Songs for the end of the day 1st March from Vincent Ryder, Birds are Better, and Leonard Hanson

We’re shifting rapidly through the gears here again tonight, trying to keep pace with a mountain of 1^st March and other recent releases.

Vincent Ryder (Denmark) – The Feeling (single)

Compared to the likes of Bowie and Lennon, I’d say this song ‘The Feeling’ by Vincent Ryder is more along the lines of Sheffield bands ABC and The Human League in its vocal delivery at least.

Both Martin Fry and Phil Oakey had the same suave, sophisticated chap meets greasy street corner wide boy sound about them and I don’t mean that at all in a derogatory way. Indeed, I suppose Bowie did on some of his material, too.

Young Vincent is decidedly different and there’s no harm at all in that. The music business remains far too narrowly defined and anyone who sticks his neck out to be distinctive will get my attention.

In fact the more I listen to it the more I sense a Bryan Ferry connection. Roxy Music revolutionised pop music with ‘Virginia Plain’ and while I’m not saying that ‘The Feeling’ is quite in that league I am saying that it merits your close examination.

The song is about what it says on the tin; a feeling, which in itself is about a sense of something indefinable, not arising from a specific problem but just being ‘that feeling.’

That’s a bit vague and woolly for sure but as the song progresses there’s an air of Shakespears Sister’s ‘Hello (Turn your radio on’) about it, a sensation of exclusion from society and of events that are beyond one’s control. It could be an anthem for the state of Britain right now. And that Middle Eastern flavoured instrumental bridge is just so.

I have the feeling that Mr Ryder has the package – the smart, trendy, streetwise songs and lyrics, the chops, the looks, and the dress sense to make it over here if he gets the breaks.

‘The Feeling’ is out on 1^st March and Vincent will release an album later in the year.

Find him on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vincent.ryder.50

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vincentrydermusic/

Birds are Better (Sweden) – In the corner of the song (single)

I don’t know a great deal about this latest offering from Stian Fjelldal, aka Birds are Better but previous experience tells me that he is usually on a journey somewhere with unexpected results, or getting into a philosophical argument with himself, or seemingly questioning the will of God.

Or at least that is how it appears on the surface but he can easily blindside you or at least generate some over-thinking. In reality he might merely be commenting on some or other aspect of nature, flora and fauna, to which he is attracted, and as his artist moniker suggests.

So without much to go on for this latest release, I decided just to let the music wash over me and it easily did so. It’s the homeliest song I’ve heard from him to date; it could be Val Doonican, in full campfire mode in his trademark woolly sweater. But while Val while crooned on about ‘walking tall’ and ‘looking the world straight in the eye’ Stian prefers to retire to his corner of the song, a sanctuary, “a shelter from this place we call reality” that is a metaphor I guess for taking a rain check from the world.

Of course I could be completely wrong and if so I guess he’ll put me right.

Nice little song with a classy piece of self-dueting, whatever the outcome.

Find him on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birdsarebetter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/StianFjelldal

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stianfjelldal/

Leonard Hanson (Sweden) – Liquify (single)

A slightly strange one to finish off with tonight in the sense that I’m not sure that this is Leonard Hanson’s most recent release. According to Mr Spotify there have been a couple since ‘Liquify’, and one being a remix of its own predecessor.

I’ll zero in on ‘Liquify’ though because it’s a Friday night and time for a bit of dance/House to wind down after a hard week.

Leonard is a Stockholm-based audio engineer, DJ and producer if I’ve managed to locate the right one online. There’s no MMMBop from this Hanson just as there’s no Suzanne taking Leonard down to her place near the river.

You either like this sort of music or you don’t. I was neither for nor against it until I heard N-Trance’s ‘Set you free’ all those years ago (written in a house just down the road from me) and realised what a buzz it can give you, whether you are in the club or slumbering in your armchair. At its best it is some of the most stimulating music around.

And you won’t be slumbering for long when the bass notes from ‘Liquify’ come drilling through your skull I’ll have you know.

It’s a subtle piece too in the way it becomes ever so Jean-Michel Jarre-like in places while elsewhere there are shades of Irya Gmeyner’s ‘Urban City’.

What do you think?

‘Liquify’ was released on the Ninetone label, from Sundsvall in central Sweden.

Find him on:

Label website: https://www.ninetone.com/artists/leonard_hanson

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leonard.hanson.7564

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leonardhansons/