco was the man of the weekend. His gig was the gig of the weekend. He’s simply awesome, but I’ve known that already anyways. How he sounds like? Well imagine somber sacker pop. Or just listen.

Darkstar
I love Darkstar. Or at least I love what they’ve done on their last record – which certainly is one of my favourite ones this year. However I didn’t really enjoy their gig at Digital. The only man who was able to….

King Krule
…change my mood and turn my frown upside down after a very disappointing Darktar set, was the one and only King Krule. He’s amazing. He’s a hot ginger boy with a massively cool and stroppy voice. He better be releasing an album soon.

Superfood
They’re like the new Brother, man. Maybe they ave to change their name to Viva Superfood soon, then split up and make a comeback in the US as some incarnation of Hurts. Or maybe they will actually be super successful. They place was packed anyways.

Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs
Only caught the end of their set, but I liked what I heard.

Melody’s Echo Chamber
She’s the babe of TGE. Seriously who doesn’t want to look like her…. be her? Unfortunately her set was a tad disappointing. Her stage presence lacked something, I can’t properly put myfinger on but after touring she should have been able to get her sound sorted out.

Popstrangers
Um, I might listen to their album first and form an opinion then. I only stayed for about one song.

Jacco Gardner
Seen him twice last weekend. He’s awesome. His band is awesome. Their skills – #TOTESAMAZE. No seriously Jacco’s voice sounds even better live and the band’s playing was topnotch.

Skip&Die
First thing that came to my mind was: Hipster band. But a fucking amazing one. Haven’t seen a happier and more energetic gig (apart from the punk fest at Parquet Courts) throughout the weekend. Everyone keep your eyes peeled for these.

UMO
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – they packed out the venue and we basically had to watch from behind a pole. Not cool, but we still had our fun and sang along to Ffunny Ffriends.

Deap Vally
Didn’t want to see those wanna-berock godesses. They still use the same lame lines – wear no clothes and are generally boring. Get a grip and make actual music. Don’t just try to end up in some music journo’s wankbank.

The Wytches
Kaboom. They are really just kids but fuck it – their sound is massive. Live it sounds darker than the recent releases that were very reminiscent of Jack White materia (thanks to their shared producer). Those are gonna be so-so big.

Klaxons
It felt like 2008 all-over again. Was it 2008 that purple skinny jeans and glowsticks ruledthe indie scene? Well anyways, they didn’t shine with musical brilliance but they but on a bloody great show.

Mikal Cronin
The following two quotes from the evening: “I’d snog him” and “They sound like fucking Nirvana on acid” perfectly sum up Mikal Cronin’s performance. It was great and everybody should head over to Spotify right now and give MCII a listen!

Troumaca
Not another B-Town band. Seriously I can’t remember that much about their set. I know I was there and thought one of the singers looked like some people at Karlsplatz do. Only the blue lips where missing They weren’t shit though – just didn’t get stuck in my head.

Kins
WOW, apart from Mikal Cronin my favourite TGE band. They were amazing. Listen to them. They will be big, they are just to unique and talented not to. Brighton’s going to be the new B-Town only that this time they will not only dream about beaches.

MT Wolf
MT Wolf are really good, they will be successful – the only negative is that if you heard one song, it feels like you’ve already heard all their other songs.

Embers
Was on the search for the free blogger beer. Can only remember that the Mesmerist was proper packed and that they were loud, very loud.

Velvet Two Stripes
It was early evening and they nearly managed to pack out Coalition, which is pretty awesome for a Swiss band. They do sound a little bit too much like The Kills and aren’t as original as PINS for example. However they are good and if they used a little bit less drum machine and a little more actual percussion we might have ended up smitten with them.

Parquet Courts
MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT!
MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT!
MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT! CROWDSURFING! MOSHPIT!
…and Paul Lester in the middle of it.

Woods
Hm… left early, weren’t so much my thing. But maybe I should have a listen to their recorded stuff – who knows.

Moko
90s reincarnated. The Dalston/ Vice hipsters will love her.

Let yourself get into the brand new and magic universe of TALLY WEiJl

That is what wednesday night at the Opening of the first international flagship store.What an experience. Balloons, magicians, cotton candy, cocktails, fortune teller, bubbles, a contortionist dancer, popcorn, all sort of candies and of course my personal highlight tiny little rabbits to cuddle. There was so much to discover and the cutest little details in every corner of the store. I really did feel like alice in wonderland – something every little girl is dreaming of. Not to forget star guest Pixie Geldorf and the amazing Monsieur P’trique. Both also joined us on the dancefloor at the afterparty, shaking our booties to the amazing sound of One Direction, Taylor Swift and some crazy rap beats. (Thanks to the Pet Fan Club DJs for that by the way!!)

No matter it’s your taste of clothes or not, in his little opening speech star set designer Michael Howell, said something like “Shopping nowadays has to be entertaining.” And after seeing this store there is one thing I can promise you: even without candies and rabbits to cuddle in this new Tally Wejl Store plenty of entertainment is waiting for you.

After last year’s fabulous line up, which included Mumford and Sons and The Kooks, I guess anyone expected this year’s Harvest of Art line-up could not be a quarter as good.

What can I say, we were all wrong. With Artic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Get Well Soon, Kate Nash, Youth Lagoon, Giantree and The Eclectic Moniker  Harvest of Art 2013 is definitely one of those festivals this year, a true indie fan shouldn’t be missing.

We already had the best time at Wiesen in 2012 and therefore we can hardly wait for 13^th of July to come.  Here are some of last year’s festival impressions: 

The festival was already sold out last year, so you’d better be quick and  get your Harvest of Art tickets here. Hope to see you there!!

Switzerland is generally doing quite well when it comes to taking part in German talent shows – I guess it’s more down to the German TV channels wanting to draw in a Swiss audience than to the actual talent of the contestants. But Switzerland also has good bands, it’s just that you might not yet heard of them. Velvet Two Stripes however might change this Swiss dilemma. Velvet Two Stripes seem like a cross between The Kills and PINS, with added rawness. They pay twice at this year’s TGE -make sure to catch them live if you’re in Brighton.

16th May @ Komedia Studio Bar. Stage time 2.30pm
18th May @ Brighton Coalition. Stage time 6.30pm

Deep Sea Arcade are the perfect Aussie blend of psychedelic percussion and Madchester tinged indie rock. With their debut album “Outlands” in tow the Sydney five-piece are currently touring the UK – still leaving you with a couple of opportunities of catching them live. Apart from wearing their 60s & brit pop influences on their sleeves Deep Sea Arcade don’t forget about their Aussie roots and the up-beat songs feel like kaleidoscopes dipped into sunshine, if that makes any sense to you (especially Granite City).

Sun 12 May 2013 – London/Cargo – Aussie BBQ
Thu 16 May 2013 – Brighton/SOUND GALLERY @ THE HUB
Sat 18 May 2013 – Brighton/Great Escape
Wed 22 May 2013 – Nottingham/Spanky Van Dykes (with Charlie Boyer & the Voyeurs)
Fri 19 Jul 2013 – North Yorks/Deershed
Fri 26 Jul 2013 – Cambridgeshire/Secret Garden Party
Thu 22 Aug 2013 – Groningen (NL)/Noorderzon Arts Festival

Skip&Die is a collaboration between the South-African vocalist/visual artist Catarina Aimee Dahms (aka Cata.Pirata) and Dutch producer Jori Collignon (C-mon & Kypsky and Nobody Beats the Drum). What started as a two-man project has now been transformed to a full-fledged 4-piece live band.

You can also win an album of the band – just drop me an email at info@frockazine.com with the subject “skip&die”

And you can catch them playing  at this year’s Great Escape on the following dates:

16th of May –  7pm – AUDIO 
17th of May – 3pm – KOMEDIA STUDIO BAR