Nocturnes (album)
| Nocturnes | |||||||||
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| Little Boots studio album | |||||||||
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Publication |
May 3, 2013 |
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admission |
March 2010 - January 2013 |
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| Label (s) | On repeat | ||||||||
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Format (s) |
CD • Download • LP |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
50:12 |
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Andrew Butler • James Ford • Tim Goldsworthy • Jeppe Laursen • Ariel Rechtshaid |
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Nocturnes is the second studio album by the English musician Viktoria Hesketh, better known under her stage name Little Boots . It was released worldwide in May 2013.
background
Hesketh first spoke of plans for a second album in March 2010. It should be "rawer and a bit more down-to-earth". “It'll still be magical, but quite dark and spooky at the same time.” [It'll still be magical, but at the same time pretty dark and scary. ] In May 2011, she performed in Beijing at the China Music Valley International Music Festival, where she introduced a new song called Crescendo , which ended up in seventh position on the album's track list. In 2011 and 2012 two more songs from the album, Shake and Every Night I Say A Prayer, were released for download on the Internet. In June 2012 Little Boots released another single called "Headphones", but the song was removed from the album's final track list.
In an interview with DIY Magazine in December 2012, Hesketh revealed that she was putting the finishing touches on her second album and continued to say: “I feel a lot more at peace about where I'm at creatively as an artist now than a year or so ago […] I think everyone is always nervous releasing anything they've created into the world, but I've realized what I want to do and how I can achieve it, rather than trying to please other people. "[ I am far more satisfied with where I am as an artist than I was a year ago. […] I think everyone is nervous when they make something they have created available to others, but I've realized what I want to do and how I can achieve that instead of constantly trying to please others. ] Musically, she said, the album represents her better as an artist. It is an upbeat album and less influenced by the synth pop of the 1980s, which she attributes to the fact that she spent a lot of time DJing in clubs and listening to dance music. [ It definitely feels more representative of me of an artist. [...] It's less 80s synth pop influenced, it's quite an upbeat album, which I think has stemmed from the fact I have been DJing a lot, and listening to a lot of dance music. ]
In January 2013, Little Boots announced that their second album was finished. At the end of February, she published the cover and track list of the album via Instagram . The artwork designed by Jack Featherstone and Max Parsons shows three photographs of the singer against a black background. The photograph on the left shows a blue-tinted portrait of the singer, who looks to the left of the picture. The middle picture is colored red and shows a full body picture with Hesketh looking straight ahead at the viewer. The final photograph is a profile shot of Hesketh that is colored yellow. The name of the artist and the album can be seen in white letters from Art Century Gothic at the top and bottom of the picture.
At the same time, the title of the album - Nocturnes (roughly: "nocturnal") - was revealed. The artist explained the idea behind the title: Nocturnes is an album "indebted to the night" [ night indebted ].
publication
In November 2011, the album track Shake was released as the lead single of the album at the time. The premiere was on the British radio station BBC Radio 1 , after a short snippet of the song was published on the October 2011 mixtape Shake Until Your Heart Breaks . Every Night I Say A Prayer was released as a download in April 2012. Previously, a short clip appeared again on a mixtape ( Into The Future ), on which the song was announced as Into The Future , but later renamed as a single and appeared on the album. The accompanying music video, shot by Zaiba Jabbar, made its debut on May 1, 2012 on Little Boots' official YouTube channel. Little Boots released "Motorwa <" on February 25, 2013 as a free download and a first taste of the upcoming album on their official website. Broken Record was released as a download on March 18, 2013 as a preliminary single to promote the album .
Nocturnes was first released on CD in Australia on May 3rd. The album was gradually released across Europe (in Germany on May 5th as a download, on May 10th on CD) as well as in Hesketh's home country Great Britain (also on May 5th as a download, on May 6th as CD) and the United States (on May 5th as a CD) May as download, on May 7th on CD) released on Hesketh's self-founded label On Repeat Records. The first edition of 1,000 copies were CDs or long-playing records signed by the artist , which included a download for the album and a t-shirt with the motif of the album cover, made by the British fashion and music label Millionhands.
Songs
The album opens with the title Motorway , written by Hesketh in collaboration with Jim Eliot, half of the British electro-pop duo Kish Mauve, who have worked with Kylie Minogue . The song is about the need to leave the old life behind and run away. Hesketh invites the listener to meet her on the autobahn in order to escape together and find a place that is perfect for both of them, far away from obligations and worries. [ Meet me on the motorway, together we can make our great escape. […] Maybe we can find our perfect place. ] This is followed by Confusion , which was made with Jeppe Laursen - one of the songwriters of Lady Gaga's hit Born This Way . In this song Hesketh celebrates that she is being lied to by a person she knows well and that she no longer recognizes him. [ Everything's changed, you're not the same. […] I've been caught up in a lie. ] In the C part of the song, the phrase "never lie to me again" is repeated.
The pre-release single Broken Record , which was written with Devrim Karaoglu and Rick Nowels, who has worked with Madonna , Nelly Furtado and Lana Del Rey , addresses the end of a relationship after which Hesketh describes how she uses the voice of her ex-boyfriend over and over again hear her name say again. To do this, she uses the metaphor of a stuck record [ I hear your voice like a broken record, saying my name every second. ]. In the C part, the phrase “voice like a broken record” is repeated four times, with various effects being applied to Hesketh's voice. At the end of the song, individual syllables of the words "every" and "broken" are repeated several times in order to once again clarify the endless loop in which the lyrical self is. The song ends with a fadeout . Every Night I Say A Prayer is about love. The lyrical self tries to convince an object of desire to make the best choice with it, and confesses its deep infatuation and is convinced of the success of its project, but prays every evening that it will work out. [ I have seen into the future, I want you to take me there. […] Every night I say a prayer. ]
Crescendo, the second collaboration with Jim Eliot, uses the music theoretical lecture title of the same name as a metaphor for the louder voices of an arguing couple. The argument begins with an inadvertently uttered remark [ Just a careless thought said without thinking. ] and degenerates what Hesketh describes with the two of them facing each other with swords and running around each other in a circle. [ Soon we're drawing swords and making circles. ] As the song progresses, it becomes clear that the lyric self would like to settle the argument. So it complains that it cannot stand the noise of the voices [ I can't stand the noise. ] and asks: “ Can we stop and talk it over, instead of talking over ourselves? "[Can we stop and talk about it instead of just drowning out the other?] Strangers addresses the alienation of two people who thought they knew each other well. [ I know you so well, but we dance like strangers tonight. ] "All For You" is about total devotion to another person, and that you make the decision to do everything in your life for another person. [ At the end of my days, when they ask what it was all for, then I will say, it's all for you. ]
Criticism
| Professional reviews | |
|---|---|
| Averages | |
| source | rating |
| Metacritic | 70/100 |
| Reviews | |
| source | rating |
| Allmusic |
  
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| CDstarts.de | 4/10 |
| The Guardian |
|
| Intro | positive |
| Music Express |
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| NME | 5/10 |
| Pitchfork Media | 6.0 / 10 |
| The Times |
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Nocturnes received mixed reviews. Maxmilian Nitzke (CDstarts.de) gave the album four out of a possible ten points and above all criticized the "painfully implemented technical limitations" of the arrangements, but praised the album's start with Motorway and Confusion , which he listed as tips for playing. He also wrote: “Precisely because the prelude really seemed to follow the quality of the debut, the crash landing that followed is all the more violent. And apart from one or two good representatives of the mediocre, you have to struggle with a simply weak record. "Kurt Murphy, who reviewed the album for the New Musical Express, praised Crescendo as" brilliant "and described the album as" catchy and classy electronic. " dance music "[catchy and classic electronic music] together but wrote Broken Record sound like a Euro vision -angehauchter soundtrack to Hopaktanz [a Euro vision-endorsed soundtrack to Cassack dancing], and Satelite is lax version of Madonna's Ray of Light [a limp version of Madonna's 'Ray Of Light'.]. In a record review for Pitchfork Media , Katherine St. Asaph wrote that Hesketh was striving for the cool distance of Sarah Cracknell or Sophie Ellis-Bextor on Nocturnes . [ Nocturnes finds her settling on one that aspires to the distance of Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell or Sophie Ellis-Bextor.] And continued: "She's not quite there, and when her approach doesn't work, it really doesn't [... ] Nocturnes is a big improvement over Hands, though, where even the biggest singles' hooks were made of saccharine, not sugar. ”[She doesn't quite get there, and if her approach doesn't work, it doesn't work at all. [...] Nocturnes is still a big step up from Hands , on which the hooks were made of saccharine , not sugar .]
In a review for the British Guardian , Caroline Sullivan called Nocturnes “one of the pop records of the year” and went on to write: “It's warm and heartfelt, but the other side of the coin is its streak of wistful self-deprecation. ”[It's warm and heartfelt, but the other side of the coin is, it has a wistful hint of self-irony.] and summed up the album as“ delightful ”. Albert Koch from the German magazine Musikexpress gave the album four out of five possible points and wrote: “First of all, it is noticeable that the album, in contrast to Hands, had obvious hits like 'Stuck On Repeat', 'Remedy', 'New In Town' and 'Hands' are missing, but - despite not even that small stylistic differences between the ten songs - it works a lot more as an album. [...] Despite the 90s house references, echoes of 70s disco and clear references to contemporary, tech-house electronica ('Broken Record', 'Shake'), the 29-year-old Englishwoman's goal is the perfect one Pop song. And at some point in the course of the further hearings of Nocturnes , the hits come: 'Motorway', 'Shake', 'Broken Record', 'Every Night I Say A Prayer', 'Confusion'. You can also put it this way: Nocturnes is the consistent dance-pop album that Kylie Minogue has not succeeded in her entire career. "
Track list
| Nocturnes - Standard Edition | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | title | Songwriter | production | length |
| 1. | Motorway | Viktoria Hesketh • Jim Eliot | Tim Goldsworthy | 4:59 |
| 2. | Confusion | Hesketh • Jeppe Laursen | Goldsworthy • Laursen | 5:01 |
| 3. | Broken Record | Hesketh • Rick Nowels • Devrim Karaoglu | Goldsworthy | 4:33 |
| 4th | shake | Hesketh • James Ford | ford | 5:31 |
| 5. | Beat beat | Hesketh • Pascal Gabriel | Goldsworthy | 4:18 |
| 6th | Every Night I Say A Prayer | Hesketh • Andrew Butler | Goldsworthy | 3:38 |
| 7th | crescendo | Hesketh • Eliot | Goldsworthy | 5:42 |
| 8th. | Strangers | Hesketh • Magnus Lidehall | Goldsworthy | 6:39 |
| 9. | All for you | Hesketh • Butler | Goldsworthy • Butler | 4:21 |
| 10. | Satellite | Hesketh • Ariel Rechtshaid | Goldsworthy • Legal aid | 5:25 |
| Overall length: | 50:12 | |||
Contributors
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Taken from the CD booklet of the album.
Chart placements
Neither in Hesketh's homeland, the United Kingdom, nor internationally, Nocturnes was able to build on the success of the previous album Hands and only reached number 45 on the British album charts, with 2,465 units sold in the first week.
| Charts | Top ranking | Weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Chart placements | ||
 United Kingdom (OCC)
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45 (1 week) | 1 |
Web links
- littlebootsmusic.co.uk - Little Boots , Official Website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rick Florino: Interview: Little Boots - "It's The Dark Side That I Like ..." , Artistdirect , artistdirect.com
- ↑ Brad O'Mance: Little Boots Has Played A New Song At A Festival , Popjustice, popjustice.com
- ↑ Simon Scott Warren: Little Boots: 'I Feel A Lot More At Peace ' | Features | DIY Magazine , thisisfakediy.co.uk
- ↑ Little Boots Return To Take On The World , The Gazette , blackpoolgazette.co.uk
- ↑ Little Boots Premieres New Song 'Motorway', Confirms New Album , Digitalspy , digitalspy.co.uk
- ↑ Colin Daniels: Litte Boots Unveils New Single 'Shake' - Music News , Digitalspy , digitalspy.co.uk
- ↑ Little Boots - Every Night I Say A Prayer (Official Video) , Youtube , youtube.com
- ↑ Lists: Little Boots - 'Motorway' - Popjustice , Popjustice , popjustice.com
- ↑ iTunes Music - Nocturnes , Little Boots , iTunes Germany , itunes.apple.com/de
- ↑ Nocturnes: Amazon.de: Music , amazon.de
- ↑ iTunes Music - Nocturnes , Little Boots , iTunes Great Britain , itunes.apple.com/gb
- ^ Nocturnes: Amazon.co.uk: Music , amazon.co.uk
- ↑ Amazon.com: Nocturnes: Little Boots: Music , amazon.com
- ↑ Little Boots - Nocturnes | Album Presale , littlebootsmusic.co.uk/nocturnes
- ^ Critic Reviews For Nocturnes - Metacritic , Metacritic , metacritic.com
- ↑ Matt Collar: Nocturnes - Little Boots. allmusic.com
- ↑ Maximilian Nitzke: Little Boots - Nocturnes . CDstarts.de
- ↑ Carolin Sullivan: Little Boots: Nocturnes - Review. The Guardian
- ↑ Kerstin Kratochwill: Little Boots - Nocturnes. intro.de
- ^ Albert Koch: Little Boots - Nocturnes . Musikexpress.de
- ↑ Kurt Murphy: NME Album Reviews - Little Boots, ' Nocturnes '. New Musical Express
- ↑ Katherine St. Asaph: Little Boots: Nocturnes . Album Reviews | Pitchfork
- ↑ Ed Potton: Litte Boots: Nocturnes . The Times
- ↑ Little Boots - Nocturnes (Album) - Booklet, On Repeat Records
- ↑ Alan Jones: Official Charts Analysis: Caro Emerald Album Tops 34k Sales. Music Week (registration required.)
- ↑ Chart sources: UK