Music without Labels XXIII
Glam with feeling by Slade
High level jazz-pop with Julia Biel
Vila Chinaski´s pop-folkie
Glam rock IX: More artists
With glitter rock came an adolescent and brash type of music that worshipped the image. Soul, blues and folk musicians appropriated their appearance and their impudence. Punk and Heavy metal will later inherit their imagination and frivolity.
The compositional tandem made by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn created the brand Chinnichap, who appointed great figures accused by the critics of being inconsequential. Chapman will reinvent himself in the eighties with bands like Blondie and The Knack.
Slade - Cum on Feel the Noize (1973)
This is a track that was composed by Jim Lea and Noddy Holder and was released as a single. Produced by the ex-Animals, Chad Chadler, it reveals the rock and roll feeling with which the band gained credibility.
Other glam bands were Ian Hunter’s Mott the Hoople, Steve Harley’s Cokney Rebel, Roy Hood’s Wizzard and Brian Connolly’s Sweet. There were also women like Suzi Quatro, cabaret performers like Alvin Stardust and oldies like The Rubettes, Showaddywaddy and Mud. Meanwhile, Spain was the only country that used the term gay rock. This term was even used in a book with the same title written by Eduardo Haro Ibars (1975). Furthermore, in our country a David Bowie compilation album called El rey del gay power (1973) was released.
International: Julia Biel
Julia Biel is a Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in London. She combines voices that are reminiscent of the greatest singers of the golden age of jazz, with a lyrical style that interposes poetry and conversation.
Collecting influences from Nina Simone and Billie Holiday’s vocal jazz and from the style of artists such as Björk and Amy Winehouse, she creates timeless songs that she interprets with impressive skills and great authenticity.
Julia Biel – Emily (2018)
This is a self-written track included in her third album, Julia Biel. In this track she connects the classic to the contemporary to create an elegance that is unusual in a crossing of jazz and pop.
Julia Biel was born in London in 1976. While studying at the University of Oxford she started to play the piano in the band of the clarinettist and producer Idris Rahman. It was with him that she started her career as a singer and will win her the prestigious Perrier Young Jazz Vocalist of the Year in 2000. As she went to collaborate with renowned musicians like Ben Watt and the band Polar Bear, she released a collection of great records that allowed her to play in the best European jazz festivals.
National: Vila Chinaski
Vila Chinaski is the new project of the Valladolid artist, David Vila. A multipurpose artist that after a long career in different formations, he now faces a solo career in which he shows a more intimate and personal self.
After living in Chile, mixing with the local musicians and listening to the traditional Latin American music, he evolves with new songs where he mixes his folk origins with touches of pop and electronic atmosphere.
Vila Chinaski – El glaciar (2019)
This is a self-written track released in Altamar, the EP that introduced this new period. It relies on acoustic guitars to talk about the experience of life and the desire of freedom.
David Vila Quintana was born in Valladolid in 1989. His first band was Stealwater, an indie rock band influenced by English bands, formed in 2006 with his study mates. Years later, in 2013, Bicycle Thief appeared, a folk-rock band that sung in English with which he released two CDs and toured all over Spain. A professional experience led him to live in Chile for one year where he came in contact with the country’s music and he found himself in the lyrics of a sweeter language, that was curiously his own.