>> Louie Austen
bio: A wave of excitement ripples across the getting toasted wide-eyed crowd at London’s Cargo as they anticipate the entrance of the special live guest. The stage has been transformed into a scene from a hotel lobby - a bar is propped to one side, holding an ice bucket and a bottle of whiskey. A chezlongue sits alongside a coffee table which heaves under a bunch of white lilies. A leather armchair waits patiently for its occupier to arrive. The crowd is getting restless. A mix of perspiration and expectation chokes up the air as the distinctive filthy beats of electronic floor bomb ‘Grab My Shaft’ pierce the atmosphere. He’s coming. The king of cabaret electro is about to take the stage. And he appears, a tanned slim figure in his late 50s, glowing in a crisp white suit and shiny pink tie with a smile and oozing charisma that could light up a damp cardboard box. Louie Austen has been around for longer than you may realise. Now almost 60, Louie has leaped from thriving as an enigmatic lobby crooner at Vienna’s Hilton Hotel to one of the most exhilarating performers dance music currently has to offer. Louie performs 150 times a year across the globe - from intimate filthy electro clubs through to 10,000 capacity arenas, where he is joined by his full band, ‘Tha Family’. For Louie, the new direction into the electronic arena was a welcomed one. Louie’s enviable youthful free spirit and joi de vivre is flourishing with his new audience - being around young people is what keeps him alive. “People my own age are boring! They just sit there looking old with no life in them whatsoever!” declares Louie, knocking back a whiskey-on-ice at London’s Great Eastern Hotel, his favourite spot in the City. “The younger generation are my friends, we have a mutual understanding, I have more in common with them than the people in my peer group.” Since the release of his first album ‘Consequences’ on Cheap Records in 1999, Louie has released two more albums on Germany’s highly acclaimed Kitty Yo! imprint - ‘Only Tonight’ and ‘Easy Love’. His hits include the now almost legendary grinding floor bomb ‘Grab My Shaft’, featuring the queen of slut-grunge Peaches, and the addictive warm club smash, ‘Hoping’, and the Latino-inspired ‘Amore’. The time has naturally come in Louie’s career to release a ‘best of’ album. And Tirk Records is the perfect home. Tirk has curated the album in such as way as to unearth some hidden gems as well as reintroducing the classics that all Louie fans know and love. ‘Hear My Song: The Best Of Louie Austen’ opens with the title track ‘Hear My Song’ - an adorable slice of quirky jazziness. Then oozes in the delicious all-consuming jazz-tinged grooves of ‘Drowning’ followed by the uptempo joy of ‘Easy Love’, dancefloor killers ‘Music’, You Did Not Not Know’ and ‘Grab My Shaft’. The album then takes a Latino side-step with ‘Amore’ and ‘One Night In Rio’ - we defy you not to dance around the front room in your pants to that one. The warmth of ‘Hoping’ then slides in to mark the album’s latter journey, taking a more reflective melancholy tip with ‘Feel Me’, ending on late night lounge bar classic, ‘When Will It All End’. And when you think it’s all over, there may just be a surprise waiting for you. Louie Austen. From Rat Pack crooner to the saviour of Electro. We take a bow. “Music and words, together they are the most powerful experience of life. Emotions can only partly be expressed with words, but with music you get the whole feeling, an action movie without the sound is boring.” “When love has gone it’s the same feeling as being lost under water. I always felt this way when I lost a girlfriend. My first step is to find out what did I wrong and how can I do better the next time. The best thing is to talk with girls about the subject to learn and understand.” “Only when you have lost something you then learn about its value and importance. It’s hard work to bring out the best in the one you love and there’s no time out or breaks in-between. The goal in life is unconditional love and the greatest gift is freedom for the one you love.” “Nobody can read your mind, you must tell them what you want - with partners and friends. You need to express everything, and tell the truth. It’s a combination of the heart and the mind. Not being afraid to talk and to listen - it’s a constant task.” Feat. Peaches “I don´t want approbation for practicing my humble human rights.” Feat. Melinda Stojka “My first anti-war song. It was the beginning of the war in Iraq and I was very concerned to see innocent people get killed. The way I answer my concerns is to always write about them. So this is what I did.” “This is not a song! We had a good loop and I had this idea to tell some stories about my travelling. I never expected people to like it so much - people wanted me to perform it but I have no playback for it and no idea anymore what I was talking about back then!” “When I was working on this song I had the idea to let people know how I spent my holidays and what my girlfriend and I would do. We are alway busy exploring, diving, jumping, dancing, singing - simply, having fun. That’s what this song is all about.” Extended Version “This is such a simple song, it took me three weeks to find a melody. Boys are often too shy to ask a girl to dance, so they are hoping, praying and wondering how to get their attention, and maybe to have one dance, catch a smile or maybe more...” “It’s hard for boys to admit that romance is a wonderful thing - this song is in the perfect rhythm to feel that kind of emotion. So come on boys, feel it!”
)
