Sound of Friday pt. III

This weeks post will be a short one, because of the Roskilde Festival going on right now!!
So you will get some of my "Sound of Friday". Please enjoy!

1. The Old School:  Chinese Man – I’ve Got That Tune

2. The Legendary: Lana del Rey – National Anthem

3. The Electronic: SBTRKT – Wildfire

4. The Soundtrack: Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack – All Is Love

5. The Hip Hop: Rizzle Kicks – Mama Do The Hump

Freja

Summer purchases

Hello readers!
All having a blast enjoying the holidays and warm weather? Well I sure am, at least when it is not raining in Denmark. Nevertheless, I did shop around a bit lately and I found myself some pretty neat things here and there.

My first purchase was a lovely jumpsuit/one piece/pantsuit or whatever you might call it. I was on a trip to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and visited Monki. I love Monki because I think their designs are cool and retro but always in a wearable way nowadays. So I got this piece of clothing (not gonna make me say it again, ha!) in a beautiful pattern in black and white. Kind of abstract, almost tribal pattern. I do really enjoy it because it is light to wear and still you don't feel like showing too much. Definitely worth the cash!

Second, I thought to myself that since I am going on vacation near a swimmingpool, I sure needed some new swimwear! So I searched all Zalandos swimwear through, and agreed at last with myself which one to buy. A Ted Baker bikini called something like "Tropical Parrot". Sadly, they did not have my size in stock, but then I just went to Asos and bought it there. I did not now the brand Ted Baker before, but I realize now that it is an amazing brand! Beautiful dresses and accessories in the most amazing prints and patterns! I a fan!
Besides I think that patterns like the parrot pattern you see on the Ted Baker, has gotten really popular! The tropical colours and watery shapes must be very in right now. Which is understandable, since they are absolutely beautiful!

At last, my most expensive purchase this month was a new phone! I have had the same old Sony Ericsson with buttons and all since 7th grade, and figured that it was time for some change.. So I got myself a smartphone!! I am really happy I bought it, because I just love everything about it! I usually don't spend a lot on money on gadgets and stuff, but this phone I am really happy for! And hopefully it will last for a loong time :)

That's all for this week!
Enjoy your holidays and the sun (hopefully) shining!

Freja

Colours and stories in "The Fall"

If you are having an off day, everything is wrong and you just want to see a great movie, “The Fall” might be the thing! “The Fall” is a really wonderful film about this little girl Alexandria and the man Roy. They meet in the hospital where Roy is laying paralyzed in a hospital bed, and Alexandria has broken her arm and grow a very close relationship in the end. That is because Roy ends up telling Alexandria stories, he makes up himself.

In these stories are some very characteristic figures, and the stories’ actions and characters change as he tells them, affected by his own or Alexandria’s feelings at that very moment. But Roy is in a lot of pain because of “girl problems” and has tried to commit suicide, and when he finds out that Alexandria wants more stories, he makes her get him pills in exchange for them. Of course that leads to no good, but without spoiling too much, it all ends up alright.

The pictures visualize the reality and the dreams very artistically and opposite each other, and the stories’ worlds are worth watching, because even though they all seem very fake (with presents that it is fiction very well) they are also incredibly beautiful! And even better, one of the stories turns out to be a love story! What more is needed?

Both the context and the visual are definitely worth take some time off to watch, since both is absolutely beautiful. I sure recommend it!

Love always,

Freja

What do you want to do before you die?

That is the question these four boys ask all around their country to the people they meet. They are on a mission; to do everything they want before they die. And to do that, they have made a list with all kinds of things they want to do before they die, and have recorded their attempts to complete their list with the result of the program "The Buried Life".

So they travel around on their quest to complete their list, and while they try to complete one of their wishes on their list, they help another person they meet. They ask the people they meet, or sometimes people write to them, what they would do, if they had one day left, and tries then to help the person complete that wish.

It is very clear that the boys' age affect their wishes, for example is #41 Make a toast at a stranger's wedding and #6 Attend a party at the playboy mansion. Nevertheless are their wishes all very real and they try to complete them all with big passion! One of the big things they have accomplished is to #95 Play ball with Obama and #59 Ask out the girl of your dreams, where Ducan asks out Taylor Swift, or #91 Get married in Vegas where David finds his true love.

I really love to watch "The Buried Life" because it is so life-affirming! The boys always overcome their fears or the challenges their wishes bring, or sometimes they fail and tries again later and it turns to work out. As the boys confirm; everything can be done with some will and good spirit!
The program is definitely worth watching since it is both funny and .. educational!

Freja

Ps. Here is The List:

Sound of Friday pt. II

A lot is going on with the sun shining and the exams and stuff. Today I am going to continue with my "Sound of Friday"-list so you have something to listen to in these hot busy days. Hope you all are having a good time, and if not, that you will now! Enjoy!

1. The Soul: Kimbra – Settle Down

2. The Feel Good: Noah And The Whale – L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

3. The Hymn: Hymns of Nineveh – Anywhere with you

4. The Holiday-One: Eclectic Moniker – Easter Islands

5. The Religious: Alabama shakes – Hold on

Freja

Roskilde '13

Summer is getting closer, the weather is getting better and the holidays are almost here now! All this meaning that the annual huge Danish festival is getting closer – Roskilde Festival! If you haven’t heard of it, it is a festival to be held every summer since 1971 in the Danish town Roskilde, and has its characteristics such as the big orange festival tent, the volunteers and charity.

The orange tent has become a symbol of the festival, and so has the orange color also become a feature of the festival. I really like the concept of the festival, because it is very enthusiastic people who volunteer to work at the festival, plus the volunteers get a free ticket to the festival, so it is kind of win-win. Plus the fact, that all the leftover money the festival make is given to charity. Not the worst thing people make by drinking beer and listening to music, huh?  Other than that, they always have big artist names side by side with very new, up-coming (or just unknown) names. There is always something to listen to, and you can always get inspired by all the different bands and genres.

I am very excited about this year’s festival, and can’t wait to hear all the lovely music and walk in all the dirt you don’t want to know, what is. Nevertheless I would like to present some of the bands I absolutely have to hear at this year’s Roskilde. 

And first of is Sigur Rós: An Icelandic band with enchanting sounds. They sing their own language, which is totally incomprehensible for me and yet it makes totally sense with the other sounds they make it is like the singing and the sounds melt together. 

The Danish band When Saints Go Machine is definitely also a band I want to hear this year. They play electronic instruments, makes breezy beats and the lead singer has a beautiful and delicate voice. They also sing in English, so it should be understandable for everyone!

One of my favorite artists is also visiting this year's Roskilde - James Blake that is! Poetic, beautiful, deep and depressive are some of the key words, but still to say that everything coming from that man is amazing! Hopefully I am able to see this beautiful creature (haha) since I also am a working volunteer.

Vinnie Who has become very popular in Denmark by now, and they are this year opening the Orange stage July 4^th! I am a very happy longtime member fan and I look very much forward to see the disco/electro inspired band. 

Another band, I might have mentioned before, that also participates at Roskilde this year is Of Monsters and Men! They make awesome indie/folk tunes, and are actually from Iceland just as Sigur Rós! I bet those Icelanders get something from their beautiful surroundings..

Since I can't write that much about ALL the bands I want to hear, here is a little list of other bands I would like to hear: C2C, Efterklang, Volbeat, Crystal Castles, Queens of the Stone Age, The National, Disclosure, MØ, Chinese Man, Quadron, Animal Collective, Dead Can Dance, Indians and maybe I will check out Rihanna.

You can visit Roskilde Festival's webpage here, or you can even listen to a list with all of the names this year on youtube here!
Roskilde '13 is going to be great!

xoxo, 

Freja

Sound of Friday

Hi everyone!
Since I am really busy this week with school, exhibition opening and other stuff this will be a very short post. I have made a very long list of songs with small titles, a bit like when you categorize the persons in your class to be "the creative" or "the sporty" and stuff. Well, here's five of those for you, and I bet there will be more some other week, since I got plenty!
Enjoy!

1. The Cover: Ben Howard – Call me maybe

2. The Voice: Asaf Avidan & The Mojos – Your Anchor

3. The Plague: Psy - Gentleman

4. The 'Must Hear': Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

5. The Brain-Sticky One: James Blake - Retrograde

Have a nice weekend!

Freja

The new "Carpe Diem"

We all know it, now don’t we? YOLO – you only live once! So it sounds kind of cheesy by now, and it is often said in a humorous tone, but really, isn’t YOLO just a new way of saying Carpe Diem – seize the day? I think so. The message is the same, only the time is different (YOLO is just a little more hipster, haha). Well no matter how cheesy or abused they are, I would like to point out that a lot of people probably never really considered the importance and true message of these. Because we do only live once, and we should seize the day! So why don’t we? I believe it could be because of one of these two reasons: either we are too scared to just do what we please, the “what if”-idea, or else we are just not yet aware that we actually only get this one shot. If you are one of those persons to follow the last reason, you now have no excuse anymore! Since you have read this, you are now aware of this and should remember it every day! But no, don’t get it tattooed big time all over your body - that is not what I mean! And I don’t mean either that you have to live fully by this, like saying yes to everything you get offered. The idea is just to be aware. Consider this as a philosophy of life or maybe an ideology. It is not something that you can fully live by, but it is something that should always be in your mind, making you develop. I don’t think it is possible to live fully by this, at least I can’t myself. But I use it in my everyday choices. It is always in the back of my head, luring. When in doubt I always remember seize the day inside my head, and it always give me a little more courage to do whatever it might be. I like it, it makes my live just a little more meaningful. It makes me a little happier. So if you have the opportunity, you really should live by this, because it is so important to do what you want, while you can. No one knows what might happen tomorrow. All your choices have an importance to how your live will turn out. Do what you want and wish for, don’t forget this, don’t abuse it either, just consider.

Love, Freja

Photo: Unknown

Where to find the wild things

Hi there everyone!
Last week I talked about my big love for Alt-J and their songs - lyrics and beats. Well, today I’m going to talk about this movie that I got to know, thanks to Alt-J: Where the wild things are! Actually I heard a little about this movie from a friend of mine before, but I had never actually seen it, only heard some songs of the soundtrack from the movie. But no matter what, it is an amazing, adventurous and very creative movie!

The movie is based on the book “Where the wild things are” by Maurice Sendak, and it is about this boy called Max, who seems to be very lonely. His alone mother works a lot, and he does not see much of his sister, which results in a lot of daydreaming, imagining and wild games in his wolf suit. He creates great things in his mind, and has a big talent of making up stories and also lies. But one evening, when he wants attention too bad, and his aggressions get too big, he runs off, leaving his nice and safe home and family.

It seems that he finds a boat, and sails all day until he finds this land, where he goes on board. But the land is not like any normal kind, because on this land some wild creatures live, and that is ‘the wild things’! It is to these 'monsters' or so, who are controlled by their lust and inner child, Max tells a lie, because he was going to be eaten by them otherwise. So he tells them, that he once was a great king in another land, and the wild things decide to make him their king, because they hope that a king could bring them out of their unhappiness and miseries.

Max is a great king to begin with, he knows a lot of funny games and he even figures out this great castle of them to live in! But it is very hard to keep all of the creatures happy at once, and in the end, when the wild thing that Max might end up loving the most, Carol, hears that Max is a fraud, everything goes wrong. Carol gets so hurt and aggressive, that he almost ends up eating Max, and in the end Max decides to leave.  

Everything about this movie is so magical, and still it is not like the same old usual romantic story, which is all happiness and rainbows. This movie, it being a children’s movie or not, has this very fine harshness to it, and the boy who plays Max captures this role so perfect, that this harshness is absolutely beautiful. Also the soundtrack created for this movie, is amazing! I have listened to all of the songs a lot, and they are all so full of suspense, just in their sound, that I can’t help listening to them in excitement! 

I would definitely recommend this movie to any movie lover, any adventure lover, any soundtrack lover, any children’s worlds lover or just any lover of the creative, there might be. Watch it; I don’t think you will regret it!

Love, Freja

Photos: Unknown sources

Alt to the J ∆

As funky as my title may sound, as funky the subject! Or almost.. Because it is not quite funk I want to talk about today, but instead my favorite band at the moment: Alt-J (∆).
If you do not know Alt-J, you may wonder what their name means. It’s actually kind of cool!

If you know your Macs, you would know that when you push the “Alt” and then the “J” key, it is a shortcut for the ∆ sign. (I must say I did not know before I got interested in Alt-J, since I don’t own a Mac). Also; if you know your mathematics, you will know that the ∆ sign is called “delta” and means change or difference, which can be either positive or negative.

Photo from AOTY

To say a little more informative about the band, I can tell it consists of 4 English men, who play guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and of course sing.  

The first time I heard them was on the radio (of course, too much radio). Their song “Tessellate” was played a lot for a period, and I fell totally in love! Their sound are kind of indie meets rock meets alternative… ish. They are such an artistic band, with a great talent of timing, experimenting with sounds and the singing is nothing but amazing!

Where the wild things are

But the thing I love the most (besides the amazing sounds) is their lyrics. Every piece of lyric contains so much emotion, history and feeling. They make their own universes, sometimes by lending a piece of others. For example Breezeblocks, where they are referring to the children’s book Where the wild things are by singing "I’ll eat you whole", or in Matilda, where they refer to the movie Léon throughout the song.

Matilda from Léon

They have gotten a lot of critique for their song Fitzpleasure though, because the song is about a gang-rape scene from a rather harsh book called Last exit to Brooklyn. I think the critique is absolutely unfair. Such a subject as taboo as rape should definitely be discussed! I think it is very noble of them to make a spotlight on the very serious subject, and I do not believe that they praise the horrible subject; they rather make it a subject for discussion, which is the way forwards.

But since I could talk about and analyze all of their songs to death, I think I’d rather stop that talk here.

To end with some positive energy and good karma, here’s a picture of me with a necklace I got from one of my best friends at my birthday. She bought it in Alt-J’s merchandise, and it is of course their ∆ sign. To top it, I have made their hand-sign, which I believe they have invented themselves! (That just confirms how well thought through the band is, doesn't it?). 

I hope you enjoyed my post, and if you thought that at least some of this sounded interesting, you should check out their debut album An Awesome Wave – it is definitely worth it!!

Loads of love!

Freja

Looking back: Imagine dragons

Sofie, me, Rebecca

Yes that is right! It is now Friday, which means that I today will present the absolute climax of my week - and I must definitely say that it was this Wednesday!
The time that I had long waited for, had come - Imagine Dragons' concert in Denmark! I went there with my lovely friends Rebecca and Sofie (aka Miss Monday and Miss Thursday) and it was an incredible experience!

Mont Oliver

We came early and saved ourselves some good spots, and I must say that I am impressed of how much we actually were able to see. The support for Imagine Dragons (chosen by the music venue, Vega, I suppose) was a very new danish band called Mont Oliver. They played some cool beats in a mix of hiphop and indierock, and you sure felt the music - literally! The bass was pumping trough my chest and the musicians were giving it their all, still looking all cool. Mont Oliver had a very new sound I think we will hear more of in the future, especially with their first single comming out in May and them playing at the SPOT festival in Århus.

Imagine Dragons

After Mont Oliver, we waited for 30 very long minutes, hoping for Imagine Dragons to show their pretty faces any time. And our expectations were met when they stepped on stage and pulled on the h*** of a show! Very energetic they started their indierock sound with Round and Round with lights dancing, big drums beating and the crowd going wild. The audience were surprisingly dedicated, and we were singing and dancing and jumping in every single song. The band did a great job as well involving us, the audience, by dancing and encouraging us to sing along. Their party on stage sure did affect us, the audience!

Imagine Dragons

Spellbound by the beautiful voice (and body) of Dan Reynolds I got some new favourites among their songs, since I have always loved the uptempo-happy songs (Underdog and On Top of the World especially) more, but seeing the different songs live, I got a bigger love for all of them! Especially Bleeding Out and their last song Nothing Left to Say made their way to my heart! The sound was just way more beautiful live, and I loved the intense drumplaying that made an almost marching sound through most of the songs, which still is stuck on my mind by now. But what can one say? It was a wonderful experience, that I shall not soon forget!

Imagine Dragons

Freja

Pictures by Rebecca, editing by me

Introducing miss Friday!

It is finally Friday at Funny little features, which means it is my turn to introduce myself!
I am your miss Friday, and I will be posting on that day every week from now on! Today I will just introduce myself, so you know what my posts will contain the next many freaky Fridays!

My name is Freja, I am of course danish like the other girls, I have a sidecut, a cake-obsession, and I turn 18 tomorrow!! I have a very big passion for music - mainly new and upcomming. And I am said to have a radio addiction, because there always is a radio playing where ever I go in my home. I don't even notice it, since I have grown up with that as a background noise all my life.

I have a very wide taste, when it comes to music. I listen mostly to indie, rock, electronica, folk and some pop. My most recent concert was Mumford and Sons, and next up is Imagine Dragons, which I look very much forward to! I love alternative music with lyrics you have to think about, and beats that makes you feel. I love it when the words are sung like they are twisted and turned in a way you never heard before. I love it when the words become difficult to sing, but I also love minimalism and saying only what is necessary. And most of all, I love it when I get big time chills from an amazing song.

I also have a big passion for art and use a lot of my time on an artschool for young people. We experiment with a lot of different ways to express yourself, and we try to learn a lot of different techniques. Recently I am working on an eBook with 'narrative art', but I use most of my artistic time on photography. Style and design means a lot to me, and so does fashion. My big idols are Gabrielle Coco Chanel and Marilyn Monroe, because I love the old timeless classics, but I also the love new, wicked and current world of fashion. As you might have guessed by now, I am a big believer in (re)using old design in new combinations and improvements.  

Having all this said, I hope you have a at least superfishial idea of who I am by now. If not, I am glad to announce that I will be here every Friday, writing other nonsense for you to interpret! And that I will be looking very much forward too!

Freja