30 Nov 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Ponderous names for unceremonious pop projects: Rough Days For Diamond Trade is the imaginative (and assumedly profound) if unwieldy moniker for the musical solo endeavour by Berlin via Copenhagen filmmaker Frederik Sølberg, whose debut EP Somehow is set to be released via elusive imprint Looking Forward in mid-December. As somehow expected, the project's output is all stylish and sophisticated and well-considered, not without some twisted edges but overall definitely airplay-ready. Watch the well-crafted video for first single "Anywhere" below and see for yourself. If things come across as a little bleak, that's just because we haven't had the time to start dancing yet. Now think about that.
Together with our friends at Nordic By Nature, NFOP presents Rough Days For Diamond Trade's EP release show at Monarch on Wednesday, December 12. For more details head over here.
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07 Nov 2012 — Tonje Thilesen
For long-time readers of this blog, you might know that Oslo has a very special place in our hearts, as it has proved to develop into portal for new musical discoveries in all different outfits of pop music, be it from the likes of Bloksberg to the impressive showgaze quartet Dråpe. Presented by yours truly and our friends and collegaues at Spoon Train, we're excited to bring you 2012's most buzzed-about Brooklyn act DIIV, with support from Oslo's finest pop piece (and Riot Factory signees), Angelica's Elegy.
We're fashionably late on posting this one I must admit, but if you're by any chance stuck in Oslo tonight, get yourself over to John Dee right now. Angelica's Elegy will be on at 9PM.
Facebook event
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03 Nov 2012 — Tonje Thilesen
We've lured the 285 Kent regular, event orgainzer and photographer Erez Avissar (better known as Weird Magic) into our dearest city, and as he's teamed up with none other than our friends of Noisekölln, we're pretty sure a deadlier combination could not have been made. With him, NFOP favourites Teengirl Fantasy and Pictureplane will headline the event, also including sets by Aids-3D, Lotic, M.E.S.H, SFTSTPS and the excellent TCF, with sounds in between the sets curated by Weird Magic himself. The only downside of this? Well, it's on a Tuesday. Meaning we're all gonna have some pretty bad headaches going on during normal work hours on Wednesday, but oh well, it will be worth it. We promise.
Weird Terrain will take place on Tuesday November 6th at Freudenreich Berlin, Sonnenallee 67.
RSVP here.
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31 Oct 2012 — Henning Lahmann
As previously reported, Lee Gamble's Diversions 1994-1996 probably is this year's most astounding example of rave nostalgia (and don't say it could be the only one), a work that really gives the term 'collage' a whole new meaning. Gamble manages to not just channel the lost tales of mid-nineties jungle through the EP's ghostly transmissions in order for the listener to revisit or reappraise the original music. The gloomy, bleak atmosphere that dominates throughout, created solely with samples of his old jungle mixtapes, lets us actually and painfully feel the loss of the artist's youth. It's an unsettling process that halfway into the EP turns the listener into a position of feeling lost in memories as well, a result that is achieved without ever resorting to the cheap effects that 'hypnagogic pop' so often tends to rely on. As reported by FACT, the accompanying video, created by Gamble himself together with Dave Gaskarth, follows an analogous path, patching together blurred, almost unrecognisable footage of raves that seamlessly conflate into music's the spectral sounds.
Diversions 1994-1996 is out now on the ever-exciting PAN. Highly recommended.
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In related news, Lee Gamble is among the first names to have been announced as part of the forthcoming, 14th edition of CTM Festival, which will happen in Berlin from January 28 till February 3. The festival, which will be staged under the theme "The Golden Age", is going to feature a whole lot of other exciting artists as well, namely Emptyset, Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, Agnieszka Dzubiak, Werner Dafeldecker, Ensemble L’Art pour L’Art, Florian Hecker, Heatsick, Iceage, Jar Moff, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Mark Fell, Matmos, Myrninerest feat. David Tibet, James Blackshaw, Andrew Liles, Reinier van Houdt, Aloma Ruiz Boada, David Pepe, and Oneirogen. We'll let you know when more names have been unveiled.
Related posts:Lee Gamble: “Emu”.
26 Oct 2012 — Henning Lahmann
This planet's prime instalment of all things cross-cultural mayhem Drop Dead Festival returns to Berlin next week to celebrate its tenth anniversary together with everyone who's not afraid of questioning or redefining their own preconceptions about the rather ill-lit strands of contemporary underground music. What the festival offers is less your inner hipster's most cherished new subgenre but a sweeping curation of audiovisual madness that is as much art for art's sake as it is your own personal gateway to well-deserved insanity. Featuring appearances by N.U. Unruh (of Einstürzende Neubauten), Pictureplane, Young Hunting, Low Sea, Butterclock, and countless others, Drop Dead spreads across five awakening as well as exhausting days that are meant not to be thought but felt, evading all overcome determinations on genre and underground/overground dichotomies. Just don't say "goth".
The magic runs from Halloween till November 4 and happens at Neukölln's CUBE. Go here for more info and to check out the complete, stunning lineup. For tickets head over here. Get a rough idea of what you might encounter at some point during the festival's five days by streaming this excellent minimix provided by one of the enigmas behind the madness, BlackBlackGold:
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This planet's prime instalment of all things cross-cultural mayhem Drop Dead Festival returns to Berlin next week to celebrate its tenth anniversary together with everyone who's not afraid of questioning or redefining their own preconceptions about the rather ill-lit strands of contemporary underground music. What the festival offers is less your inner hipster's most cherished new subgenre but a sweeping curation of audiovisual madness that is as much art for art's sake as it is your own personal gateway to well-deserved insanity. Featuring appearances by N.U. Unruh (of Einstürzende Neubauten), Pictureplane, Young Hunting, Low Sea, Butterclock, and countless others, Drop Dead spreads across five awakening as well as exhausting days that are meant not to be thought but felt, evading all overcome determinations on genre and underground/overground dichotomies. Just don't say "goth".
The magic runs from Halloween till November 4 and happens at Neukölln's CUBE. Go here for more info and to check out the complete, stunning lineup. For tickets head over here. Get a rough idea of what you might encounter at some point during the festival's five days by streaming this excellent minimix provided by one of the enigmas behind the madness, BlackBlackGold:
