My Muses of 2017 - Who do I steal from?

My past year was a crazy rollercoaster, and so I decided to do some balancing and reflecting.

2017 was my musical break through. I had my first concert, and so many original songs happened to come to me. I think some chains inside were broken and some at least released. I feel more comfortable with recording a video of me singing - what a foreign scary scary concept that was 5 months ago!!!

This year was the first year that I actually enjoyed listening to my music and when I look at myself I feel a lot of love. Self-love is so important, although many might discard it as narcissistic - usually these tend to be people who do not like themselves a lot, and I send them a big hug.

I discovered this amazing book recently: Steal Like and Artis by Austin Kleon. One of the points is - nothing is original, everyone steals, and it is better to steal from many different artists (than just one) and at the same time, keep making your mistakes, so unique to your being. It might sound kind of harsh, but it is truly an awesome book, I recommend to everyone who is into anything creative.

So these are my top Muses from the past year, my influences aka Artists that I steal from:

Cocorosie I actually discovered this band here on steemit, as someone mentioned in a comment I reminded them of this band. And wow - this is music that I want to make - Angelic voices with beatbox and bizarre instruments from all around the world. They are so weird with the style of their music, lyrics and costumes. I feel that they just gave me a permission to do and be whatever.

Tank and the Bangas I was fortunate to see them live this year and wow. Yes, they are absolutely amazing musicians, but what is for me the most inspiring is how much they enjoy making and playing their music. Happiness, energy, playfulness - we all need more of these things. It is infectious.

Handmade Moments

This song!!!! Everyone listen to this. Now!!!! :)

Alice Phoebe Lou

A busker who launched from the streets of Berlin, and jumped into millions of views, big festivals.

Relatiiv

I want to play this song on repeat forever. I met these guys at a concert couple of weeks ago and they have this amazing style - I call it sexy intellectual music 😃

Katarina Malikova

This is a very unique artist, who became big in Slovakia last year. She combines traditional Slovak music, with beats and orchestra instruments. The whole album is very powerful - definitely not an elevator music though. Take time and space to listen to it. I wonder if people can connect to it, even if they don’t understand the language. https://soundcloud.com/katarinamalikova I love Slovak folk music, this is something that is an important part of me, and I do not want to loose it.

Dodie

Youtube singer, who actually made it. Smooth simple catchy tunes, minimal, nice melodies and honest lyrics. I feel like we share very very similar life circumstances, and the lyrics she writes are a spot on soundtrack for my life. And again there is this playfulness.

Koranteema

I love this girl! She is also “the child of youtube” and home-made videos and wow. I love the music she writes. I remember once someone told me - but you know song needs to have chorus and verse and bridge, you cannot just write one long thing, without chorus. Well, I think you can. I feel that she is so good in being herself, her style of singing and playing guitar. Yes, yes yes.

David Krebs

https://soundcloud.com/astronaut_berlin/ocean We met this beautiful beautiful man at a festival this summer together with @melavie, and wow. I am so happy I had a chance to see this song live. Also, this is something I want to bring more into my music - love for nature and our earth, and our oceans.

Hvetter and Signe

Beautiful looping, beautiful guitar, beautiful voice.

The Song of the Butterfly

Heavenly music. I have been attracted to this kind of music for the longest time. This one is a collaboration between: Istvan Sky Kék Ég, Estas Tonne, Pablo Arellano, Indrė Kuliešiūtė.

Funny thing is that I actually have seen Estas Tonne live, even before I knew who Estas Tonne is. It was back in 2010 or so, when I lived in London, and he was busking on a street. Long hair, incense burning, intense look, beautiful music. I looked at him, he looked me into the eyes, and I thought - can I run away with you? And so I did. (not literally speaking:)

I think these are the main influences - I tried to not share mainstream musicians, because I just love finding these gems, that not everyone might know…. there are still plenty more though.

What was the music that influenced you in this past year?