It was a lavish and huge festival. The Danube Island was populated by millions of people sweating to music, cabaret and performances. Sunday was our day. The large festival stage became the FM4 stage featuring a soulful and touching concert from Mavi Phonix, hit punchline following hit punchline from Eli Preiss, dungarees indie hip-hop-pop fusion from Sharktank and a captivating presence from Verified.
You can tell how it all sounded here in our program on the Danube Island Festival in the FM4 player Listen.
Maybe you spontaneously played a Sudoku game on each other’s backs before or following swimming, like our Soundpark Act of the Month, AZE, do here in June. The fantastic new single “Sudoku” was ours Sunday song.
After the Danube Island Festival is before the “Tschuschen Festival”. The rap siblings Esra and Enez Özmen alias EsRAP proclaim their Hood Ottakring “Chushistan” and also celebrate the release of their new album “Mamafih” on July 1st at Vienna’s Yppenplatz. You can see and hear how this can be done here of EsRAP’s live performance at an FM4 session.
By the way, Paul Pfleger has us for the balmy summer nights with his solo project Paul & Pets delivered a beautiful album. “Domestic Monastic‘ is a chilled soundtrack for those late-night barbecues and cocktail parties. And for the beautiful sunrises followingwards.
Otherwise there were a lot of fat beats and nice videos.
Dramas – „Fame“
Das Electropop-Duo Dramas is known to love opposites. Their very trendy and catchy songs often have dark or heavy content. It’s the same with the new song “Fame”. It’s regarding a bipolar personality and her struggle with her different sides. In and of itself, this song shouldn’t have had such a difficult subject as Viktoria Winter and Mario Wienerroither told us.
Only the production, in which a voice comes from the off and then gets louder and louder, gave the idea for the theme of the different personalities. It’s also a reflection on the fact that we all sometimes have different voices in our heads, like an angel and a devil, whispering their point of view to us. It’s a song that aims to reconcile us with all our different inner facets and celebrates the whole self. So the video is a loving homage to being a little crazy.
Sophie Lindinger – „Happy Pills“
With her latest EP “Longest Day Of My Life” has Sophie Lindinger von Leyya very courageously showed vulnerability by speaking openly regarding her depression. Sophie Lindinger, who also produces other Austrian artists such as Don’t Go, has now released her first solo number. It is a big step that has required courage and self-confidence once more. After all, the contents of Sophie Lindinger’s solo songs are so intimate that she didn’t want to put them in the hands of a band, as she told us.
The tender, calm and touching ballad deals with a certain hopelessness that one feels with such an illness. A song that poses the question of the meaning of life and yet doesn’t sound depressing. Just like Sophie often presented herself cheerfully on the outside, even if it looked completely different on the inside. Now the musician and singer lets us look deep into her soul once more.
Kitana – Viel“
rapper kitana and rapper Beloskoni were live at last Thursday FM4 Tribe Vibes guest. Not only have they showered each other with praise, but they’ve also rapped and introduced their new singles. Since the end of last year, the Viennese rapper has been inspiring audiences with her tracks that perfectly sum up moods, observations and statements. Her vision is clear: “I want to make it with the music.” If you listen to her new songs, that might work really well.
The track “Viel” makes it clearly audible what a good flow Kitana has and what talent and flair for lyrics she has. All the stress, the many friends, the many voices in the head, she manages to pack all of this into her rap to the fat beats of Hardy X & Melonoid while remaining very audible and accessible. It’s a very unique vibe when Beloskoni and Kitana transcend the sadness that is often shown and made audible and generate an energetic sound from it.
Philiam Shakesbeat x Osive – „King of Nothing“
The vocalist and rapper Philiam Shakesbeat has contacted the Viennese producer Osive have joined forces and present “King of Nothing”, the title track of their joint EP, which will be released in August. Critical of society and the system, at the same time with a lot of humor and not always taking themselves too seriously, the two produce on a fine line between seriousness and entertainment.
The “King of Nothing” can be heard as a super deep hip-hop number with a catchy refrain, but also as a critical description of our often turbo-capitalistic, superficial society. The fear of losing oneself in the void is countered by creative music making. The whole track is a coherent and trendy alternative to the popular monotony. Things simmer beneath the beautifully produced surface, and at the same time the two try to build a bridge to connect us, even if we disagree.
YATWA – „Parallel Lines“
A little lo-fi, a little indie guitar pop, a little pop and a lot of feeling. This is “Parallel Lines” by YATWA. The band from Vienna, previously known as You and the Whose Armies, not only reduce the letters in their band name, but also their musical landscape. Here the focus is on the rough, the immediate and unnecessary, production-technical superimposition is deleted.
This reduction and rawness also came from producer Mario Fartacek, who we know from Mynth and Good Wilson. All in all, “Parallel Lines” is a very harmonious, light-footed song with the necessary depth and funny New Wave borrowings that makes you want more.
Also good and good to know
- The rapper Donna Savage crusht the parties and the hearts of hip hop fans to the beats of Brenk Sinatra.
- Good things often come back like a boomerang. Especially with the band Karmic here comes one super pop song following the other. Also “Boomerang“ practices the magnetic attraction of catchy tunes.
- He has the W1ZEof the laid-back beats and laid-back flow associated with indie pop. “Lost“ is a great song on an international level.
- About the uncomfortable everyday things LIVING ROOM wrote a song. “Puch Monza‘ is cushioned in its musical and lyrical harshness by humorous language images and funny synth melodies. After all, it’s also kind of a love song.
Serve in this weekly column Lisa Schneider and Andreas Gstettner-Brugger musical appetizers from Austria. New bands and songs, videos and concert highlights across the stylish vegetable garden.
- Producer has soft, swinging beats and chanson flair Waldeck has been in his songs for a good two decades now and releases electronic-lounge music on his label Dope Noir. With “Kiss Me Kitty Cat“ he presents a new single, which is carried by summery vibes and trumpets and the voice of singer Zeebee.
- ATZUR have packed the energy and power to pursue their own dreams into a new song. “A Kiss On The Lips” is a pop piece regarding the happiness of being very close to the fulfillment of a great wish.
- „Backer Miller Pink“ is a funky indie synth pop piece by the Viennese singer and artist Sofie Royer. It was released on the legendary Stones Through label.
- He loves the lo-fi aesthetic, you can hear that very clearly right at the beginning of the new single “In The Summer“ von Florian Horwath. And so it remains a faded love song regarding the sun, summer and the people you love, sounding from afar.
- It definitely sounds a bit smoother and more polished “It’s Like Magic“ von Lex Candy. For some, perhaps a pop music sugar shock. For others a positive summer number.
- I love her song”Too bad jam“. Have now jakuba & keeplove released a sequel. The tender, lovingly produced and beautifully soothing “force of habit‘ is balm for the soul and motivates us to ‘make collecting our wrinkles exciting’.
- The new music project makes a trip to the beach in a suit and wrapped in new-wave electro-pop Tarascan with her single “Trip“.
- Last Thursday at FM4 Soundpark I introduced you to his solo debut with Paul Pfleger aka Paul & Pets. In addition, Verified asked Lisa Schneider for an interview on the occasion of the Danube Island Festival, and Eli Preiss as well as Dramas presented their new singles to us.
- In the FM4 Soundpark on Sunday night, Stefan Trischler presented you not only with the latest singles from Austria, but also with our Soundpark Act of the Month, AZE, and talked to Eli Preiss regarding her new album.