May 2013
16 posts
6 tags
Jacques Greene - On Your Side (ft. How To Dress...
As soon as it became clear to me that Jacques Greene and How To Dress Well did a collaboration, I knew it would be perfect. Altough Jacques Greene is from Canada, his music really has a London-feeling. His productions truly have the UK two-step feeling, and definitely make you feel like dancing. Less cheery and danceable is How To Dress Well’s music. His music is – despite his small...
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Jamie Cullum - Momentum
Earlier I declared my love for Jamie Cullum’s album ‘Catching Tales’. The sweet calmness of the sound can still get me to shut up and listen. Signs were that for his fifth album ‘Momentum’, Cullum was quite done with being ‘that jazzy guy with the piano’. The collaboration with Roots Manuva wasn’t overwhelming, but certainly showed another side of Jamie Cullum. This Monday, ‘Momentum’...
7 tags
Video: Lightning Dust - Diamond
Sometimes you discover artists that have been around for ages and you feel stupid for not having found out about them earlier. This happened to me with Michael Jackson. No, I’m kidding. But it happened to me with Lightning Dust today and by what I’ve heard so far it’s too bad I hadn’t found out earlier. On the other hand, I have lots of new music to listen to now. The song that made me discover...
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14th - Tina Moore vs Indo
The past few days had been pretty scarce in music if you ask me, besides the Mount Kimbie album stream and Kanye West’s head up on 66 walls: nothing too interesting seemed to have happened. Until I found this. AlunaGeorge have already proved that a good singer and a good producer forming a duo together isn’t strange, on the contrary: them teaming up together, thus without the focus being on either...
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Kanye West - New Slaves
Last week, Kanye West embarrassed himself by bouncing his head against a traffic sign while being filmed. Kanye has many talents and qualities, but something he doesn’t own, is a self-deprecating sense of humor. Kanye doesn’t like to see himself humiliated. Now he strikes back; his beloved head which he bounced before against the traffic sign, now appeared projected at 66 buildings...
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Mount Kimbie - You Took Your Time (ft. King Krule)
I will be honest with you; I am a huge fanboy of King Krule. He really is one of my favorite artists around: every time something new is released by Krule, I get excited like never before. To me, he is the absolute king of pronunciation; the way he mumbles and sings his mysterious lyrics are reason enough for me to become excited. The reviews about his latest Edgar The Beatmaker project were...
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Mayer Hawthorne - Her Favorite Song
A few weeks back Mayer Hawthorne, one of 200 Words favourite soul singers, released Designer Drug, an uplifting and cute tune with impressive production that sounded like nothing Hawthorne had done before. On his first album the production was simple and old-fashioned - in a good way - , the arrangements were beautiful and Hawthorne’s voice fitted on top of that beautifully, his second album was...
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Video: London Grammar - Wasting My Young Years
London Grammar are often hailed as ‘the new xx’. I can imagine why people compare London Grammar with The xx, but there are as many differences as similarities. It’s probably the production that reminds people of The xx in a certain way; the guitar- and bass play show similarity, especially in Wasting My Young Years. One of the main differences though is the kind of classical sound London Grammar...
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Album review: Daft Punk - Random Acces Memories
It took me quite a while to get into Daft Punk’s new single Get Lucky. At first I didn’t think it was that interesting, but after some time it made me realize that the new Daft Punk album didn’t need to be revolutionary to be fun to listen to. I was curious about the album, but as I’m not a diehard DP-fan, the extensive promotion for ‘Random Acces Memories’ didn’t do much for me. It became a...
8 tags
BANKS - Warm Water (prod. Totally Enormous Extinct...
Hooray, the Daft Punk album has leaked. Now it won’t take too long before everybody stops talking about it and we just go on as normal and write about new music, instead of getting hyped for weeks for an album that now can only disappoint. One of the new musics (no, music has no plural, I know) I was talking about is this one: Warm Water by BANKS, a song that has me feeling like warm water does...
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Album review: Vampire Weekend - 'Modern Vampires...
If you read our latest article on Vampire Weekend, about the first two singles of this album Step and Diane Young, you might already know how excited I was for ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’. Vampire Weekend’s first album is among my favourite indie albums of all time, then they released their second album ‘Contra’, an album that didn’t quite do it for me, and now they’re back with their third...
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The Child of Lov - The Child of Lov
Internationally seen we – inhabitants of the Netherlands - don’t have many influential Dutch musicians in an international context. All of a sudden there was The Child Of Lov; after having two tracks released and still being anonymous people began wondering who this guy was. The two tracks spoke for itself; they were fashionable, hip and mysterious. After winning an NME-award the mystery was...
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Le Le - Eyes Closed
Le Le is probably the most striking collective of Dutch music. It consists of De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig member Pepijn Lanen, electro DJ Rimer London and graphic artist Piet Parra. They came in the picture with their first albums ‘Flage’ and ‘Party Time’, on which they experimented with different house flavors smeared with remarkable lyrics in Dutch, French, German and...
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Ghostpoet - Some Say I So I Say Light
In a sense Ghostpoet’s debut ‘Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam’ was stunning. Ghostpoet presented an intense, dark and slow London-vibe. The album wasn’t an easy listen at all. The beats were misty and subdued, while Ghostpoet’s ‘rapping’ feels like a wave of spontanity; a direct reflection of what goes on in his brain. It feels dreamy and confusing, but his London-tongued voice is...
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Chance The Rapper - Acid Rap
‘Acid Rap’ opens with the words “Even better than I was the last time” and not a single letter in that sentence is lied. Though as jaunty and juvenile as always, Chance The Rapper really manages to impress with his second mixtape. Ever since the sun found his way to Amsterdam (only a few days ago) I’m pumping his tracks through my speakers and it brings me the same joy as some early...
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Clams Casino - Bookfiend (ft. MF Doom)
Clams Casino is a producer in demand; since he produced a big part of A$AP Rocky’s debut his beats became famous for it’s dreamy ‘purple’ vibe. Actually, Clams Casino made Rocky’s sound for a big part, but his instrumental tapes are also beloved. He proved himself more than a submissive beat maker, and confirmed that his beats were special themselves. The only thing that still missed was a...
April 2013
20 posts
5 tags
Tropics - Home & Consonance
Actually, I’m not too familiar with Tropics; I don’t know much about him and his music. Except that he is a Londoner and released a debut album that many compared to Caribou’s ‘Odessa’. I didn’t even listen to this album, but the rumors around his free listenable upcoming EP ‘Home & Consonance’ made me curious. I listened tabula rasa, and was...
6 tags
Quasimoto - Planned Attack
Madlib is a well respected and phenomenal producer in many ways; he collaborated with likes of Erykah Badu, J Dilla, Mos Def, and so on, but also released several quality instrumental albums. Besides being a great producer, he is a rapper too. But he doesn’t like his own rapping that much. To me, Madlib is a loveable MC. His timing is always a little bit off and his flow is lazy. Despite his...
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Backstreet Boys - Show Me The Meaning Of Being...
I have this weakness for artists that can’t help but not taking themselves serious. Ryan Hemsworth is one of those guys that showed great talent, with his particularly great remixes of Frank Ocean’s Thinking Bout You and Grimes’ Genesis, but he refuses to take part in his own hype and doesn’t seem to like to emphasize his critic-attributed promise. Lacking any form of pretention, his latest feat...
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Lianne La Havas - Elusive (fLako remix)
Lianne La Havas has almost everything a good and young artist needs. She is beautiful, has a special voice, is a great acoustic performer and released a quite popular debut album. Her live performances are superb; especially her solo appearances are very impressive. Just Lianne and her guitar, she actually doesn’t need anything else. That’s why many people also didn’t like her popular debut...
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Video: SOHN - Bloodflows
One of the most rewarding things for me as a music enthusiast is to discover artists that very few have heard of. Over 6 months ago I discovered SOHN and wrote about him on this very blog. I wrote about his track Warnings and back then almost no one had heard of him and he was surrounded with mystery: in August we knew nothing about his identity and all we could do was speculate. Now, half a year...
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Daft Punk - Get Lucky (feat. Pharrel & Nile...
At first I was planning to write a piece about this song, but focusing on how - to me - the hype killed Daft Punk’s next album. Now I still believe that that is the case: doing your launch event in a stupid little town in Australia, doing countless strange leaks, strange loops suggested to be songs, are in my opinion a little too much, though the public is partially to blame. Then I decided that...
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Sivu - Bodies
Sivu is one of those artist who caught our attention since he released his first single. His single Better Man Than He was gorgeous; it was keen and thoughtful, a release that every upcoming artist would wish for. An almost perfect pop song. Since Better Man Than He appeared, we constantly kept an eye on Sivu. Now his second single titled Bodies appeared, and Sivu doesn’t disappoint. The...
9 tags
Thundercat - Heartbreaks + Setbacks
L.A. is a magic place. For the way it’s known worldwide and for a dozen other things, but one thing I always think about when someone mentions Los Angeles is all the musical talent that resides there, and mainly the talents at Brainfeeder. First it was mainly Flying Lotus, but since Brainfeeder’s success one of the talented guys that can be added to the list is Thundercat. In the beginning, he was...
4 tags
Josef Salvat - Hustler
One of the main points of 200 Words is not just to give you an overview to what music is released by artists we like, but also point you to music you might not find on other blogs or just music we have recently discovered. Among the artists that we have been keeping an eye on lately is Josef Salvat, a young London-based singer who has a great voice and seems to be surrounded by people and...
6 tags
Portugal. The Man - Purple Yellow Red And Blue
There was a time that I predicted that Portugal. The Man was one of the few North-American indie bands - alongside Local Natives, Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend - that would reach immense popularity. They had a melodic and similar sound; the lead singer had an authentic and recognizable voice and their music felt refreshing and energetic. But when push came to shove Portugal. The Man never...
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Album review: Jai Paul - 'Jai Paul'
A few months back I named Jai Paul’s Jasmine the best track of 2012, as it had everything that year was about in it for me. Now in 2013, completely unexpected, Jai Paul, an artist who has always surrounded himself with mystery, has suddenly uploaded 16 tracks to his Bandcamp, without track titles, or any information. Though I know nothing about the album’s history and where this came from, I know...
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TNGHT - Acrylics
The producer duo TNGHT has been one of the big successes of 2012. Their self-titled EP was well received and played in clubs all over the world. The two members, Hudson Mohawke and Lunice, achieved great fame, performed at the biggest venues and HudMo even produced a Kanye West track. But there isn’t any time to sit back and relax, 2013 has hardly begun and we can already listen to a new TNGHT...
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Mount Kimbie - Blood And Form
Mount Kimbie is part of what you’d name ‘the origin of post-dubstep‘ (excuse me for the awful terminology). On their debut album ‘Crooks & Lovers’ they kind of used the same rhythm structure and tempo as dubstep, but polished the sounds; they made it implicit and less exuberant. People probably labelled their music post-dubstep because Mount Kimbie is British and made electronic...
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - Hiding
I’m usually not fond of calling bands overlooked, cause - fortunately - bands that are overlooked by me aren’t overlooked by everyone and the fact that they find their way to my news feeds proves that they have been found by someone someway. One of the bands that I have found ‘ages ago’ - and am a giant fan of, but hasn’t made it’s way to the standard interest of many blogs is Dale Earnhardt Jr....
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Video: Chance The Rapper - NaNa
Though we all - we, the three writers of 200 Words - personally choose what we write about, we have many things in common, like taste in some cases. One thing we usually agree about is rappers, though we might not be equally enthusiastic, we all like the same kind of rappers: young, technically skilled and funny. One of my personal favourites is Chance The Rapper, who’s gearing up for the release...
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Album review: James Blake - 'Overgrown'
To me, James Blake is one of the biggest geniuses of the 21st century. He is one of those artists that creates genres instead of adopting them. His debut album was fantastic; the electronic, experimental music combined with the vulnerable singing was a perfect match and set the trend for many other electronic musicians. Now his second album ‘Overgrown’ is released. The main difference...
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Album review: Kurt Vile - Wakin' On A Pretty Daze
Sometimes not knowing an artist before listening to him or her, can make you obsolete, you tend to think: “Well I don’t know it yet, so I don’t like it.” Something slightly similar happened when I heard about Kurt Vile. I didn’t want to take the time to discover him, but I’m glad I did by listening to his most recent album; the first of him I heard, which actually is his fourth already. Usually...
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Jamie Cullum - Love For $ale (ft. Roots Manuva)
Jamie Cullum’s third album ‘Catching Tales’ was one of the few CDs I owned when I was twelve. Consequently I played it countless times and even now I can recite songs from beginning to end. Everything Cullum did after ‘Catching Tales’, couldn’t quite catch me though. Whether it’s a result of personal nostalgia or not, to me, that one album remained his best in that genre,...
6 tags
Mayer Hawthorne - Designer Drug
Original soul music requires pain and sorrow; it has to be drowned with emotions which give the singer the ability to thrill people. Of course white people also started making soul music, which was originally mainly made by Afro American artists, but it never covers deep emotions and pain which original soul music seemed to require. Blue eyed soul music needs to be cheesy in a way and Mayer...
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Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) - Black Jesus
Mos Def is one of the artists that became really successful while making less mainstream music and, contrary to others, almost never cycled the beaten path. Almost all of his albums were of a high level and very adventurous; discovering and fusing diverse genres. Even as an actor Mos Def is quite successful. Reasons enough to not change your name. But Mos Def changed his name. It’s Yasiin Bey now,...
March 2013
20 posts
7 tags
Album review: Vondelpark - 'Seabed'
I have a bad connotation with the name Vondelpark. Not because it’s named after Joost van den Vondel; one of Holland’s most famous poets of the 17th century. Actually I really dislike the park itself in the center of Amsterdam. It’s always too crowded, dirty and not relaxing after all. To me the park possesses all the characteristics that a park does not require. So, as an...
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Video: Denai Moore - Gone
You know you’re onto something good when a video has less than 1000 views on YouTube and is damn good. And I am this time. Though her name has been floating around blogs for a few months already - since the release of her debut single Flaws - I think Denai Moore will have the complete music world turning their heads with this song, and no, I’m not exaggerating. While her first single Flaws was a...
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Album review: Justin Timberlake - The 20/20...
I still don’t know what to think of Justin Timberlake’s musical comeback, ‘The 20/20 Experience’. Nevertheless, I have listened to the album so many times by now, that I can call it a work that deserves some serious attention.
In discussions on the length of the tracks on ‘20/20’ people often oversee the fact that JT also featured long tracks on his previous albums. It seems to be the work of...
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Video: Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines (ft. Pharrel &...
Back in 2006 Robin Thicke released his track Lost Without U and while I was still in puberty, or maybe it was before my puberty, I noticed the sensuality in the track and while I got older I kept hearing the track every once in a while and I still fall in love with Thicke’s falsettos every time. Now, after some sort of hiatus, Robin Thicke is back with another sensual track though the...
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Edgar The Beatmaker (King Krule) - Baby London /...
Mike Skinner changed my life in 2002 when he released ‘Original Pirate Material’. In my adolescence I felt strongly connected to the typical northern European music about boredom, smoking, watching television and drinking pints. After reaching my maturity, Mike Skinner stopped making music that mattered to me. But to me Archy Marshall (King Krule) keeps the torch burning that Mike...
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Vampire Weekend - Step / Diane Young
The band that delivered one of my favourite albums of 2007, Vampire Weekend, are gearing up for the release of their third album in a few months. They have been test driving the songs in the past few months, resulting in smartphone videos popping up on the internet, but now, finally, we get to hear songs that are actually going to be on the album in full form. Sharing two simple, but good looking...
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Chance The Rapper - Good Ass Intro (ft. BJ The...
It’s not the first time we write about Chance The Rapper; he is talented, beloved and productive. Reasons enough to write about him again. After Juice Chance drops another super soulful production, and again his energy level is incredibly high. It sounds a little bit cliché to compare Chance to Kanye in a certain way, but he has really got something of the positive energy Kanye had on his...
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Video: George Maple - Fixed
In this world we have created, where the internet is our main source for almost everything, it’s easy to overlook certain news, and in this case artists. In this case specifically: George Maple, a female singer from London, the city that seems to be an endless well for great talents. Though she has worked with Flume in the past and is said to be working with Bondax and Two Inch Punch, artists with...
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Concert review: Jamie Lidell in Paradiso
It must be hard being a Jamie Lidell-fan. All this shifting of genres, from soul to funk to pop, it makes it very hard to support everything the musician does. His concert in Paradiso last Wednesday was surprising, but made clear why Lidell should get his recognition as a stellar musician.
Probably lots of people came out for the blue-eyed soul singer and were confused to see only a futuristic...
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Earl Sweatshirt – Whoa (featuring Tyler, The...
After Tyler, The Creator returned with Domo 23 I was a little bit disappointed; the music video was funny but musically it wasn’t exciting at all. This time Odd Future’s enfant terrible Earl Sweatshirt returns with a new track and video featuring Tyler, The Creator. From the first second it is clear that Earl doesn’t disappoint, on the contrary. For those that were afraid that Earl...
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Justin Timberlake - Suit & Tie (Four Tet Remix)
It was both hard and exciting to imagine when it became clear that Four Tet remixed Justin Timberlake’s track Suit & Tie from his upcoming album called ‘The 20/20 Experience’, which is available for streaming already. The remix already floated around on several sites for a couple of days, but yesterday Four Tet officially released it on his SoundCloud ( and now it’s gone with the...
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Major Lazer - Jessica (ft. Ezra Koenig)
With Major Lazer’s second album ‘Free the Universe’ coming up the 15th of March, the fourth single Jessica is released. After working together with The Dirty Projectors, Dutch DJs The Flexican and FS Green, the creative collective is now supported by the wonderful voice of Ezra Koenig, the singer of Vampire Weekend. After touching different genres with the poppy Get Free and the loud club bangers...
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Video: AlunaGeorge - Attracting Flies
If you have been a fan of this blog you might know already, but I’m a big fan of AlunaGeorge. Not to say that every single song of theirs is perfect or anything, but every single song produced by George Reid and sung by Aluna Francis sounds more futuristic than the one before and than most off the songs out there. They are preparing for the release of their debut album ‘Body Music’...
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Coco Tour - Bathing In The Sun
In the Netherlands, Utrecht-born artist Faberyayo (Pepijn Lanen) is one of the big names in modern Dutch pop culture. He changed Dutch hip hop values with the prizewinning rap group De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, made French-house bangers with art collective LeLe, received great acclaim for his solo debut album ‘Coco’ and is just signed by Dutch publisher Lebowski to write his first book. The artistic...
