Hello, looks like the Tour is all but decided Primoz Roglic is the strongest with a fitting team support of Jumbo-Visma 4 teammembers crossed the line accompanied by the rest of the top 10 after on paper 2nd toughest stage of this year's Tour. Only 2 Iineos riders finished first, hand in hand as if they won the race the peloton gave them 10 minutes and they managed to keep 2, still Carapaz was phenomenal 3rd consecutive day on the front, rewarded with the mountain red dots shirt and a place on the podium in Paris.
Today's Artists stunned the music scene by hitting home from the moment their wonderful singer offered to hide us, truly amazing it was as if Siouxsie had been reborn.........N Joy
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The drum'n'bass trio tagged Kosheen (Darren Beale, Mark Morrison and Sian Evans) molds something sophisticated and complex, and their hypnotic breakbeats took their native U.K. by storm at the close of the '90s. Fronted by Welsh-born singer/songwriter Sian Evans and Bristol dance natives Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen's meeting arrived in 1998. Evans was invited by Decoder and Substance to lay down some guest vocals and something clicked. A unit had been solidified and Kosheen immediately began work on their hip-hop/soul-driven sound. The debut single "Hide U" grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honors for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the U.K. BBC Radio 1 raved about it nonstop and trance guru John Digweed was already spinning Kosheen tracks such as "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and "Catch" into his club sets. Already poised to take over electronica's ever-changing world, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was issued in their native land in the fall of 2001.
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Sian Evans’ family have a long musical history. Her mother was a singer and Sian herself began singing from an early age. Her grandfather was a composer and conducted for male voice choirs and by her teenage years she was following in his footsteps providing vocals for numerous jazz and r&b bands, as well as immersing herself in the music of female singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell. A hip-hop enthusiast from an early age, it was perhaps inevitable that the young Sian would be caught up in the energy of the fledgling dance scene. Sian had her first encounter with drum & bass courtesy of the seminal Roughneck Ting parties. She had left home at 16 and moved to Cardiff to escape, living in squats and friends’ houses while working several jobs at once and travelling to parties and festivals all over the country.
I always got it. I was never refused entry and I rarely had any money. I was top blagger (smooth talker)
Having moved through the free party scene, Sian found her musical tastes radically altered by a change in her personal life. At the height of the rave scene, in 1991, she gave birth to her son, and was forced to reassess her priorities.
I had a baby at the height of the rave scene which obviously puts a stop to going crazy. It started me thinking a lot more about songs and the music, and at the time I also got full on into jungle
With a strong foundation in her mother’s collection of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell LPs, Sian began applying her combined tastes to a variety of dance music and funk/jazz projects, before retreating up a Welsh mountain to raise her little boy in a teepee.
For the next four years, Sian and her son split their time between environmental protests like Newbury and working at summer festivals. It was all she needed to give her a taste for living outdoors and so in 1996, Sian moved into a tepee on a traveller’s site in the Brechfa Forest for nine months. At night, after her son went to bed, Sian passed the time by writing songs. Despite being brought up writing poetry and listening to Welsh folk music and Joni Mitchell, it was the first time Sian had felt moved to create music. Realising her future lay with these songs – in fact, most of them went on to form the tracks on Kosheen’s debut album, ‘Resist’ – she soon moved back to Bristol to find someone to play them with.
KOSHEEN
Whilst most people might find this a rather daunting experience, Sian was only driven back to regular life in Bristol by a growing collection of songs, and an increasing frustration at having nobody but a few sheep to play them to. Darren Beale and Mark Davies first heard Sian singing on a track by a friend of theirs, but deciding that all’s fair in love and war. Their first studio meeting yielded instant results
I hadn’t even taken my coat off when I heard their music and we started working. And it hasn’t changed since then. We still fling things down that fast, it’s a lovely chemistry
As a trio, the band learned they could combine their respective loves of rock, hip-hop, jazz, drum n’ bass
and folk. The debut single ‘Hide U‘ grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honours for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the UK. ‘Hide U’ reached number 6 in the UK, while ‘Catch‘ hit number 15 and ‘Hungry‘ reached number 13. The accompanying album ‘Resist‘ (now platinum–selling) went on to reach number 8 in the UK album chart and made the top 30 in Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece. It has since sold half a million copies, making it the most successful drum & bass album at that time.
Ignoring the accepted protocol that dictates ‘dance’ acts don’t play live, Kosheen then set off on tour. With their debut album ‘Resist’ this equated to an impressive 141 shows in 33 countries to an audience of over million.
I cut my teeth on pub gigs in Wales. so I really wanted to get the music of Kosheen represented live. The songs really translated because they're very melodic. A lot of them were written on the guitar and we can actually do most of them unplugged too. When you strip a song down like that and it still works, you know it’s a good song. A lot of people were surprised when they go into the gig and see a full band set up with a drum kit and guitars. No one’s been disappointed
In fact, crowds of up to 17,000 have since seen the band play in Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, even America where fans who had only heard Kosheen via Napster knew all the lyrics before anything had ever officially been played there. The LA Times went so far as to proclaim the band one of four hot new electronica acts to watch for. In summer 2001, Kosheen further cemented their reputation as a world-class live act by performing to a 20,000-strong crowd in Serbia, the first international band to do so since the trouble in the Balkans.
After touring extensively, Kosheen had become a successful live act and festival favourite. By 2002 the band had recorded enough new material for their second album. ‘All in my head‘, the first single released from ‘Kokopelli‘ went straight into the charts at number 7. After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. ‘Damage’ featuring ‘Guilty‘ & ‘Overkill‘ was released in Europe in March 2007 by Moksha/Universal GMBH.
‘Independence‘, Kosheen’s fourth studio album was released in October 2012 and their fifth, ‘Solitude‘, in December 2013, both on Kosheen Recordings. Kosheen officially disbanded in 2016.
Early into the following decade, as Sian remained in the group, she made a name for herself as a featured vocalist. She had also worked on a side project with Simon Kingman as Melo Park.After a reunion gig in aid of the Tsunami disaster, Sian and Simon began writing songs in the winter of 2006 and in 2007 began developing Melo Park. They later played festivals in Russia and Glastonbury in 2008.
In 2011, Sian Evans teamed up with Dj Fresh writing and featuring on the number 1 smash hit ‘Louder‘. It was released on 3 July 2011 on Ministry of Sound. The song debuted at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart, UK Dance Chart, UK Indie Chart and the Scottish Charts with first week sales in excess of 140,000 copies. In its second week, the single shifted an additional 80,000 digital copies. The song also peaked at number 4 in the Irish Singles Chart.
It feels great, it feels fabulous. I guess that we knew, actually, that we had something pretty crazy on our hands. We were very confident in it, though we didn’t have a clue it would turn out to be quite as viral it has. We loved it when making it, and that’s a good sign
‘Louder‘ is considered an important landmark for dubstep music as it was the first of its’ genre to reach number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured on the soundtrack to SCE Studio Liverpool’s Wipeout 2048 and used as the promotional theme for Fox8’s reality program Cricket Superstar. The song serves as the theme for the Lucozade Sport Lite campaign. Sian joined the select group of Welsh artists to have topped the charts and still she is the most recent Welsh artist to hit the top spot. She also wrote ‘Hot Right Now’ for Rita Ora.
In 2011 Sian Evans appears on several tracks on Roger Shah‘s artist album ‘Openminded!?‘. A new version of ‘Hide U‘ along with two other original tracks ‘In The Light‘ and ‘Shine‘ all appear on the album. Since that Sian has collaborated with many top level producers and artists such as Dino Psaras, Dr. Meaker, Jolyon Petch, Jody Wisternoff, Brains, Martin Eyerer, Chicane, Paul Hazendonk, Lee Dagger, Bent, EZ Rollers and Bench.
In 2016 she featured on the track ‘Losing My Mind‘ with eSQUIRE & Petch and in 2017 ‘Boy In The Picture‘ with House luminaires Kid Crème & Jolyon Petch.
In 2019 Sian Evans featured on the tracks ‘UP2U‘ with Stanton Warriors and ‘Orange Heart‘ with Headhunterz.
SOLO CAREER
In 2015 Sian Evans formed a band and started to perform with her solo Unplugged shows, injecting a new lease of life into her classic hits with drums, piano, acoustic guitar and double bass, presented in a warm, funky, soulful mix of contemporary vibes & a touch of jazz. This gave her the opportunity to hear the songs she’s written in the past in their original format. During the following 2 years Sian and her band had headlined many festivals and sold out a handful of strategically placed shows in the UK, Russia, Belguim and Ukraine.
By 2017 the show had evolved with a change of band members and brought back the electronic sound, unveiling a new perspective, passion and depth to the shows.
Sian has been channeling her energy into recording her debut solo album and touring around the world as well as collaborating with many producers.
Her live performances have always been brandished by her unique ability to resonate every lyric in the hearts of each and every member of the audience with flawless vocals, charismatic charm, and boundless enthusiasm. Sian’s live shows have been well received in Europe, Asia, Russia, Belarus, and countless UK and European festivals.
Sian’s passionate and emotionally charged shows remain a force that continues to materialize in dazzling and powerful performances all over the world.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. Sonically referencing both the electronica of ‘Resist’ and the creativity and darkness of ‘Kokopelli’ with ‘Damage’, Kosheen created their ‘biggest’ and most beautiful record to date. For me this surpassed their first two albums. The second album was good but wasnt all perfect. The firsr was new and amazing but the third matured into something completely cohesive and it has stuck with me for years. The title track damage just sums up how brilliant kosheen truely are. From start to finish, the Sian Evans’ vocal drives the music, and the music is to compliment her smokey, raspy, and soulful voice of the lead singer. When you come up with as many perfectly structured beginning-middle-end songs and instantly hooky choruses as these guys not much else matters, these are timeless genre-defying songs that grab the heart
Kosheen - Damage (flac 502mb)
01 Damage 6:30
02 Overkill 3:39
03 Like a Book 3:36
04 Same Ground Again 4:41
05 Guilty 3:30
06 Chances 3:35
07 Out of This World 4:52
08 Wish You Were Here 4:58
09 Thief 4:36
10 Under Fire 3:58
11 Not Enough Love 5:18
12 Cruel Heart 4:14
13 Marching Orders 5:01
14 Your Life 4:04
15 Freaks of Nature 3:14
16 Overkill (Kosheen DJ's Mix) 6:50
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
This album is just fantastic in its musical landscaping and ethereal mood setting. There are at least four 5-star songs on this album: Addict, Tightly, Bella-Donna, and Spies. They are all of ear-worm quality, meaning that once you get them in your head you can't stop humming them to yourself! There’s darkness mixed with light, there’s propulsive full steam ahead floor-fillers mixed with lonesome spotlight moments, and there’s even a sense of the cinematic at times. Sian Evans’ distinct vocals, meanwhile, provide a worthy focal point, guiding you through the various moods that the album seeks to evoke.
The album kicks off in suitably impressive style with the dark, foreboding but utterly insistent dark electronic of ‘Addict‘, before hitting you with the slightly more radio-friendly ‘Get A New One‘. ‘Bella Donna‘, for instance, has a ghostly synth sound to it and some subtler beats to emerge as one of the early highlights, while ‘Dependency‘ continues the theme of addiction encountered on the opener, albeit with propulsive beats and a near drum & bass intensity. ‘Manic‘, meanwhile, continues the dark energy with a throbbing bassline, some interesting bleeps and a really great chorus that brings out a haunted, foreboding quality in Evans’ vocals. Further highlights come in the form of ‘Enter’, which again thrives off the decision to slow the tempo yet remain atmospheric, while ‘Waste‘ is a fantastic slice of electro-pop that contains one of the most radio friendly choruses on the LP. Energetic dance track ‘Spies‘ rounds things off to bring the curtain down on a really great listen.
Kosheen - Independence (flac 455mb)
01 Addict 4:46
02 Get A New One 5:17
03 Tightly 3:55
04 Bella Donna 3:24
05 Dependency 6:54
06 Manic 3:13
07 Zone 8 3:17
08 Mannequin 6:30
09 Something New (Visionz Mix) 4:06
10 Out There 4:21
11 Enter 5:39
12 You Don't Own Me (Dungeon Mix) 4:48
13 Waste 4:28
14 Spies 3:39
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2013 release from the Indie/Electronic outfit. Fusing the plaintive, potent vocals of singer Sian Evans with the darkly intimate Electronica of Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen create songs where the sounds tell the story as much as the lyrics while the boundaries of genres are blurred and challenged. The process of creation within Kosheen is complex: "'Solitude' for US has been an on-going process. We are always writing on and off the road. We all have home-studios, and we all work with laptops, so we are constantly able to bounce ideas off each other and in some cases literally capture the idea there and then. We always start with beats first then work on the tunes, in parallel with seeing what ideas for the vocals Sian has. After that we work our magic in the studio and come up with the result."
The mood shift from "Independence" to "Solitude" reminds me a little bit of Royksopp's transition from "Junior" to "Senior," the former in both cases being more upbeat and fun, while the latter in both cases being more atmospheric and dark, even introspective.
The word "Solitude" is very telling of the mood that the music on this album evokes: it's no club album for a night out with your friends. It's a little too experimental for that; more breakbeat than house. It's good for a solo car journey, or while you're making your dinner at home and need a pick-me-up tune. Kosheen has stated that this album has been long in the making - which is especially evident as you hear the line from Resist's "Demonstrate" sung out clearly in the track "Observation," which is, quite frankly, a song that will grab your attention if you listen to the lyrics. Where Sian's vocals shine, the songs are straightforward (Harder They Fall, Save Your Tears). Where her vocals fade into the background, they bleed into the rest of the instrumentation like a watercolor. This is particularly evident in the second half of the album, especially the title track, which proves to be an extremely poignant finale.
Kosheen - Solitude (flac 307mb)
01 Save Your Tears 5:44
02 Divided 5:19
03 Harder They Fall 4:25
04 745 5:30
05 And Another 4:31
06 Observation 5:28
07 Up in Flames 2:48
08 Poison 4:17
09 I 4:44
10 Here & Now 2:09
11 Solitude 5:36
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For the first time available on CD: a selection exclusively edited by Kosheen - of remixes lifted from their last studio-album ''Independence'' compiled to allow a new interpretation to the original work. Some of the remixes were individually released on the digital-only singles ''Addict'' and ''Get a new one'', but now collectively form Kosheen's first ever remix-album.
Soon to be a collector's item, this is a limited edition of 1500 copies. No second edition will be made available. First come, first served. Each copy is individually numbered with an outside sticker. The 2012 album ''Independence'' - probably being their strongest album since the debut ''Resist'', -elegantly combines electronica, drum&bass and pop. Since most remixes on this new collection are either by Kosheen or individual members of Kosheen, ''Independence The Remixes'' proves to be a rhythm-driven reinterpretation of the original work.
Kosheen - Independence Remixes (flac 270mb)
01 Addict (Kosheen DJs Broken Mix) 8:02
02 Get A New One (Dubspeeka Remix) 6:14
03 Mannequin (Malente Remix) 5:35
04 Waste (Forest Mix) 3:59
05 Dependency (4am Mix) 6:06
06 Get A New One (Sunrise Mix) 5:42
07 Belladonna (Visionz Remix) 5:46
08 Spies (Moth Equals Mix) 5:36
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Kosheen - Something Xtra (flac 487mb)
00 Kosheen - Catch EP
01 Catch (Kosheen Mix) 3:21
02 Catch (Way Out West Mix) 3:25
03 Catch (Young Offendaz Mix) 3:17
04 Catch (Rennie Pilgrem Mix) 2:45
05 Catch (Grayed Out Mix) 3:25
06 Catch (Decoder & Substance Mix) 3:20
00 Kosheen - Hide U EP
01 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K - Radio Edit) 3:33
02 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K - Remix Edit) 5:31
03 Hide U (Album Version) 4:12
04 Hide U (Rollo & Sister Bliss - Remix Edit) 6:28
05 Hide U (ES Dubs Remix) 5:26
06 Hide U (Decoder & Substance 170 Remix) 7:17
00 Kosheen - Hungry EP
01 Hungry (Kosheen Radio Edit) 3:25
02 Hungry (Tiesto Remix Edit) 5:00
03 Hungry (Bent Remix Edit) 5:00
04 Hungry (Satoshi Tomiie Vocal Remix Edit) 5:50
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Today's Artists stunned the music scene by hitting home from the moment their wonderful singer offered to hide us, truly amazing it was as if Siouxsie had been reborn.........N Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The drum'n'bass trio tagged Kosheen (Darren Beale, Mark Morrison and Sian Evans) molds something sophisticated and complex, and their hypnotic breakbeats took their native U.K. by storm at the close of the '90s. Fronted by Welsh-born singer/songwriter Sian Evans and Bristol dance natives Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen's meeting arrived in 1998. Evans was invited by Decoder and Substance to lay down some guest vocals and something clicked. A unit had been solidified and Kosheen immediately began work on their hip-hop/soul-driven sound. The debut single "Hide U" grabbed hold of the dance circuit in mid-2001, later earning Kosheen honors for Best Single at the Drum & Bass Awards in the U.K. BBC Radio 1 raved about it nonstop and trance guru John Digweed was already spinning Kosheen tracks such as "(Slip & Slide) Suicide" and "Catch" into his club sets. Already poised to take over electronica's ever-changing world, Kosheen's debut album, Resist, was issued in their native land in the fall of 2001.
xxxxx
I always got it. I was never refused entry and I rarely had any money. I was top blagger (smooth talker)
Having moved through the free party scene, Sian found her musical tastes radically altered by a change in her personal life. At the height of the rave scene, in 1991, she gave birth to her son, and was forced to reassess her priorities.
I had a baby at the height of the rave scene which obviously puts a stop to going crazy. It started me thinking a lot more about songs and the music, and at the time I also got full on into jungle
With a strong foundation in her mother’s collection of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell LPs, Sian began applying her combined tastes to a variety of dance music and funk/jazz projects, before retreating up a Welsh mountain to raise her little boy in a teepee.
For the next four years, Sian and her son split their time between environmental protests like Newbury and working at summer festivals. It was all she needed to give her a taste for living outdoors and so in 1996, Sian moved into a tepee on a traveller’s site in the Brechfa Forest for nine months. At night, after her son went to bed, Sian passed the time by writing songs. Despite being brought up writing poetry and listening to Welsh folk music and Joni Mitchell, it was the first time Sian had felt moved to create music. Realising her future lay with these songs – in fact, most of them went on to form the tracks on Kosheen’s debut album, ‘Resist’ – she soon moved back to Bristol to find someone to play them with.
KOSHEEN
Whilst most people might find this a rather daunting experience, Sian was only driven back to regular life in Bristol by a growing collection of songs, and an increasing frustration at having nobody but a few sheep to play them to. Darren Beale and Mark Davies first heard Sian singing on a track by a friend of theirs, but deciding that all’s fair in love and war. Their first studio meeting yielded instant results
I hadn’t even taken my coat off when I heard their music and we started working. And it hasn’t changed since then. We still fling things down that fast, it’s a lovely chemistry
As a trio, the band learned they could combine their respective loves of rock, hip-hop, jazz, drum n’ bass
Ignoring the accepted protocol that dictates ‘dance’ acts don’t play live, Kosheen then set off on tour. With their debut album ‘Resist’ this equated to an impressive 141 shows in 33 countries to an audience of over million.
I cut my teeth on pub gigs in Wales. so I really wanted to get the music of Kosheen represented live. The songs really translated because they're very melodic. A lot of them were written on the guitar and we can actually do most of them unplugged too. When you strip a song down like that and it still works, you know it’s a good song. A lot of people were surprised when they go into the gig and see a full band set up with a drum kit and guitars. No one’s been disappointed
In fact, crowds of up to 17,000 have since seen the band play in Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, even America where fans who had only heard Kosheen via Napster knew all the lyrics before anything had ever officially been played there. The LA Times went so far as to proclaim the band one of four hot new electronica acts to watch for. In summer 2001, Kosheen further cemented their reputation as a world-class live act by performing to a 20,000-strong crowd in Serbia, the first international band to do so since the trouble in the Balkans.
After touring extensively, Kosheen had become a successful live act and festival favourite. By 2002 the band had recorded enough new material for their second album. ‘All in my head‘, the first single released from ‘Kokopelli‘ went straight into the charts at number 7. After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. ‘Damage’ featuring ‘Guilty‘ & ‘Overkill‘ was released in Europe in March 2007 by Moksha/Universal GMBH.
‘Independence‘, Kosheen’s fourth studio album was released in October 2012 and their fifth, ‘Solitude‘, in December 2013, both on Kosheen Recordings. Kosheen officially disbanded in 2016.
Early into the following decade, as Sian remained in the group, she made a name for herself as a featured vocalist. She had also worked on a side project with Simon Kingman as Melo Park.After a reunion gig in aid of the Tsunami disaster, Sian and Simon began writing songs in the winter of 2006 and in 2007 began developing Melo Park. They later played festivals in Russia and Glastonbury in 2008.
In 2011, Sian Evans teamed up with Dj Fresh writing and featuring on the number 1 smash hit ‘Louder‘. It was released on 3 July 2011 on Ministry of Sound. The song debuted at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart, UK Dance Chart, UK Indie Chart and the Scottish Charts with first week sales in excess of 140,000 copies. In its second week, the single shifted an additional 80,000 digital copies. The song also peaked at number 4 in the Irish Singles Chart.
It feels great, it feels fabulous. I guess that we knew, actually, that we had something pretty crazy on our hands. We were very confident in it, though we didn’t have a clue it would turn out to be quite as viral it has. We loved it when making it, and that’s a good sign
‘Louder‘ is considered an important landmark for dubstep music as it was the first of its’ genre to reach number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured on the soundtrack to SCE Studio Liverpool’s Wipeout 2048 and used as the promotional theme for Fox8’s reality program Cricket Superstar. The song serves as the theme for the Lucozade Sport Lite campaign. Sian joined the select group of Welsh artists to have topped the charts and still she is the most recent Welsh artist to hit the top spot. She also wrote ‘Hot Right Now’ for Rita Ora.
In 2011 Sian Evans appears on several tracks on Roger Shah‘s artist album ‘Openminded!?‘. A new version of ‘Hide U‘ along with two other original tracks ‘In The Light‘ and ‘Shine‘ all appear on the album. Since that Sian has collaborated with many top level producers and artists such as Dino Psaras, Dr. Meaker, Jolyon Petch, Jody Wisternoff, Brains, Martin Eyerer, Chicane, Paul Hazendonk, Lee Dagger, Bent, EZ Rollers and Bench.
In 2016 she featured on the track ‘Losing My Mind‘ with eSQUIRE & Petch and in 2017 ‘Boy In The Picture‘ with House luminaires Kid Crème & Jolyon Petch.
In 2019 Sian Evans featured on the tracks ‘UP2U‘ with Stanton Warriors and ‘Orange Heart‘ with Headhunterz.
SOLO CAREER
In 2015 Sian Evans formed a band and started to perform with her solo Unplugged shows, injecting a new lease of life into her classic hits with drums, piano, acoustic guitar and double bass, presented in a warm, funky, soulful mix of contemporary vibes & a touch of jazz. This gave her the opportunity to hear the songs she’s written in the past in their original format. During the following 2 years Sian and her band had headlined many festivals and sold out a handful of strategically placed shows in the UK, Russia, Belguim and Ukraine.
By 2017 the show had evolved with a change of band members and brought back the electronic sound, unveiling a new perspective, passion and depth to the shows.
Sian has been channeling her energy into recording her debut solo album and touring around the world as well as collaborating with many producers.
Her live performances have always been brandished by her unique ability to resonate every lyric in the hearts of each and every member of the audience with flawless vocals, charismatic charm, and boundless enthusiasm. Sian’s live shows have been well received in Europe, Asia, Russia, Belarus, and countless UK and European festivals.
Sian’s passionate and emotionally charged shows remain a force that continues to materialize in dazzling and powerful performances all over the world.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
After ‘Kokopelli’ went gold in the UK, Kosheen left BMG in the midst of the Sony/BMG merger, signed to Universal Germany, and returned to the studio, with a new drive and vision and worked on their third album, ‘Damage‘ for the next two years. Sonically referencing both the electronica of ‘Resist’ and the creativity and darkness of ‘Kokopelli’ with ‘Damage’, Kosheen created their ‘biggest’ and most beautiful record to date. For me this surpassed their first two albums. The second album was good but wasnt all perfect. The firsr was new and amazing but the third matured into something completely cohesive and it has stuck with me for years. The title track damage just sums up how brilliant kosheen truely are. From start to finish, the Sian Evans’ vocal drives the music, and the music is to compliment her smokey, raspy, and soulful voice of the lead singer. When you come up with as many perfectly structured beginning-middle-end songs and instantly hooky choruses as these guys not much else matters, these are timeless genre-defying songs that grab the heart
Kosheen - Damage (flac 502mb)
01 Damage 6:30
02 Overkill 3:39
03 Like a Book 3:36
04 Same Ground Again 4:41
05 Guilty 3:30
06 Chances 3:35
07 Out of This World 4:52
08 Wish You Were Here 4:58
09 Thief 4:36
10 Under Fire 3:58
11 Not Enough Love 5:18
12 Cruel Heart 4:14
13 Marching Orders 5:01
14 Your Life 4:04
15 Freaks of Nature 3:14
16 Overkill (Kosheen DJ's Mix) 6:50
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
This album is just fantastic in its musical landscaping and ethereal mood setting. There are at least four 5-star songs on this album: Addict, Tightly, Bella-Donna, and Spies. They are all of ear-worm quality, meaning that once you get them in your head you can't stop humming them to yourself! There’s darkness mixed with light, there’s propulsive full steam ahead floor-fillers mixed with lonesome spotlight moments, and there’s even a sense of the cinematic at times. Sian Evans’ distinct vocals, meanwhile, provide a worthy focal point, guiding you through the various moods that the album seeks to evoke.
The album kicks off in suitably impressive style with the dark, foreboding but utterly insistent dark electronic of ‘Addict‘, before hitting you with the slightly more radio-friendly ‘Get A New One‘. ‘Bella Donna‘, for instance, has a ghostly synth sound to it and some subtler beats to emerge as one of the early highlights, while ‘Dependency‘ continues the theme of addiction encountered on the opener, albeit with propulsive beats and a near drum & bass intensity. ‘Manic‘, meanwhile, continues the dark energy with a throbbing bassline, some interesting bleeps and a really great chorus that brings out a haunted, foreboding quality in Evans’ vocals. Further highlights come in the form of ‘Enter’, which again thrives off the decision to slow the tempo yet remain atmospheric, while ‘Waste‘ is a fantastic slice of electro-pop that contains one of the most radio friendly choruses on the LP. Energetic dance track ‘Spies‘ rounds things off to bring the curtain down on a really great listen.
Kosheen - Independence (flac 455mb)
01 Addict 4:46
02 Get A New One 5:17
03 Tightly 3:55
04 Bella Donna 3:24
05 Dependency 6:54
06 Manic 3:13
07 Zone 8 3:17
08 Mannequin 6:30
09 Something New (Visionz Mix) 4:06
10 Out There 4:21
11 Enter 5:39
12 You Don't Own Me (Dungeon Mix) 4:48
13 Waste 4:28
14 Spies 3:39
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2013 release from the Indie/Electronic outfit. Fusing the plaintive, potent vocals of singer Sian Evans with the darkly intimate Electronica of Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen create songs where the sounds tell the story as much as the lyrics while the boundaries of genres are blurred and challenged. The process of creation within Kosheen is complex: "'Solitude' for US has been an on-going process. We are always writing on and off the road. We all have home-studios, and we all work with laptops, so we are constantly able to bounce ideas off each other and in some cases literally capture the idea there and then. We always start with beats first then work on the tunes, in parallel with seeing what ideas for the vocals Sian has. After that we work our magic in the studio and come up with the result."
The mood shift from "Independence" to "Solitude" reminds me a little bit of Royksopp's transition from "Junior" to "Senior," the former in both cases being more upbeat and fun, while the latter in both cases being more atmospheric and dark, even introspective.
The word "Solitude" is very telling of the mood that the music on this album evokes: it's no club album for a night out with your friends. It's a little too experimental for that; more breakbeat than house. It's good for a solo car journey, or while you're making your dinner at home and need a pick-me-up tune. Kosheen has stated that this album has been long in the making - which is especially evident as you hear the line from Resist's "Demonstrate" sung out clearly in the track "Observation," which is, quite frankly, a song that will grab your attention if you listen to the lyrics. Where Sian's vocals shine, the songs are straightforward (Harder They Fall, Save Your Tears). Where her vocals fade into the background, they bleed into the rest of the instrumentation like a watercolor. This is particularly evident in the second half of the album, especially the title track, which proves to be an extremely poignant finale.
Kosheen - Solitude (flac 307mb)
01 Save Your Tears 5:44
02 Divided 5:19
03 Harder They Fall 4:25
04 745 5:30
05 And Another 4:31
06 Observation 5:28
07 Up in Flames 2:48
08 Poison 4:17
09 I 4:44
10 Here & Now 2:09
11 Solitude 5:36
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For the first time available on CD: a selection exclusively edited by Kosheen - of remixes lifted from their last studio-album ''Independence'' compiled to allow a new interpretation to the original work. Some of the remixes were individually released on the digital-only singles ''Addict'' and ''Get a new one'', but now collectively form Kosheen's first ever remix-album.
Soon to be a collector's item, this is a limited edition of 1500 copies. No second edition will be made available. First come, first served. Each copy is individually numbered with an outside sticker. The 2012 album ''Independence'' - probably being their strongest album since the debut ''Resist'', -elegantly combines electronica, drum&bass and pop. Since most remixes on this new collection are either by Kosheen or individual members of Kosheen, ''Independence The Remixes'' proves to be a rhythm-driven reinterpretation of the original work.
Kosheen - Independence Remixes (flac 270mb)
01 Addict (Kosheen DJs Broken Mix) 8:02
02 Get A New One (Dubspeeka Remix) 6:14
03 Mannequin (Malente Remix) 5:35
04 Waste (Forest Mix) 3:59
05 Dependency (4am Mix) 6:06
06 Get A New One (Sunrise Mix) 5:42
07 Belladonna (Visionz Remix) 5:46
08 Spies (Moth Equals Mix) 5:36
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Kosheen - Something Xtra (flac 487mb)
00 Kosheen - Catch EP
01 Catch (Kosheen Mix) 3:21
02 Catch (Way Out West Mix) 3:25
03 Catch (Young Offendaz Mix) 3:17
04 Catch (Rennie Pilgrem Mix) 2:45
05 Catch (Grayed Out Mix) 3:25
06 Catch (Decoder & Substance Mix) 3:20
00 Kosheen - Hide U EP
01 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K - Radio Edit) 3:33
02 Hide U (John Creamer & Stephane K - Remix Edit) 5:31
03 Hide U (Album Version) 4:12
04 Hide U (Rollo & Sister Bliss - Remix Edit) 6:28
05 Hide U (ES Dubs Remix) 5:26
06 Hide U (Decoder & Substance 170 Remix) 7:17
00 Kosheen - Hungry EP
01 Hungry (Kosheen Radio Edit) 3:25
02 Hungry (Tiesto Remix Edit) 5:00
03 Hungry (Bent Remix Edit) 5:00
04 Hungry (Satoshi Tomiie Vocal Remix Edit) 5:50
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Excellent! Thanks, Rho.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever watched 'Sense8' ?
It makes me 'homesick'.
Hello Cass, glad you enjoy Kosheen, Sian is something else, single mother at 20, she made her way thru the jungle of the music industry, respect is due. As for Sense8 i believe i watched the first episode 5 years ago and i downloaded both series, but as so many series i downloaded (including Game of Thrones)i thusfar haven't gotten around to watch these. I'm a sucker for life sports and somehow these precede tv series and thus little time left as I have the Electric Universe theory that should be common knowledge but sadly is not, much to shade the world in more ignorance...then there are these interesting you tubes and by that time i need my sleep....
ReplyDeleteKudos for the thoroughness. Great stuff. Many thanks.
ReplyDelete