Adele, James Bay, Years and Years lead BRIT nominations

LONDON: British singers Adele and James Bay, together with pop-electronica trio Years and Years, led the running for this year’s BRITs on Thursday, earning four nominations each at Britain’s top music awards.

Adele who has stormed charts worldwide with her album “25”, received nods for British female solo artist and MasterCard British album of the year.

In the British female solo artist category, she faces Jess Glynne, Laura Marling, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine as well as late singer Amy Winehouse.

Adele’s hit single “Hello” will also compete for British single and British artist video of the year.
British breakthrough act competitors Years and Years and singer-songwriter Bay are also in the running for British single with “King” and “Hold Back the River” respectively.

Bay also faces Adele in the album category for “Chaos and the Calm” alongside Coldplay’s “A Head Full of Dreams”, Florence and the Machine’s “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” and producer Jamie xx’s “In Colour”.

He is also up for British Male Solo Artist, a group also including Jamie xx, DJ Calvin Harris and producer Mark Ronson.

Years and Years won a nomination for British group alongside Coldplay, Blur, indie rockers Foals and boyband One Direction.

“King” is up for British artist video of the year, a line-up also including Sam Smith’s no.1 James Bond theme “Writing’s On The Wall”, Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph”, One Direction’s “Drag Me Down” and Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do”.

That song, which featured on the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack, is also in the running for British single.

Pop star Justin Bieber, hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar and rapper The Weeknd are among those nominated for international male solo artist while American pop singers Ariana Grande and Meghan Trainor and Australian Courtney Barnett are included in the running for the female version of the award.

Eagles of Death Metal, who were on stage at the Bataclan when the Paris concert hall was attacked in November, got a nod for international group alongside Irish veterans U2, rockers Alabama Shakes, Tame Impala and electronic music group Major Lazer.

The BRIT Awards, which will feature performances from Adele, Coldplay and Bieber, will be held in London on February 24.

Source: The Himalayan Times

Kaymu’s New Year offer

KATHMANDU: Kaymu, an e-commerce platform offers massive New Year discounts to its customers in the greatest online sale starting from  January 11. The three-week long sale will offer up to 60 per cent discount on four main categories viz men’s fashion, women’s fashion, electronics, and home and living. The company claims to have always been concerned to its buyer’s need for essentials and hence have been coming up with offers and discounts on every festive season. The great sale is to welcome the New Year 2016 that will avail all the buyers to benefit from exciting discounts on winter clothing, electronic gadgets and items for home and living. Buyers can download Kaymu app in their mobile phone or shop online by simply sitting at home and having the products delivered at their doorstep.

Source: The Himalayan Times

Bend and a beer: Yoga classes and craft breweries team up

MIAMI: Call it detox and retox: Around the country, yogis are jumping up from savasana and hopping onto a barstool as yoga classes are making their way into breweries.

While the teaching is traditional, the classes tend to attract newbies, especially men, says Beth Cosi, found of Bendy Brewski in Charleston, South Carolina and Memphis.

“We get the men in the door mostly because it’s in a brewery and they get a beer afterward. That’s the carrot. A lot of them come with girlfriends, wives, sisters,” Cosi said.
Her $15 classes are 45 minutes, compared to a typical 90-minute class. The room isn’t heated to near 100-degree temperature and the partnering breweries typically offer a tour of the facility after or the chance to drink a flight of several beers.

“They both lead to relaxation. And they both have a little bit of a social aspect, you know. And it’s a very relaxing place to do yoga. So, you know, very unpretentious,” Jason Crafts, 43-year-old IT project manager, said after a recent class at Raleigh Brewing Co. in Raleigh, North Carolina.
While traditional yoga tends to encourage a navel-gazing focus on oneself, individual breathing and controlling one’s thoughts, the yoga beer classes are all about community.

“This gives you the opportunity to come to your mat, to connect with yourself … and then to socialize after class and get to know people,” said Mikki Trowbridge, whose free classes in the Salem, Oregon area draw between 75 and 150 people two or three times a month.

Trowbridge’s business plan wasn’t calculated. She and her husband just liked a strong, sweaty yoga class and a nice craft beer and figured they weren’t alone.

“(Beer) is part of our culture here. We have breweries everywhere and so breweries are where we gather for social time,” she said.

The trend has caught on quickly with yoga-beer partnerships throughout Florida, New York and California. Cosi has been mentoring yoga teachers across the country looking to host beer yoga events. Beer maker Dogfish Head created a Namaste beer, Belgian-style white with dried organic orange flesh and fresh-cut lemongrass; and Lululemon, the athletic apparel line, partnered with Stanley Park Brewing on a limited-edition style with Chinook and Lemondrop hops.
The classes also offer a friendlier environment than yoga studios where many run out after namaste without talking to anyone.

“There’s a lot of (single) people that come in with the goal of talking to someone new and they already know they have beer and yoga in common,” said Melissa Klimo-Major, who started teaching yoga classes in breweries around Cleveland in 2014.

Trowbridge and Klimt drew notable crowds after hosting two beer yoga events in New York City over the summer. The duo, who met on Instagram, is taking their business on the road with a west coast tour planned for the spring and several Midwest stops over the summer.

Breweries say the collaborations are also offering up a bonus for them.

“The majority of our yogis are usually girls and the majority of people in the brewery are men so it’s kind of helped crossed that chasm of getting girls into craft beer,” said Chris Gove president of the SaltWater Brewery in Delray Beach.

Source: The Himalayan Times