Let me break that down for you.

Jon Hopkins according to Wikipedia:

Jon Hopkins is a British musician who writes and performs his own music, melody-led electronica. He was born and brought up in London and started playing the piano when he was five. By the age of twelve he was studying piano at London’s Royal College of Music. He has worked with Coldplay, Imogen Heap, King Creosote, David Holmes, Massive Attack, Chris Coco and Brian Eno, amongst many others.

And what’s so significant about Kings Place, Hall One, again let me leave this up to Wikipedia:

Hall One, the main concert hall is a building within a building – a box that sits on rubber springs to give it complete acoustic separation from the rest of the building.

It is built to the regular shoebox geometry – a double cube – that is considered most successful for small concert halls. Structural columns around the hall are set away from the walls to allow curtains to be drawn between the columns and the walls to modify the acoustic for speech or amplified music.

Combine those two elements and you have a jaw dropping live performance, but combine that electronica with beautiful piano compositions, Davide Rossi, a hugely talented violinist and Leo Abrahams an equally impressive guitarist and you have arrived at audio utopia.

The sort of thing you can expect from Jon Hopkins (recorded at the ICA in London earlier this year). Every beat he produces is mixed live in front of you:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If Jon Hopkins is ever touring your town or city make sure you book tickets! He’ll take you on an emotional rollercoaster through aggressive heavy beats to the most tranquil of melodies.

Want to hear something a little more soothing perhaps, turn it up real loud, sit back and enjoy.

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Sound familiar?

Who’s Joshua Radin? Most asked that when I told people I was going.

He is a singer-songwriter from Ohio, America who’s music has been described as folk rock and acoustic. You might recognize his music from Scrubs? Zach Braff seems to love his music as not only does he feature it on Scrubs, but his movies Garden State and Last Kiss.

Anyways, my wife and I love his tunes, we even had one of his songs “Lovely Tonight” as our wedding song – performed by our mate Andrew Schär

The gig was a sell out with us on the fourth tier of this majestic theatre. Radin was obviously quite amazed that he managed to sell out this historical theatre and quite dumbfounded how many followers he had in the UK. Needless to say he really enjoyed himself on stage making it an awesome performance for us the audience.

In between songs he’d tell humourous stories about his ex-girlfriends, take photos of the crowd, and then he even performed a couple of his songs unplugged – taking a good few steps back from the microphone and relying on the awesome acoustics of the theatre and the appreciative, silent crowd.

It was a great gig. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos and can’t seem to find any, but here’s a couple of his songs for you to enjoy.

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A rather folk version of one of my favourite songs – “Growing up to do”

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“Winter”

Emmanuel Jal was born in war-torn Sudan, and while he doesn’t know exactly when, he believes it was in the early 1980s. He was taken from his family home in 1987 when he was six or seven years old, and sent to fight with the rebel army in Sudan’s bloody civil war. For nearly five years, he was a “child warrior,” put into battle carrying an AK-47 that was taller than he was.

By the time he was 13, he was a veteran of two civil wars and had seen hundreds of his fellow child soldiers reduced to taking unspeakable measures as they struggled to survive on the killing fields of Southern Sudan. After a series of harrowing events, he was rescued by a British aid worker (Emma McCune) who smuggled him into Nairobi to raise him as her own.

McCune died in a road accident a few months later, but her friends helped Emmanuel to continue his studies. To help ease the pain of all that he had experienced Emmanuel started singing and music became his weapon of choice.

His music has since taken him around the world, performing at events like Madiba’s 46664 concert and Live8, alongside artists like Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox, Damien Marley, Razorlight, Supergrass, amongst many others.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Emmanuel Jal’s official video for Youtube – listen to the lyrics!

Emmanuel Jal presence is captivating and if he is ever in your city I strongly recommend you go see him. If you can’t wait till then, buy his music, autobiography or documentary dvd.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Emma – dedicated to the woman who saved Emmanuel’s life

Courtesy of a link from SA Rocks this afternoon I discovered their latest music video for “Soundtracks and Comebacks”, animated by Mike Scott of Bru and Boegie.

I used to visit Bru and Boegie almost daily and then, all of a sudden, somehow managed to completely forget about the site. After seeing what Mike has been up to animating music videos, winning t-shirt design contests and even developing a new kids show, I am hugely impressed. Great to see him getting recognized and growing from strength to strength. I’ve most certainly bookmarked the site now.

Judge his amazing illustration and animation skills for yourself, all the while listening to pure aural bliss.