Live from Caen: Interview with Radio Phénix (92.7 FM)

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Hello! Can you introduce yourselves? Who is behind the team at Radio Phénix? 

The association Radio Phénix was born ten years ago from a group of students who wanted to bring new sounds to the FM radio of Caen, France. Since 2008 we have been on 92.7 and we have around 2,000 listeners each day from the Caennaise agglomeration. 

We have two true employees at the radio, and about 40 volunteers each year.

Tell us about the music content, is it varied or do you follow specific styles in particular? 

The musical color of the radio goes from indie hip-hop to electronic, passing by pop and rock. It is varied but we try to keep a clear musical identity for the people who know Radio Phénix from the moment they hit us on the dial. We follow a lot of music blogs and certain labels, we see trends and watch how they morph over the years. We have integrated more electronic music for example. Our influences come from the volunteers as well, members of Concrete Knives or Superpoze or Fakear have come through here, and today they are on the rotation! 

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What is the spirit? Is it radio for the students, or is it students creating radio for a larger audience? 

The radio is animated in part by students and we are in the Radio Campus France network but our listeners are anywhere between 15-35 years old. People recognize the music and the young identity of the radio. We are ad-free and are far away from the top 40 that other radio stations put on repeat. We have more than 500 tracks that rotate in our playlist. 

Do you have any news for the end of the summer? 

We are working with a new communications agency “Murmure” and we are launching a new visual campaign, changing our logo, and working on a new website by the end of the year! 

Follow Radio Phénix on Whyd to keep up with this cutting-edge radio station! 

Stay Ahead of the Curve: Interview with AlbumStreams.com

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Hello! Can you introduce yourself? Who are you and where are you from? 

Hi! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to introduce my site. I’m Thomas from Cologne in Germany. I’m 34 years old and I’ve been blogging about music for - I think - a decade now. My first album ever what the Star Wars soundtrack (I know!) and when I’m not listening to music, I’m also composing a little myself (check out the independent projects Souls of Zen & Shangdown by Jakob Montrasio). 

Why did you create albumstream.com? Where did the idea come from? 

Oh man, I just love music and I listen to so much of it - no matter which genre. If I like it, it’s in the playlist - be it pop, rock, metal, hip hop or classical music. I’ve been running several music blogs for years now and the think I’ve always loved most is collecting streams of upcoming songs and albums to be able to listen to great new music before anyone else :D

But it takes time to browse all the awesome blogs and magazines out there, so I decided to start albumstreams.com and aggregate new and officially streaming music in a cool and nice looking format for everyone else to listen to very quickly - to spend less time searching and more time listening! I’ve always paid much attention to unknown bands as well and I just love giving newcomers a platform where they can exist just right next to a La Roux or Linkin’ Park stream. If a stream is submitted by an ambitious band, it’s in the chronological albumstreams.com timeline. It happens not rarely, that a band with 50 Facebook fans finds itself between Coldplay and Bon Iver. I love that! 

What types of music do you cover? Who should come and check out albumstreams.com? 

There is no limitation in genre. If you like pop, check out the pop section, if you like rock, head over to the rock section, and if you like movie soundtracks, be my guest in the soundtrack section. Great music needs to be heard and I just love to broaden my musical horizon and be surprised by sounds I haven’t expected a minute ago. You know that moment, when you’re just utterly stunned by something, that triggers something in your hear that you don’t understand, when you just let that moment take control of you and you can’t breathe anymore? Music still does that to me even though I’ve already heard so much of it. I can’t live without it and I can’t risk to leave out a genre and miss any of these moments. 

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What are your plans for the rest of the year? Anything we can look forward to? 

First of all, you can look forward to great new music, I guess! But in terms of albumstreams.com I’m planning to launch the possibility to log in and save a stream into your personal profile and keep track of the artist. I talked to some fans and they really miss this possibility. You listen to a great track or album, which comes out 4 weeks later and maybe you forget about it in the meantime. This must not happen and my mission is to make this pain go away. I would also like to see, that the cover art of an album gathers more attention. I collect vinyl and I love checking out the huge covers in detail. It’s part of the art and it must be recognized as such even in the days of streaming. 

Thank you Thomas! Like albumstreams.com on Facebook and get to their Whyd page to find your next favorite song! 

Meet The Super Talented Hollie Cook [PODCAST]

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Some of the best music for summertime listening is inspired by the place where heat comes from: the tropics. The sounds of reggae - the positivity, the beat that can move stone - are infectious. Couple that with a voice that could break through clouds like sun rays from God and you have Hollie Cook, who is taking over the world with her new album “Twice.” We had the pleasure of sitting down with her at Internationale Records in Paris. Enjoy hearing her story, intertwined with some of the hottest tracks off her new album, and listen to a her special Whyd playlist, created exclusively for us! 

 

Devoted To Pop: Interview with Bastien Rayno

Hello Bastien! Where are you from originally and what was your first experience with music? 

Hi guys, I am from Paris. I had my first experience with music via cinema, which to this day is still a big passion of mine. When I was very young I wanted to make it my job. I grew up on films and trailers and I compiled the songs that came with them. Then I would listen to this catalogue of artists on repeat and imagine the scenes or atmospheres for my next videos. For me it was impossible envision without the help of music. 

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Ohno? Oh Yes! Hip Hop Instrumentals & Samples From Angers

Hello! Tell us about yourself, where are you from and who is Ohno? 

Hey guys, I’m Louis, soon to be 21, currently living in Angers, France doing my studies in graphic design but I’m originally from Cholet (not too far away). Ohno is my musical alter-ego, a secret passion that caused me to start producing sounds about a year ago. Then I started meeting people in the Angers music scene, like Spectateur who pushed me to continue improving with his help, I also developed connections to the hip-hop collective Label Collection, and with Pepso Stavinsky, Remington group, Jay Bentham and another electro beat maker from Angers: Wander. 

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Francisco Navarro Presents Club Etiqueta Negra

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This interview is translated to English from Spanish. 

Tell us about yourself, where are you from?

My name is Francisco Navarro, I direct and present a radio program called Club Etiqueta Negra dedicated to Black Music (Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, Soul, Jazz…) in Spain. It was started in 2002. The program is broadcast across different radio stations in cities around Spain (Barcelona, Zaragoza, Mallorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Badalona and Vitoria-Gasteiz). It can also be found online at www.rockolafm.es

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Up On The Rooftops Horizon: Emerging Music From Around The World

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Hello guys! Tell us about yourselves? Why did you decide to create a record label? 

Hello Whyd! I’m Yassine-Elie, the co-founder of Rooftops Horizon. I’m a 21 year old law student from Paris. I’m an old producer, always fascinated by music. 

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Hey! I’m Louis, 22, co-founder of Rootfops Horizon. I’m currently learning at Louis Vuitton to go into a career in communications. I’m also fascinated by music, I wrote for different music blogs and I’m currently part of the growing blog FraisFrais. So music is definitely my daily shit! 

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We wanted to start a music label to bring something new to the French electronic scene. We’re focusing on promoting some hidden, talented artists from around the world who deserve more followers. We can’t say we are getting caught by trends, as a lot of people we obviously love trending artists like Shlohmo, Druid Cloak, or Arnold MOD but we listen to everything, and we think that is the great way to build a music label. 

We’re trying to create a strong structure, a music label with strong partners to promote the artists we sign in the best way. 

We would also like to thank the Paris-based law firm Avocat Saint-Georges that help us with our contracts!

What is the purpose? What can we expect for this year? 

2014 is probably the year for Rooftops Horizon. We’re in touch with some great renowned artists like salute, Noï, or Clu, and some other cool guys that we would prefer to keep secret at the moment. We are really focusing on promoting some hidden artists, and we put out a “release pack” including 4-5 tracks we are not sure for the moment. And, we’re in touch with some great collectives to launch our first party. 

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Who are your artists? 

We currently have four: DJYEN, YYOIY, TIGERZ, and ADRIEN DE VALENTIN. As you can see they are not from the same country, DJ Yen is from Japan, YYIOY from Spain and the last two from France. You can also see that we are not getting caught by a kind of music, we just want to release what we love. 

We think that it’s not a great thing to only see the artists where you come from. We spotted DJ Yen a long time ago when we were at the very beginning and we were hesitant to launch the first release from a country like Japan. Will French listeners give a listen to this? There were so many questions. But today we are really proud of how diverse our releases are. 

DJ Yen: Sapporo-based producer who loves the Jersey Club and becoming increasingly famous day after day: 

YYIOY: A talented producer from Spain who has his own brand called “Shoop Clothing,” and has done some great collaborations like Pixelord and was already spotted by Earmilk. 

TIGERZ is the revelation for 2014. This unknown French dude is definitely the kind of guy we want to promote. He’s reaching a lot of followers daily and is currently our most-played artist. 

ADRIEN DE VALENTIN is someone who we’ve followed since about a year ago, and we were really surprised by the skill in his tracks, so it was natural that we had to propose to work with him! 

Did you already have any events? 

For the moment, we’re still organizing our base. We have some great proposals and we will definitely take advantage of them. As we said, we have some parties planned which we will do in partnership but we prefer to keep the details secret for the moment and not ruin the surprise! 

We wouldn’t want that! Subscribe to Rooftops Horizon on Whyd to keep up with their latest discoveries. 

Tadasu Naito Embodies The Whyd Spirit

The Whyd family is getting quite large, and as we saw from yesterday’s post, very global. There are people that have joined our community from nearly every country in the world. Today, we take a look at one of those people: Tadasu Naito

Tadasu has been with Whyd for a while, diligently sharing some awesome music (you have to check out his unique playlists). He is up to almost 750 tracks added, putting him in the top 5% of curators on Whyd. But more amazingly, he has amassed 928 subscribers, a truly impressive accomplishment and a warm reminder that this whole social network thing is starting to take effect!

Tadasu lives in Kawasaki, Japan, between Tokyo and Yokohama. He works in the IT department of a logistics company, and jams out to great music. His current favorites include: Tycho - “Awake" (a former Whyd track of the weekend); RC & Cohen - “Move" (ft. Madeon, Matthew Koma, Miriam Bryant & Zedd); Tei Shi - "Nevermind the End;” Fickle Friends - “Swim;” and Avec Sans - “Shiver.”

Looking forward to many, many more excellent tracks, thanks Tadasu!  

Victor Milchberg, Artistic Director at 3eme Bureau, Explains Music Management and Artists We Should Listen To

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Hello Victor! How are you? Can you tell us about why music has such a big importance in your life? 

Well…why is music important in my life? I could not justify it, for me it’s a reflex: between the moment when I rise and the moment when I go to sleep, I listen to music, whether it’s for my pleasure, which I’ve always done, or since 7 years ago, for my job. There is not precise reason, but there is something close to a vital need. If I don’t listen to music, because sometimes we need to take a break to avoid an overdose, I will always have something playing in my head. 

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3eme Bureau represents artists (known and unknown) in France. What do you do there exactly? 

3eme Bureau represents lesser known artists more than anything else, but all have signed as artists in development. 

I am the artistic director, which means that I take care of the executive production of albums from artists that have signed a contract (which means that we produce it, to distinguish between those that have a license). The executive production consists of managing the budget of the production. 

The artistic direction consists of choosing artists that we are going to sign (talent scouting is a big part) to help the artist find a director who will help them to make their album when it’s necessary, to help them in the choice of tracks to record, and to accompany them in their creative process. 

Pony Pony Run Run, Orelsan, these are some big names, what does 3eme Bureau do differently between your big artists and your smaller ones?

There really ins’t a difference between that which we do for the small or big artists, we work with them in the same way, it’s just the middle men that change sometimes (it’s not necessarily the same radio stations who play them, the same media that talk about them, the same TV shows that invite them…).

What are you expecting in 2014? Are you looking for new talent? Or other things? 

For 2014, we are really excited about the album of Natas Loves You, hoping that it will reach the largest audience possible. It’s a disc that the group recorded last year with Chris Zane, the director of albums from Passion Pit, Holly Ghosts! etc…

And I’m expecting a lot from our artists who are going to work on their next albums, like the one from Joe Bel that we recently signed. And I hope to continue to find amazing tracks to continue to build our catalogue. 

Subscribe to Victor on Whyd to keep up with his latest favorite tracks!