It’s been a perfect chillout weekend. Most of the time the only music was the wind and sound of waves. And right at the end of it, while enjoying the last cup of coffee there was this track which seemed to fit right in. And so it becomes the song of the week :)

Enjoy Club des Belugas – Floating on Air below

Byron is an artist I followed since about ten years ago, since he was playing with Kumm and Urma. Since 2006 he started the byron project and they released four albums so far. This year they are releasing their fifth, and this is special :).

“Live Underground” is a DVD that was filmed with the band playing live in the Turda salt mine. This is one of the most famous salt mines in Romania, a popular touristic place and a location considered to have great acoustics. Dan, the lead singer of byron, recently gave an interview where he explained in more detail how the show was filmed – it’s quite interesting and you can find it here (Romanian version only).

For their album release, which is going to happen of 3rd of May in Silver Church in Bucharest, the band asked the bloggers to imagine and propose a scenario to record a video for one of the band’s songs. So I thought of two of them, both of them related to the salt mine – even though I’m not so sure the guys will want to go back there :)

- first of all, I think the Zeitgeist song would fit great. The salt mine gives the impresion of a labirinth and can easily serve as setting for a prison, work camp or such. It would be a powerful video for Zeitgeist to simulate the manipulations and some of the oppresions typical for a work camp, some of them relating with the lyrics of Zeitgeist. Listen to the song for yourselves below

- another song, which I am quite fond of, is Ochii Tai. Listening to this and picturing the band playing it in the salt mine, one of the video ideas I thought of was the a boy, chasing a girl in the dark, seeing only her eyes. As I said before, the salt mine looks like a labirinth, so again the setting is there. This is one of the very few songs the band sings in Romanian and I think it deserves a video of its own :). The song is below.

What do you think? Which byron song would you like to see in a video and what would be the scenario?

P.S. Find more about byron on their website or on facebook.

Since it’s Sunday, let’s take a while, sit back, relax and enojy the “swing” below.

For a chillout mood: Malvina Reynolds – Little Boxes. Enjoy it below!

Continuing the Romanian music series, today we introduce Butterflies In My Stomach. The band formed in 2005 and they participated in all the major music festivals in Romania, being quite popular for their live performances. So far, they only released one album – Magic Store. In 2011 Maca, the vocalist, left the band to form Yellow Project and Catrinel Bejenariu joined the band.

The first song to share, specially for its fresh sound, is one they sing in Romanian – Lucrurile bune vin daca le astepti.

The second one is in English and gives their album’s title – Magic Store.

Hope you enjoy at least one of them :)

Well, it’s been a while since writing, mostly due to travel…

But here it is, with an all time favourite – The Cat Empire – The Lost Song (live):

I’ve heard this song first time on last year’s snowboard trip and I liked it ever since. Hindi Zahra – Imik Si Mik.

The title of the song translates as “little by little”.

Electric Brother is one of the top rated Nu-Jazz / Chill-Out artists in Romania. Since more than 10 years he had numerous collaborations with various artists and has recently released his second solo album, called Pe Pamant.

Even though his solo tracks are not very well promoted, the album is definetely worth buying (from electricbrother.ro). And to get a feeling of it, here is Tommorow.

In the last couple of years I’ve found some really good jazz / blues singers and few of them come from France. I’ve always had a weekness for French “chansons” despite my lack of French language knowledge :).

One of the singers I really like is Zaz, who started her career about two years ago and became one of the most aknowledged new voices in France. Her style, “gypsy jazz” as she described it, falls somewhere between jazz and pop, usually having a good rhythm, with simple instrumentals and a most remarkable voice. It’s the kind of music you expect to hear in a French cafe, while sipping a latte :)

Probably one of her best known songs is Le Long De La Route, from her first album, released in 2010. You can buy the album on Amazon and below you can listen to Le Long de la Route. Looking forward to your views on Zaz!

Finding nice music can occur in the most awkward of circumstances – in the taxi, on the street, on the slope or on a plane. The latter happened some days ago when I was reading in that “complimentary copy” magazine an artist with quite a strange name – Rebekka Bakken.

She is a Norvegian artist and composer playing some relaxing and mostly vocal jazz, which sounds quite nice. The voice is not amazing, but a more relaxing and mature one. What is more pleasant maybe might be the instrumentation of her songs, very nicely put together.

Another strange thing is that I think most of the new jazz female players I come across lately are extremely good looking, and Rebekka is exactly the case. Check out her pictures on www.rebekkabakken.com. Also, on her website you can listen to her songs for free – no downloading though.