Kudos to our dearest Relentless Noisemaker for the heads-up to Die Jungen, the latest project of Southampton resident Klaus von Barrel, up until now mainly known for the dark synth waves of The KVB. Die Jungen's debut EP is a terrific, pure 50s throwback, a gloomy yet grooving piece of lo-fi pop that is splendidly held together by von Barrel's dark, melancholic crooning, most beautifully exemplified in EP closer In The End, a song that indeed could score the end credits of every fading memory of our youth. We guess it won't be all good in the end, but at least we can be sure that there's always gonna be music like this to ease our pain.
Get the whole EP $ for free here.
Die Jungen - In The EndRead more →
Pretty blown away by this dark and noisy psychedelic-surf-whatever by these young lads from Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Don't think you can surf in the eastern suburbs of Vancouver, but you can sure dream of California and meanwhile rock the shit out of Joel's basement. Crystal Swells recently finished an EP, self-released on cassette. Goethe Head Soup is no less than a stunning delivery, packed with raw and unleashed youthful energy yet a fine feeling for melodies beneath all that fuzzy feedback and distortion. And if you're wondering about the title, there's indeed supposed to be "some Faust going on in there", so just look a little harder. Weird Canada has called this "essential Vancouver", and though we're not sure what this means exactly, we'd like to think that in essence it's just another expression for "really dope", which would kinda nail it. Enjoy two jams below, and then head over to their bandcamp to cop the whole six song piece.
Crystal Swells - Mellow CalifornianCrystal Swells - Patent TrollsRead more →
Also see bylarm day 1 or bylarm day 3 (coming soon)
On my schedule, the second day of the Bylarm festival in Oslo (Friday February 18th) was indeed the most hectic one, also considering the fact that plenty of the acts clashed on the festival programme, for instance Treefight For Sunlight with The Concretes and French Films or Sleep Party People with Kommode to mention a few. Even though I didn't get to see their whole live set, I at least got to see them all, plus one of Treefight for Sunglight's extra shows on Saturday (February 19th). All though a big percentage of the venues won't let 'underage' people get in due to ID restrictions of 20 or 24 years at most, it still didn't stop me from being using my creativity to get into the strictest venues. ...However, more about that some other time: here are our personal highlights (and not so highlights) from Bylarm day 2.
Starting out with the fantastic Team Me on Thursday last week, I had quite been looking forward to see the rising stars of the beach poppy Young Dreams, whom recently also signed their newest split release to our good friends at Beachtapes, together with the folks of the Norwegian label Télle Records. Having a handful of really strong material already, I cannot deny having high expectations to their performance, as I've heard they're supposed to be amazing live, all though I wouldn't necessarily use the word 'amazing' for their performance at Samfunnssalen on Friday. Indeed being a huge band of none other than 12 (!) band members, you would nearly assume they'd be fit for a bigger stage, but in fact Young Dreams is one of those bands who is best suited playing in a smaller room, just to get that intimate, bedroom pop feel that their music provides. But by all means, it wasn't a bad show. I was just saying.
No-one really knew who Denmark's Frisk Frugt were when their name was announced on this year's festival programme, and as they also were one of the few nominees to the Nordic Music Prize (a long with names such as Robyn, Jónsi and Susanne Sundfør) even more eyebrows were raised, and to be honest, mine too. One moment they were playing all catastrophic and noisy, and the other they would lean towards a whole different genre, almost like blending African beats with bollywood vocals, slowly fading away and turn into a more harmonic lo-fi production. Indeed, it is not easy to understand these guys, or more correctly the solo project of Anders Lauge Melgaard. I'm usually very open towards experimental and art music, but as the weird-sounding album itself, "Dansktoppen Møder Burkina Faso i det Himmelblå Rum Hvor Solen Bor, Suite" didn't sound a thing like what I heard them play live, it's also a little hard to come to a conclusion towards the show.
Starting out with a 20-minute long experimental track which started in the small by using objects such as toys and smaller instruments to create certain sounds (which I quite enjoyed, at least), it suddenly changed into off-beat drumming with a heavy, brain shaking bass in the background, sounding pretty randomly put together with no particular intention in mind. The fact that Anders kept losing his instruments slash objects on stage made the performance look even more ridiculous, and even more confusing when ending the half an hour long live set with an absurd, however beautiful acoustic track which he later acclaimed ironically or not that he he had "won the Nordic Music prize if this track was on my album". Very well, maybe it's just me and my lack of ability to see the 'art' in the music of Frisk Frugt, but to be honest, I can always live with that. This track below is quite lovely however.
Frisk Frugt - Ensemble
On my way to see The Concretes at Blå, I suddenly stumbled accross French Films (FIN) playing at a club nearby, however originally having planned to see them the upcoming day. Following my gut feeling, I decided to see a bit of their set anyway, and it definitely made me not regretting missing the first bit of The Concretes. First seeming to have an awkwardly 'cool' image when playing live (they were almost all wearing sunglasses in the barely lit basement) French Films proved to be a lot more energetic and fun than what I had expected, turning the tiny, but fully packed place into a dance party with their incredibly catchy indie/surf rock.
French Films - Take You With Me
Ever since I tuned in the beautiful track Good Evening by Sweden's The Concretes and superb remixes from both Blackbird Blackbird and Niva, I have been wanting to see them live for ages. Coming slightly late to their show unfortunately, it seemed like I missed them playing that particular track, however followed up by a bunch of other lovely ones from their 2010 album WYWH, slowly but finally making the audience dance along to their carefree indie pop tunes once sung so beautifully by Victoria Bergsman in their more noisier days (before she left to work on her solo project Taken By Trees) — but now as most of you may know replaced by another beauty, Lisa Milberg.
The Concretes - Good EveningThe Concretes - Good Evening (Blackbird Blackbird remix)
The electronic art pop duo Thelma & Clyde was not surprisingly, a great fun to watch, a lot of it because of Hanne Kolstø's ability to seduce everyone with her unique voice and elegant moves, as she didn't need a spotlight to show the audience who was the centre of attention — not being a negative thing, however. The sound could always have been better I guess, but with the tiny venue taken into consideration, it was easy to forget about the shitty sound and just dance along to the heavy bass and funky beats. Once again the half an hour long show proved to be far too short for a show of this caliber, and Thelma & Clyde's set, as well as Lovecult on Saturday, were both perfect examples to this.
Thelma & Clyde - Chess
For us all-eating music junkies, it is nearly impossible to have gone through 2010 without hearing of the Swedish electronic pop trio Museum Of Bellas Artes, which was as far as I recall, a pretty big blog hype last year having premiers on both Stereogum or music blog daddy Gorilla vs. Bear, but indeed with a good reason. After fighting a bit with the bouncer who finally allowed me to get in on the condition of keeping my credit card for my barely 20-minute long stay (what a weird country we live in), I still reached it to the venue on 11th floor in good time, managing to catch a nice glimpse of their electro-balearic soundscape filling our ears with sweet and catchy tunes, written on a sunny day in Stockholm. And don't even ask me why other people weren't dancing (except from the drunk cool-kids on front row), cause I haven't got the slightest idea why.
Museum of Bellas Artes - Watch The Glow
Let's just start by saying this: even though it was a hard choice, I don't regret for a single second that I missed Kommode, the side-project of Kings Of Convenience's Eirik Bøe over the bunny-masked Sleep Party People, the experimental bedroom project of Brian Batz from Denmark— because to be quite honest, it must've been the best concert I attended throughout the whole Bylarm festival. Afte listening to his works ever since the release of his self-titled 2010 debut, I was prepared for some high-pitched vocals and spacey shoegaze of the more minimalistic kind to fill my ears at the venue Blå, but instead a darker and more electronically leaning sound dominated his set, sometimes almost taking short trips over to post-rock at most. All though I had sort of hoped for a 'lush' ending to the second day of Bylarm, Sleep Party People blew me away and left me feeling incredibly tiny under the huge and trippy tunes they played that night, and I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one sharing the same feeling.
Sleep Party People - A Dark God Heart
Photography: Tonje Thilesen
For more photos, check out the whole set on our facebook page.
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Here's a fresh cut by everybody's weirdo lo-fi darling John Maus who's about to drop one of this spring's most exciting releases. Quantum Leap is gonna be the second track of We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves which will be out April 4 on Upset The Rhythm.
Also, don't miss the excellent demo of And The Rain over at AZ.
UPDATE: There's a little confusion about the availability of this track. Till we're clear on that, enjoy And The Rain and be re-assured that if the rest of the album is as rad as Quantum Leap, we really have something to look forward to.
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After recently re-releasing his so far completed works via bandcamp (written about back here), Seattle artist Norm Chambers aka Panabrite will soon be returning with some brand new stuff. First, Sturmundrugs is gonna drop his Omni Center CDr - below, you can peep at the first tune named Citadel in the Sky, a slowly meandering yet steadily growing synth and drum machine pattern that suddenly transforms into an acoustic guitar piece that has aptly been tagged as "space folk". An absolutely delightful listen:
Also, back to a purer analog synth setup, Panabrite will have a collaboration with Montréal's Élément Kuuda sometime this year on Hobo Cult. Take a listen to the first cut:
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Based out of Oakland, California, Galena is the recording project of visual artist/musician Billy Sprague. After a very warm reception among critics and listeners alike, his latest album Grave News For You - originally released only as a limited cassette on Sanity Muffin, the label Billy co-runs with his brother, has now been re-issued on vinyl and compact disc.
Using a setup of analog synths, a baritone guitar, the DRM-16 Electro Harmonix Drum Machine, a Roland Space Echo, and a toy microphone, Grave News For You is a breathtaking exploration into harsh white noise and deepest drone soundscapes, finest analog synth ambient music that is a contemplating yet demanding listen, gently changing its tone from track to track, without ever loosing its overall conceptuality - a dark, minimal work of pure abstraction that still manages to sound warm and organic all along. You can order the LP or CD via Darla now. Before, take a listen to three cuts from the piece below.
Moreover, there's already a fresh Galena release ready, a split LP together with Toronto/Berlin experimental ambient duo Nadja, put out soon by Berlin's Adagio380.
Starting in early April, Galena will be on a Central European tour with Nadja to promote their split release. Some of the dates are listed below, for the whole list please visit the tour page on Facebook:
04-07 Berlin - Schokoladen
04-12 Toulouse - Mix'art Myrys
04-14 Pisa - Caracol Club
04-16 Maribor - Pekarna
04-17 Zagreb - tba
04-18 Budapest - Durer-kert
04-19 Prague - Chapeau Rouge
04-20 Dresden - AZ Conni
04-21 Frankfurt - Studio Konsti
Also see bylarm day 2 or bylarm day 3
As a few of you might already know, Bylarm is an annual music festival based in Oslo, Norway, spotlighting mostly new underground music from Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland), and of course, what seems to have been the biggest hype of the year that has passed. Therefore it wasn't a surprise to see that names like Susanne Sundfør, Young Dreams and Lindstrøm made it to this year's line-up, as well as some of our own Swedish favourites - Junip, Museum of Bellas Artes, The Concretes and Niki & The Dove on the same list. In different to a normal outdoor festival, however, Bylarm consists of over 20 different venues, many of them located more than a 10-minute walk from the city centre. With the bands only playing half an hour each, it's hard for the few of us who wants to see everything to, well, we able to see everything. As if the distance wasn't enough, the otherwise icy streets of Oslo are these days also covered with an ocean of brown slush, making it hard for my poor converse shoes to find their way from A to B without getting soaking wet. That aside — here is our guide to this year's Bylarm festival, separated in three different posts, this of course being the first one. Enjoy.
I remember in late 2009 when Team Me was only a tiny percentage of forever-growing music community Urørt, only consisting of Marius Hagen at the time, with Team Me being a side project he had built up aside from a few other projects he was working on. A few gigs and interviews later, Team Me evolves from a one-man-band into a small indie orchestra, and just like that, I walk into Sentrum Scene, one of the biggest venues at Bylarm, and it's completely packed. I guess a part of the audience simply just hang around at a certain venue all night (while I keep running from venue to venue like crazy with cameras and lenses crashing into one another) — but as I see Team Me perform on what is their so far (?) biggest concert ever, they reveal a new, completely different side of themselves quite different from what I saw them perform earlier in 2010: simply put, they're tight as hell. All though I sort of miss that innocent, rattling indie pop sound, the 'new' Team Me impress, and by taking a quick glance at my fellow festival mates (with their eyes bathing in an indie pop heaven), I'm apparently not the only one sharing the same opinion. Just let me say this: it's a reason why the Øya festival picked them to be the first name (along with singer-songwriter Lucy Swann) to be on their split 7" series.
Team Me - Dear Sister
I wish I had seen more than only ten minutes of the Icelandic singer-songwriter Ólöf Arnaldsof Múm (you will find the reason why in the next column), and I also wish I had heard more of her music before I went to Samfunnssalen, which is, to be quite honest, a shitty stage — basically just being one big room surrounded by thick walls. However, in a way the room acoustics and lack of lights made the whole thing an interesting experience, but in a way a little awkward too, with the audience sitting in front of her on cheap plastic chairs. Despite the location, however, Ólöf Arnalds managed to do the best out of it, and left the audience with closed eyes in complete silence, while the mysterious, Icelandic tunes filled the room like an ocean.
Ólöf Arnalds - Crazy Car
Norwegian singer-songwriter and NFOP favorite Anana outbeat every other performance I've seen at Bylarm this year, much because of the amazing location she played in: a small, but beautiful church located a short walk from the main venues. The setting couldn't have fitted Anana's music in a better way, with candles being the main source of light in the church except for a spotlight or two on Anana and her keyboard on the podium, creating an eternal, spellbinding effect. It almost felt like walking into a church lost at the bottom of the ocean, with only a single beam of light from above the surface was gently shining down at Anana in her beautiful, white dress. Indeed - this is the very reason why people describe her sound as underwater pop, cause to be honest, no other description would fit her dream-like tunes in any better way.
Anana - Tredgjegradsforbrenning
The minimal/tech duo Of Norwaywas rather unknown to me before I read about them in the festival programme, with the description 'sounds like being lost in the Norwegian woods' sounding quite intriguing to me. Their deep electronic sound would've been much more fitting in a fully packed nightclub at 3AM, however, as I guess 11.30 is still a little early for a club act of this caliber to play their live set. The venue wasn't even half full as I entered, which was also another reason to why I left so early. Still, I'm quite excited to see what these guys are up to in the future.
Of Norway - Heathren Burial
I must admit that I had higher expectations to Bergen's previously electronic duo (now a band) Put Your Hands Up For Neo-Tokyo, as they seemed relatively uninspired playing at the rather tiny venue with, to put it mildly, not exactly the best sound around. As they have by this day still only released three official songs, I had expected their set to be more in the vibes of electronica rather than noise, which they seemed to be putting a lot more focus on. Not that it's a negative thing, however — their newest track The Ghost (below) sounds very promising, and hopefully we won't have to wait too long for their debut release either, but who knows really.
Put Your Hands Up For Neo-Tokyo - The Ghost
There couldn't have been a better way of ending the first day of Bylarm than to end it with Lindstrøm together with Diskjokke and Todd Terje(going under the name Smalltown Superstars), two other strong names in the Norwegian electronic and club scene. Not surprisingly, the half an hour long set was based down to one track, slowly evolving from Lindstrøm's dark and ocean deep electronic sound into highlights of what some may choose to call it - space disco, where we can clearly hear the influences of Diskjokke and Todd Terje starting to take place. The whole set was nothing but a musical acid trip of few sorts, and also proved that three different electronic artists with each their different sound can go together and create something truly unique.
Metronomy - Heartbreaker (Diskjokke remix)Todd Terje - EurodansPhotography: Tonje Thilesen
For more photos, check out the whole set on our facebook page.Read more →
Pretty blown away by this dark and noisy psychedelic-surf-whatever by these young lads from Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Don't think you can surf in the eastern suburbs of Vancouver, but you can sure dream of California and meanwhile rock the shit out of Joel's basement. Crystal Swells recently finished an EP, self-released on cassette. Goethe Head Soup is no less than a stunning delivery, packed with raw and unleashed youthful energy yet a fine feeling for melodies beneath all that fuzzy feedback and distortion. And if you're wondering about the title, there's indeed supposed to be "some Faust going on in there", so just look a little harder. Weird Canada has called this "essential Vancouver", and though we're not sure what this means exactly, we'd like to think that in essence it's just another expression for "really dope", which would kinda nail it. Enjoy two jams below, and then head over to their bandcamp to cop the whole six song piece.
Crystal Swells - Mellow Californian
Crystal Swells - Patent Trolls
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