It's always weird when a friend of the big Indie Music family publishes new tracks. Kahone Concept, which we know from the days when we were still an indie-rock webradio, comes back with a new 5 track-EP, named in a very original way "And Then, My Five". And when we had the privilege of an early listen, we just remained speechless. 5 tracks. 5 jewels. So we wanted to know more about this mysterious character behind Kahone Concept, Ben. He tells us more about his musical universe and the creation of this new EP.

Indie Music Center: Hey Ben, welcome back to us! First, thank you so much for sending us an exclusive preview of your new EP! Could you tell us what's your story, and how you came to music?

Ben : I have pretty much always done some sort of music thing for as long as I can remember. I remember my dad had a guitar sitting out in the dining room and I just picked it up one day and just started messing around and ended up teaching myself "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. What a first song. I became obsessed and would sit down literally every day and play for as long as I could. I originally wanted to be a guitarist in a band, but where I live, there wasn’t anyone to play with. So I started just messing around trying to make my own stuff and do it on my own. I sold my Xbox and a few other things and bought some really cheap recording stuff online and started learning how to do it!

Selling that Xbox was the best idea you could ever have! I follow you since your first EP, "Clouds", and today we can see the evolution you got through... You sound really more "at-ease", if I can say so. Your tracks sound more professional, year after year, release after release, how could you explain that? Are you more confident, now, about the music you make? Did you realize you have gold in your hands?

Yeah video games are fun but very distracting! You have been super supportive from the very beginning and I genuinely appreciate that, thank you. I am a constantly trying to improve, I think being content with where you are and never at least trying to get better isn’t doing yourself a justice. I remember, with my first release, I was super scared, because I had never shown anyone the music. Most people never even knew I was making it! I had zero knowledge on how to produce and mix and it was definitely an experimental phase. Most bands have a lot of old demos and songs, but "CLOUDS" was genuinely the first Kahone Concept anything. There was nothing before it, so it was a big step to try and come into the scene. After each EP, I learn a lot. Especially production wise, I watch an inasane amount of YouTube videos and read articles to try and teach myself how to do it. Especially with the new EP “And Then, My Five” : the production on this one I put a lot more into. As for confidence, I’m not sure if I would call it professional. I still get insecure about my music, it’s just I’ve reached a point where it’s all I ever think about and all I ever want to do, so that pushes me to just do it and not think about it and worry. Gold in my hands... lol very kind of you but I’m not sure that it’s quite gold haha!

Wow, it must have been a lot of work. That's really impressive to see how much you've learned through those years! You are right. It was not gold. It's modesty, so! About the way you work, could you tell us a bit more? Like : what is coming first? Lyrics? Melody? Some artists use notebooks, to write down some thoughts... What's your method?

It’s so much time. But it’s what I love to do, some days, it's harder than others to keep working, but I’m at a stage right now where if I’m not gonna work, there is someone out there that is willing to, so that tends to keep me motivated. A lot of the times, lyrics come after. Every song is different but they all tend to start off the same. I’ll just be in a mood where I can feel I want to write a song, I’ll sit down at an instrument, sometimes guitar but mostly piano for Kahone songs, and I’ll open up my voice memos on my phone and press record. I’ll just start playing and singing whatever I feel and what ever happens happens. Sometimes an awful song comes out, and sometimes a decent one. I’ll save the voice memos and take a break and then come back to them and if I like the melody and chord progression, I’ll write lyrics, and then start to transform it into the full band sounds. A lot of my songs are written slow and then, in the production phase, I change them a little bit to make them more fun, especially for live shows. At my shows I like to keep everything upbeat and go nuts, and sometimes it’s hard to do that with songs like "Forefront" and "Canvas"!

Thanks so much for giving us a little of your time! All the best for the release and all your future projects!

Today, let's go to Big Apple, and more precisely Brooklyn, where the beautiful Karolina Rose is waiting for us. Artist until the toenails, she publishes today an amazing single called "Goodnight, Mr. Moon", available on all platforms, and for streaming on Spotify. The artist tells us a little more about her musical universe, and you will discover that she has a special link with France!

Hi Karolina, welcome on the Indie Music Center. First, could you tell us how is your relationship with Music, in general?

For as long as I can remember, I was always singing something. It came involuntarily as breathing does. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even notice that I was doing it. I had a roommate tell me once, « you know, I don’t mind, but do you realize that you literally sing alllll the time? » hahaha, I always loved karaoke—I’d sing songs by Shakira, Alanis Morissette, 'Sweet Dreams' by Eurythmics (my go-to’s), but I didn’t think of myself as a singer in my own right. My epiphany actually came when I was on a work trip in Paris, I was feeling quite lost with what to do with my life, and one night coming home there were a few European musicians casually playing on a corner near the apartment where I was staying. I noticed I knew the song, so I came over and started singing with them. I thought to myself—"I could hang with them. I could do this. » When I returned to New York, I started taking music lessons and taught myself to play the guitar. I had always written sort of poetry, so I started using that as my lyrics. I started spending more and more time writing music and performing at local open mics. It got to the point where all I could think about was music and I knew I had to take any savings I had from my Wall St job and take a leap of faith to give it a try.

And it was a good idea! What inspires your music?

I tend to philosophize about my life experiences, I write it down when it comes to me, which sometimes turns into lyrics. I try to write about the ignored aspects of human emotion. It can be something very dark, or also just exploring anything that breaks my heart, passions and pains. Maybe they are things unspoken or left in the subconscious. I keep all my journal notes. When I go to write a song, I usually draw inspiration from those notes. I also write down my dreams. If I write the dream down as soon as I wake up, I can usually remember a good amount and then it fades away from conscious memory "poof" so I have to be quick. When I read those dream notes, weeks or months later, I am sometimes so shocked to read what came out of my half-awake mind. I also love museums and art exhibits so much and when I finally have freetime, that’s where you’ll find me (The Met and MoMa PS1 being my favorites). Art contains all the relatable aspects of life. I feel you can find everything beautiful that you’re searching for there. I’ve always had this lurking feeling of being unusual, like I didn’t belong. Luckily, we are currently in an age of empowerment for outcasts and underdogs to come forward and be themselves. At least in my mind, I feel we are encouraged more than ever to let our authenticity shine no matter our color, preferences, gender and religion. How lucky are we? It’s a good time to create and enjoy art. I tend to be very idealistic and always hopeful for people, and people make up the world, so there’s hope. Being a quixote, I think that hope and that quixotism tends to inspire my music as well.

Wow, art is really present in your mind. But artists, too! Who influenced you?

I don’t always tell my American audience this since they may not know the artists, but I actually am very influenced by French music. I absolutely adore Françoise Hardy, Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf and some of Jacques Dutronc’s songs (j’adore, j’adore 'les cactus’—it’s the best). Aznavour is probably my most favorite. I speak fluent French and used to live a short time in Geneva and spent several months in Paris. Being Polish-American, I also love Czeslaw Niemen. He is our Polish Mozart. His voice is incredible. Please take a moment to listen to the depth of his soul. Other pop influences include: Madonna, David Bowie, Chairlift, Florence + The Machine, The Cranberries, Shakira, Radiohead, Lykke Li, Kate Bush, Lana Del Rey and Debbie Harry from Blondie. Just a ps: the first song I ever learned on guitar was Carla Bruni’s 'Quelqu’un m’a dit'.

Indeed, for us, it seems incredible to learn guitar with this song! And what about this single, "Goodnight, Mr. Moon"? Where does the story comes from?

There were a few inspirations for the song. The initial spark came from a conversation with my friend & visual artist, Heide Hatry, who occasionally runs some artist showcase nights in conjunction with her work. She asked me if I could write a song about death and perform it at her showcase (which I did at the end of last year). She told me her project 'Icons in Ash' all started with her dealing with the loss of her father. I felt her emotion that she would do anything to bring him back. He was cremated, so she took the ashes from his body and created a portrait of him in his utmost essence. She felt a lot of relief in having that portrait in her apartment. Her project caught on by word-of-mouth and before she knew it she was commissioned to make portraits of clients' deceased husbands, wives, sisters and even pets. Here is the site for the project: iconsinash.com/portrait-mosaic.html. She's received quite a bit of press regarding her work as well. Fast forward, as soon as I left the concert in the LES here in New York where she and I had met up, I had the song coming to me in my head and was singing it as I was walking down the street. Initially, it was just "How do I get you back? All the pieces in one. How do I get you back? All the pieces came undone". I kept thinking about the theme of putting the pieces together to bring one's loved one back. Further, I have suffered from nightmares for many years. I often have hallucinations when I sleep. I wake up and see things in my bedroom or projected onto the walls or something within my room takes a different shape and moves. It's frightening. The first verse of the song takes inspiration from one of my nightmares where I woke up and it literally looked as if the moon was projecting a spotlight onto my wall and it looked like a scene was playing out. It may sound magical, but it was quite frightening. I started coming up with the visualization of someone hallucinating in the middle of the night, bringing back their loved one by talking to the moon, and so the loved one becomes "Mr. Moon". She communicates with her lost love in the nighttime. She processes her grief in her dreams. She thinks it is totally real until the end of the song when she wakes up from the dream and knows that it's really time to say goodbye, indicated by the last lyrics: "Goodnight, Mr. Moon". There's a climax to the song at the moment of awakening—that's when it picks up. If people listen through the entire song, it has a definitive journey that was quite intentional. I enjoy writing and performing all my songs on stage, but as far as my songs to listen to personally, 'Goodnight, Mr. Moon' is my favorite one.

Anyway, we can say that the inspiration was good! Thank you for telling us a bit more about you, and good luck for your future projects!

After moving our entire house (and with it our blogger's office and the internet connection that goes with it) and a week of well-deserved rest, we are back with an amazing artist. In one song, Nick Murray, from Minnesota, directly seduced us. His musical universe is warm, welcoming, and soothing. There is in "Island" (which is also the name of the EP, which we also recommend), a perfume of perfection. The production is incredible: it sounds very professional. So we wanted to know more about the artist behind this musical gem, and he accepted our interview.

Hi Nick! First, thanks for taking the time to answer to our questions. Could you start by telling us how you came to music?

Well I started taking piano lessons pretty early on, but I didn't really start writing songs or making music until I was in high school. I wrote some bad poems/lyrics then, and started singing/playing "impromptu songs" with a friend of mine.

How you felt while writing/composing "Island"? Are you working on your songs all alone?

Writing songs/music for me is very much a love/not-love relationship. I'm a bit over-analytical at times and will need to tweak something until it feels right, or, a lot of times I won't be able to finish something. When I do actually finish something, it feels really good. Recording "Island" was my first time recording in a professional studio, so that was really exciting, and also a little bit intimidating. I write all of my music alone, yes, but for the EP I had help from a lot of great musicians, mostly from my friends Tim Greenwood and Jason McGlone.

What about your projects now? Maybe a full-length album? Concerts?

I'm really looking forward to making new music. This EP was a fun project, but I think it may be too niche, and I know I can do better!.

That's true, we can always do better! Even if we already have reached a high level of quality in the production, as you did! Which artists influenced you, and what kind of music do you listen?

I really love a lot of different kinds of music, but just to list a few (in no order): Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Beach Boys, any Motown, Sam Cooke, Bee Gees, James Taylor, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, ELO, The Beatles, Radiohead, annd I could keep going. Early on, the bands that got me into songwriting were Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes.

Great playlist! Thanks for your time, and we wish you all the best for your projects!

Thank you! Great website, I will definitely be visiting.

"Island" is also available on Spotify and iTunes.

Your single "Cary Grant" has been featured recently on the Indie Music Center. As our readers seem to appreciate it, we wanted to know a little bit more about you! Thanks for accepting to give us a little time. First, tell us how you met and decided to make music together ?

We all met while attending college in St. Louis, Missouri! Our singer Nav is from India, Zach and Sam are from Florida, Jeremy is from Chicago, and David's from New Jersey. We all came together over our shared love for creating and playing music.

Wow, such a diversity, that's cool!

How would you describe your music, how you sound like?

We like to combine different sounds and styles from across genres. With Cary Grant we wanted to write a fun indie rock anthem, something you can dance to and play loud in the car. So a lot of elements are in that style, but it's also got this thumping dancehall beat and a bit of a tropical vibe to it. (Sam, drummer)

Yeah that tropical influence sounds great! What are your projects? An EP? A full-length album?

We've got more singles on the way, and plan to release an EP a little further down the road. No release dates yet, but we're excited for 2018.

We're excited too ! Hope you'll come to play in Europe!

We would love to play in Europe one day!

We wish you all the best for this new musical year!

If you haven't, please check out their music here.