Currently listening nonstop to St. Vincent's and Anna Järvinen's latest albums.
Most listened/favourite/influential albums in 2008 were for me: Lettie's Everyman and Age Of Solo, The Mummers' first EP, Jonny Greenwod's score for There Will Be Blood, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, The Cure's The Perfect Boy single, El Perro Del Mar's From The Valley To The Stars, Dirty Projectors' Rise, Radiohead's In Rainbows,
Sigur Ros, The Mummers, Radiohead, The Wedding Present, Bon Iver, The Dirty Projectors, Amy Winehouse, Suzanne Vega, Thao Nguyen, The Editors, Interpol, Joanna Newsom, Sonic Youth, Curve, 22-Pistepirkko, The Sundays, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Blur, The Fleetfoxes, The Stone Roses, Ride, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Pixies, John Frusciante and Flea, The Edge, Trent Reznor...
Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Danny Gatton, Jim Campilongo... and all those jazz and blues greats, of course!
The Kinks, The Searchers, The Beatles, Herman & The Hermits...
Danny Elfman, Johnny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood, Bodysong), Jon Brion (Punch Drunk Love), Michael Andrews...
Nigel Godrich, Daniel Lanois, George Martin, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Flood, Alan Moulder...
Béla Bartók (Concerto For Orchestra), Bernard Herrmann (The Film Scores conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen), Gorecki's 3rd, Sibelius' 2nd, Penderecki...
some essential live shows over the years:
*Sad Day For Puppets at Bardens Boudoir, London
*Sigur Ros at Alexandra Palace, London
*Radiohead at LLC, Manchester
*Thao Nguyen w the Get Down Stay Downs at Monto Water Rats, London
*Bon Iver opening for Jens Lekman at the Scala, London
*Dirty Projectors in Dynamo, Turku, Finland and Kentish Town,London
*Shapes and Sizes & The Forms in The Cake Shop, NYC
*Sonic Youth in Shanghai, China
*Joanna Newsom in Helsinki, Finland
*Mew at Tavastia, Helsinki, Finland
*Ryan Adams at The Savoy, Helsinki, Finland
*Russian string quartet busking in the Helsinki train station
*Chinese traditional music group busking in Covent Garden, London
*Janes Addiction in Paradiso, Holland
*Ride, Daisy Chainsaw, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Cranes, Buffalo Tom, The Lemonheads and other bands that passed through The Paard in The Hague 1989-91.
*Asia at the Budokan, Tokyo, Japan
Other favourites:
Wong Kar Wai, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Gus van Sant, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismaki, Bela Tarr, David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson, Andrej Tarkovsky, Park Chan-Wook, Loony Tunes, The Muppet Show...
Complicite: Mnemonic, A Disappearing Number; Shunkin directed by Simon McBurney, Shockheaded Peter w/ The Tiger Lilies; Teater Mars, Cesaris
Raymond Carver, Miranda July, Catharina Gripenberg, Chuck Palahniuk, Anders Larsson, Bo Carpelan, Mark Curlansky, Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggars
Vilhelm Hammershoi, Helene Scherfbeck, Japanese woodblock prints
Sounds Like
...the music I love, the specific instrument I am holding, and whoever I am playing with.
I was born in Finland but have lived much of my life abroad: in Japan, Holland, the UK and China. back in the day I almost started studying classical guitar at the Rotterdam Conservatory, but opted for theatre and film studies in the uk, which led to drama school in helsinki, which led to an acting career with 28 productions/800+ shows (1997-2007) and feature film work, directing, and short film and TV work. I lived in London 2008-09 , where I gigged extensively with a number of bands and artists and recorded TV music.
Highlights included:
* playing basses and guitars for Lettie, both live and on her third album.
* contributing guitars, basses, sitar and arrangements to Anne Nikitin's TV scores (including Banged Up Abroad, National Geographic's Journey To The Edge Of The Universe, Ch4 and BBC documentaries)
* recording, mixing and bass and slide guitar on Emil Brynge's 4th EP (listen to the EP on his MySpace, or one of the tracks on my page.)
* providing electric double bass live in the UK for Erin Lang. (Being a Cure fan, I was thrilled to be playing alongside Erin's partner and former The Cure keyboard player Roger O'Donnell.)
Here's a TV item I worked on as cameraman, editor and sound guy while in Shanghai (on and off 2006-08) - The Umbrella Repair Man, directed by Karin Tötterman/a Pain In The Reel Production for Neon/The Finnish Broadcasting Company. More TV items and short films on youtube.
The deXter Bentley Hello GoodBye Show returns to the airwaves on Resonance 104.4 FM this Saturday 5th September between noon and 1.30pm. Today's broadcast is in conjunction with PESTIVAL * With contributions from the Mosquito expert Dr. James Logan, an essay from the author Tim Burrows (on the subject of insects in rock and pop), plus live music from the London based alt/art duo Plug, who will debut new insect related material especially written for Hello GoodBye.
* PESTIVAL is a festival celebrating insects in art, and the art of being an insect. Pestival 2009 runs from 3rd-6th September @ The Southbank Centre and is jam-packed with insect-inspired talks and debates, as well as comedy, music, walks, workshops, installations and experiments. For further information, please visit: http://pestival.org
Online Now!
