Three chords and the truth

When you’re involved in music studio equipment every hour of your day, sometimes it is easy to forget that the technology is simply a means to an end. Every so often, you see artists that remind you that the music was the reason you got involved in the first place. My January visit to the fourth dimension that is Los Angeles provided two artists who do just that.

Bjarne Langhoff from Denmark, is a guy who can sing. Boy can he sing. I’m not normally one to be taken by singers, although there are certain famous ones I’ve got a lot of time for. Well, Bjarne can really do it, and it’s something else. In particular, there’s nothing more impressive than listening to him moving up the gears, from a brooding verse into an expansive chorus for example – I mean, when this guy lets go it’s out of this world. He was *cranking* it for four days solid, 8 hours a day, and it sounded as amazing at the end as it did at the start. Stunning. Check him out here.

Laura Clapp from the US is a singer/songwriter, and has a brilliant voice used to great effect on her own tunes. The tunes are fantastic (some of them are almost beyond belief), with killer lyrics and devastatingly good musical arrangements combined with fantastic singing. For my money, Laura is even better live than on recording. For me, one of the magically engaging things in a performer is when you believe – when they look like they really mean it. Well, she looks like she means it, and I believe. Check her out here, or here.

If there's any musical justice in the world, these two artists should be huge...