Aquila Online

Remember the earplugs if you’re attending a Katy Perry concert

// November 14th, 2011 // No Comments » // Celebrities, Music, Video

Judging by this live video of Katy Perry’s performance of Last Friday Night – TGIF at her Rock in Rio concert in Rio de Janeiro, the audience should at least have been issued with earplugs. Normally I would give the artist the benefit of the doubt and blame dodgy sound equipment, or more specifically the sound engineer, but not in this case.

There was a definite false note on many occasions [time 00:30] and it seemed as she was forcing it. She also often sounded out of breath [time 01:39] – which could probably be explained by all the dancing and jumping [time 02:53].

On the other hand, the studio produced version of this song sounds so much better – No earplugs required.

What’s that song again?

// August 29th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // iPhone, Music, Tech, Video

Ever had a song stuck in your head and you don’t know the name? It happens to me all the time. Either I know a line from the song, or have some idea of the tune, but no idea who the artist or the song is.

To make matters worse, I always seem to miss the song intro on the radio and the DJ never seems to repeat the song title.

Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon the iPhone song identification application Midomi. Let me briefly interject.
A good friend, Leon Jacobs once said, “The greatest things about iPhone is the potential that every new app has to completely transform the device into a totally new experience.” I have to agree with Leon. Midomi has transformed the way I interact with music.

The premise is simple – open Midomi, press the big orange button, hold your iPhone up to a source of music and voila, it identifies the artist and song title. It even allows you to play back a short clip (from its own database) so that you can confirm if it’s the same song. Just watch out for loud ambient noise though – it makes song recognition a bit tricky.

Surprisingly enough it even recognised my tone-deaf humming of certain songs. Of course, if you don’t want to feel like a dork singing to your phone, you can also search for a song or band just by saying or typing the name.

The features don’t stop there though. You can bookmark and share your song results via Twitter and Facebook. Check out the lyrics, videos via YouTube and obtain detailed artist info. You can buy the song, but I haven’t been able to do so since the iTunes music store is still not available in South Africa.

All in all, this is a great application and at $4.99 (around R38) it’s worth every cent.

Download the Midomi application for your iPhone here.

Timothy Moloi – the YouTube sessions

// March 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Music, Video

Recently I received an email from James Bassingthwaighte introducing himself as a musician that reads blogs. Well James, cool surname, although I still can’t pronounce it without getting my tongue twisted in at least three knots. Apparently he’s a music producer and his record label has just signed their first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi. Since I’m always interested in finding new South African music, I eagerly clicked on the relevant links and landed on a couple of cool cover songs.

Dubbed, the YouTube sessions, it is a collection of well known songs from artists such as Timbaland/One republic, Mika, Frank Sinatra and others. I was very impressed with Timothy’s voice and overall sound. For a brief moment I thought I was listening to Seal – a good thing in my books.

If these renditions are anything to go by, I’ll be the first to stand in line when his album hits the shelves. Hope I can get mine signed.

As a parting note, why not listen for yourself – Timothy singing a cover of Mika – Relax, take it easy.

Music review on the way

// March 28th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Music, News

Heard some awesome tunes playing at Doppio Zero in Bellair mall earlier this week and was very surprised to find out that it was a local band. A further bonus to find out that they frequently perform live at this eatery.

Will be doing a review in the next couple of days, so stay tuned.

José González A Musical Genius

// March 18th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Celebrities, Music

Some time ago a good friend of mine introduced me to the musical genius that is José González. 

It’s not that I haven’t heard his music before.  I previously heard his critically acclaimed rendition of ‘Heartbeats’ on the Sony Bravia Bouncy Balls advert, while ‘Crosses’ was featured in the final episode of The OC.

Heartbeats, by the way, is a remake of the original sung by Swedish band, The Knife on their album Deep Cuts.

Regardless, both songs are featured on the Swedish-born minstrel’s debut album Veneer, which has been rocking the European charts.  The single ‘Heartbeats’ has also been playlisted on the UK Top 10 charts . 

Not bad for a 27-year old, born into a family teeming with musical variety.  Apparently his father, also a singer, has a natural taste for Latin American music along with American and UK pop classics.

It’s also interesting to note that his minimalism in his music (his voice and acoustic guitar) is echoed through his production of the first album. As the write-up on his website quips:

It’s uplifting then, in an age of spin, hype and wall-to-wall hyperbole, to note that José’s music has required no lavish production (he records on basic equipment, at home) no exotic packaging or gimlet-eyed marketing strategies, to make it cherished by thousands. For once even the Sun got it right: ”In a world of musical clones, the Argentinean Swede is a thrillingly original new talent”.

B-Sides Completed, his exclusive South African mini-album, features José’s reinterpretations of Kylie Minogue’s ’Hand On Your Heart’ and Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

Unfortunately though, we missed his exclusive one performance only show in Joburg earlier this year, but from what I read over at The Muso, the Cape Town one was brilliant.

If you like artists such as Damien Rice, Jack Johnson and Nick Drake then this will definitely not disappoint.

I’m definitely looking out for more from this artist in the future.