The sun is shining and it’s looking like it’s going to a lovely weekend. So what better than a bit of fun to make the rest of the working day go just a little bit quicker…

This weeks Fripperies On Friday is powered by some of the new technology that is being developed in the US by Echo Nest, who will be powering Spotify’s new music recommendation service when it launches later this year.

mycowbell.dj allows you to add both a cowbell AND Christopher Walken to any MP3 you have on your computer! The idea was inspired by a legendary Saturday Night Live sketch that featured Walken and a rather hairy Will Ferrell who adds rather too much cowbell to Blue Oyster Cult’s classic ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’.

You can check out how it coped with Pilooski’s remix of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons ‘The Night’ by clicking here, then have a crack at making your own track

Have a good weekend…

Be it Dubai or Mumbai, London or Lisbon, citizensound is excited to find that more and more brands are investing in the power of the senses as part of the consumer experience. The old one dimensional approach to sensory marketing is moving out of the mainstream into the background, being replaced by strategies that consider a multitude of senses.

For most musicians it is their SOUND that is the core of their communication, though for a few ‘musicians’ it might be more about how they look rather than how they sound!

The VISUAL has always gone hand in hand with sound. From the astonishing performances of Mozart to the Sgt Peppers album cover, from MTV to recent mashups.

An example of this came to me at our NOTWORK night last week. I met Rob, otherwise known as O Yuki Conjugate. He shared this with me…

This was beautiful to look at. But it didn’t stop there.

When you TOUCH the CD, you realise that this is art, not a CD. The tiled front cover is a wonderful tactile experience.

The album is called The Euphoria of Disobedience.

I showed it to people at NOTWORK and in Lisbon last week, and after the initial positive comments, the inevitable question got asked…

Great, but how does it sound?

This is where TASTE comes in. I leave it to you to listen to and decide for yourselves. However, I think it lives up to the rest of the experience. Wonderful.

Why do I share this with you?

Three things for Brands and musicians to consider:

1. If you want people to sample your wares, then work hard to draw people in - Don’t expect people to come to you.
2. Get noticed by exploring ALL of the senses, not just one.
3. Make sure you deliver on the promise.

We love sharing music, and as a special early Christmas gift we thought we’d give everyone access to our latest “It All Ad’s Up” podcast, which we put together on a regular basis for our friends who are responsible for music syncs in advertising agencies across the world. The aim of the podcast is to share with them some of the great new music that is tickling our fancies at the moment, but also some to highlight some of the musical treasures that make up our record collections.

We launched soundsearch our bespoke music search and licensing service back in March 2008, and it has been going great guns.

We’d like to think that a lot of our success is down to providing something that is bit different from a lot of the other music search companies out there. Our recommendation are based on over 40 years of hands-on experience in the music business and some truly fanatical record collecting, and not some fancy computerised system. And with our A&R hat on we are always on the look out for new and interesting that is under the radar or yet to be signed to a record label. So some of the tracks included on the podcast are receiving a premier here.

So we hope you enjoy listening to the music of… Fujiya & Miyagi, El Guincho, Jonquil, Dragons, 4 Hero, Lykke Li, She & Him, Richard Swift, Findlay Brown, Marla Hansen, Sia, Erin McKeown, Son Of Dave, V.V. Brown, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Quiet Village, Amon Tobin, Department of Eagles, Tom Middleton, Robert Logan, Buraka Som Sistema, Operator Please, The Mummers, Efterklang, Alison Statton & Spike, Allá, Bellaruche, DJ Day and Locust…

So without further ado here’s the music…

To listen now:

To download the podcast:

Saw Jose James at the Jazz Cafe recently.

So many reasons to thank Gilles Peterson for introducing me to so much great music over the years, and Jose James is one of them.

Already raved about him in the past, but his gig at Jazz Cafe earlier this week was truly phenomenal. The incredible jazz voice fused with hip hop phrasings. Vintage and very fresh at the same time.

Make sure you catch him the next time he plays in London at the Brainfeeder festival on the 14th June. The festival will be headlined by new Warp signing Flying Lotus, check out his myspace page for some fantastic instrumental hip-hop, including a backing track he’s produced for Jose. You can find out more about the Brainfeeder event on the Warp records site, who are co-promoting the event.

citizensound bumped into Steve King recently, and he kindly gave us his five recommendations. Some classic choices in this list, along with a surprise or two from the Global CEO of Zenith Optimedia!

Thanks Steve. 

1    Favourite album at the moment?
The Clash - London Calling. Of current albums probably Mark Ronson latest mix.

2. A song that always makes you smile?
Bob Marley - Redemption Song

3. Favourite recent gig?
Spice Girls at The 02! Took my daughters and actually enjoyed the show. Also saw Rolling Stones at same venue few weeks before - probably best I've seen them play.

4. Song you couldn't resist singing or humming along to loudly, even  though you're wearing your headphones?
American Pie. Don Mclean - played endlessly on long family car journeys.

5. Greatest party record of all time? Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye - only because I'm such a naturally good disco dancer.

Met up with Wayne Arnold recently, who provided me with these recommendations

 1. Favourite album at the moment?
The Hours - Narcissus Road.

“With lines like " I can understand how someone can go over to the dark side cause the devil he's got all the tunes" you can’t go wrong!” says Wayne

2. A song that always makes you smile?

AC/DC - Back in Black

“Great guitar intro and completely pointless and incomprehensible lyrics”

3. Favourite recent gig?

The Sunshine Underground. “Brilliant songs and loads of energy”

4. Song you couldn't resist singing or humming along to loudly, even though you're wearing your headphones?

I dare anyone from our music generation to listen to Oasis classic - Don't Look Back in Anger and not hum along to that chorus”

5. Greatest party record of all time?

Steve Wonder – Superstition

“works for everything from a cool remix in a club to a cheesy wedding”

I saw Tawiah at the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards last week at Cargo in London. She completely blew me away. She has everything. A great band, well crafted songs, an amazing presence on stage, confidence unlimited (for a second performance no less!) and a voice that drifts from Carmun Lundy to reggae, back to Jill Scott and then to dubstep with Radiohead thrown in. This girl is London Town, but deserves to go global.

The music journalist Lloyd Bradley interviewed Jazzie B at In The City this year. Great conversation (see recent post).

I had to have a chat with Lloyd about how it was his fault I nearly went broke, thanks to him writing Bass Culture.

What a book. The definitive guide to reggae. You read it and spend your time writing down tunes you ‘need’ to have.

Near the end of his conversation with Jazzie B, he encouraged the audience to join him and Jazzie B in the DIY panel that Nick and I were running straight after theirs.

So two things to thank him for. The book and the promotion for our panel. Thanks Lloyd.

Saw these guys at In The City. Beautiful sounds floated around the venue, almost cinematic. And they used an ironing board on stage too - great music and practical…what a mix!

On top of that a name that defies logic: Tim and Sam’s Tim and The Sam Band with Tim and Sam

A great Keynote Panel at In the City, with Daniel Miller, founder of Mute Records. He was asked for his views on the future of the record industry given the recent news about Radiohead asking their fans to pay what they wish for their music and Madonna doing a deal with Live Nation. For Daniel, it felt like a return to the days of 30 years ago, when indie distribution was starting, giving an opportunity to those who had no industry background to put stuff out…be they artists or people like Tony Wilson (Factory) or Geoff Travis (Rough Trade). He stated that there has always been the opportunity for artists to do it themselves. For some reason though, he has seen many that decide not to go down the DIY route partly because

they want to have some money, have some support…international backup…they don’t want to run their own business.

With regards the record company, he stated that there will always be a role for some expertise such as A&R and marketing and promotion, whether it takes the form of a record company is another matter. Finally, he noted that the two key people in all of this are the artists making great music and the people who listen. This is the most important thing to focus on. Everything else is up for discussion.