Louder

The long way home

2006-09-25T19:40:00.000+02:00

After a hectic summer, various examples of ups and downs, a majority of ups fortunately enough, I am back to haunt these pages with updates on what I think would be rocking to share with you. For this coming back update post I will compile my list of the most positive musical happenings from my POW:

1. Roskilde Festival 2006, especially the performances of Roger Waters, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Death Cab for Cutie, Kanye West, Matisyahu.
2. Robbie Williams at Parken. What a grand show, everybody and their neighbours were there. And we all had to take the same train home.
3. Muse in Montreal. The show was delayed due to gallons of rain that decided to pour down on our scarcely clad bodies 20min before planned show start. The mosh pit became a mush pit.
4. Tina Dickow at Århus Festival. This time around, the rain actually made the show even better than it should have been.
5. Matmos at Voxhall. If mental illness had a sound it would sound like Norwegian warm-up act Lesser. In the non-cool way. She seemed to think it was innovative to laugh witch-like into a vocal distorter. Matmos on the other hand did a great down-to-earth set, in which nothing was missing but simply one thing too much: harpist Zeena Parkins.

4 days of goodies

2006-04-20T14:48:00.000+02:00

FINALLY! The moment we've all been waiting for arrived today. The final line up for 2006's Roskilde Festival was announced. If you're not going to be there yourself, here are the artists I plan to see that will make you green with jealousy:
Animal Collective (US)
Arctic Monkeys (UK)
Cabrüera (BRA)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (US)
George Clinton Parliament/Funkadelic (US)
Death Cab for Cutie (US)
Deus (B)
Bob Dylan (US)
The Editors (UK)
Figurines (DK)
The Five Corners Quintet (FIN)
Franz Ferdinand (UK)
Free Hole Negro (CUB)
DJ Grazhoppa's Big Band (B)
Guns 'n' Roses (US)
Kaiser Chiefs (UK)
Lis Er Stille (DK)
Marie Key Band (DK)
Matisyahu (US)
Morrissey (UK)
Ed Motta (BRA)
Phoenix (F)
Placebo (UK)
The Raconteurs (US)
Shout Out Louds (S)
The Streets (UK)
The Strokes (US)
Veto (DK)
Rufus Wainwright (US)
Kanye West (US)
Roger Waters (US) - performing "The Dark Side of the Moon"
Jenny Wilson (S)

Sounds good doesn't it? Now all we have to do is pray to the weather gods.

Voluntary self-combustication

2006-04-10T11:47:00.000+02:00

Another weekend has passed, and this weekend I spent, in part, in the company with both Danish synth-rockers Spleen United and Canadian indie-pop band Stars. Live Århus-based Spleen United they meet expectations with heavy bass sound and colourful illumination and the gig being the last on their nation tour, ending in their home town clearly added to the energetic outlet that was poured all over a sold-out Voxhall. Again the venue proved to be holder of one of the best acoustics in the country.
Same conditions were the challenge of Montreal-based Stars, who guested the city on Sunday. Lead male singer Torquill Campbell stated that it may have been the best acoustics the band had ever played in, making it the ideal circumstances for them to prove their worth. As a complete contrast to Saturday's explosions of red, green and blue, the quintet chose a more sparse setting for their melodious and enthusiastic tunes of everyday semi-philosophical takes on life.
In the flesh, Stars' sound isn't far off from the impressions you get off their latest album "Set yourself on fire" from 2004, one key difference is the disappearence of the kind of boring electronic composition which is found through some tracks off of the album. Live, the songs become warm and passionate, which big parts of a song bidded off to synth and keyboards often fail to offer.
It's for certain that after a well-played concert like that, Torquill Campbell was right in his assumption that he may be a bit of a Dane "but without the self-doubt maybe". Stars are a good and personal live band, and with the almost incredibly overwhelming applauding support of an almost filled venue, who would more than happily have clapped their hands red for a second encore (an attempt was in fact made), lets hope they will come back for more. So we can.

My girlfriend's video montage from Spleen United: WMV or MOV

Listen to samples from "Set yourself on fire"

Dead Heart Bloom

2006-03-30T12:38:00.000+02:00

So about 2 weeks ago in the midst of my quest for new music on myspace.com I got a message on my account from a profile with the mysterious name of "Dead Heart Bloom". A representant for the band or even the band itself wanted to send me their demo as they could see I do radio. Turns out the band is an absolutely amazing and delicious mix of Beck and Antony & the Johnsons. Sinister and mysterious arrangements added dooms day sounding vocal and poetry. Songs about dispair, a suicide, of feeling insignificant, of saying goodbye to the world actually becomes enjoyable for both the dark of mind and the interested in a well-sounding mix of experimental rock songs (driven mainly by bass and keyboards as vocalist and man-behind-the-music Boris Skalsky is a former controller of the said instruments in his old band Phaser) with added string orchestra.

Best of all, the album is free of download from the band's website so check it out.

gimme a b! gimme a loc party!

2006-03-26T15:30:00.000+02:00

ADMITTED! Been rather slow on the updates lately, but I've simply been lazy. There, the jig is up, now let's move on to something much more interesting and suitable.

Bloc Party are touring, where I do not know nor do I care, but fact is that they are spicing up their set this time round with new tracks that are to be recorded shortly and hopefully released on a new album just as soon. It is therefore my pleasure to give to you all, a link to all the new cool songs. Quality varies from file to file as they are of course bootlegs, but they are nevertheless worth a listen if you are a fan. Follow this link to But She's On Fire's blog where all the files are available for download. Enjoy!

Too much of something

2006-03-13T14:05:00.000+01:00

SO this weekend offered the previously mentioned Mew concert. This band has been playing together for the past 8 years or more, which makes them very talented musicians of course. Over the past couple of albums, most noticeable might be their latest "Mew and the Glass Handed Kites" from last year, the band has developed this mysterious sinister fairy tale-like universe wherein children turn into animals werewolf style, and cats dress up like Napoleon and play the violin. These images are used as inspiration for press photo shoots, CD booklet layout, website design and video montages at their live shows as well as music videos. This idea may have been brought to the working table by the hallucinations that the good ol' ganja have infused into the band members heads I don't know, but the case is that this image of Mew as an almost freak-wiccan cult is saturating every facet of what these guys do. This is necessarily bad, but what impression I was left with after Friday night's concert was that this band has to be careful not to become too stuck in their image. Sometimes music has to speak for itself and maybe Mew are aware that some of the basic elements of their songs vary very little so that they feel a need for a different and more far-out video montage on the back dropping of the stage in order to seperate one tune from the next. The show was kicked off with "Special", a personal favourite and probably the song from the latest album that stands out as the most differently sounding compared to the rest of the tracks, which worked really well live and "Am I Wry? No" felt like being placed inside of fireworks with the showing of a gigantic exploding fire-y sun on the back dropping appearing with each chorus. This was all very nice but the rest of the show slowly went down hill from there and became monotonous, all that changed were the lyrics and the back dropping display (animals with instruments, porcelin dolls with tiger heads, a dancing bear, rabies wolves). Audience members started calling for "Comforting Sounds", the band's masterpiece and euphorizing 8 minute track from 2004 album "Frengers", even before the band had ended the real set, proving that other than yours truely were feeling rather bored and just wanted to skip dinner and cut straight to the dessert. The track was served as the only(!!) encore song, and the concert was over.
In the wardrobe section I overheard some people assessing the idea that the band had been playing to a tape, because of the lack of improvisation and over-all similarity between live and studio versions of the songs. Ladies and gents this is not the kind of impression you want to leave your fans with after you've just poured 10 gallons of sweat on the stage. I am hopeful, however, that this band will keep evolving and maybe next time round offer something completely different and perhaps a little bit more refreshing after 5-6 listenings of the album still.

Video montage of the concert experience to be found HERE

"Lost in the woods? What do you mean?"

"You'll be screaming like a white lady"

2006-03-07T17:44:00.000+01:00

I've been an avid Prince fan ever since Julia Roberts were singing "Kiss" in the bath tub in "Pretty Woman". To me Prince is hip movement for the ears, in fact he even makes me wanna wear purple nylon body suits or change my name to a weird symbol for 7 years. Whether I would convert to become a witness of Jehova is somehow doubtful, but it doesn't change the fact that this man, no taller than a 5th grade school boy, is a musical genious.
Prince's days as the absolute primary deliverer of floor fillers stretched from 1982-1993, but I heard from my burning shrub this morning that he is indeed making his way back. Now this isn't something that I just predicted all by myself, but with the release of "Musicology" in 2004 and especially the succes that spun off the title single something told me, and a lot of people, that the prince had indeed fought his way back claim the throne, and with the ex-king of pop in exile in Bahrain, what should be in the way of a new coronation?
The new single from the forthcoming album with the mysterious title "3121" is called "Black Sweat" and after numerous listenings over the past week, I do believe we have a winner. The tight production and minimalistic instrumentation in deed causes black sweat on the dance floors (there's no bass, but big emphasis on the drum line similar to the tune "housequake" from 1987 classic "Sign o' the Times" which in 2004 obviously must have inspired the producer Pharrell Williams of mainstream pop hit animated by Gwen Stefani "Hollaback girl" released in spring 2005).

Judge for yourself, full length video to be found HERE

okay so you take Robbie Williams right?....

2006-02-28T20:34:00.000+01:00

...and you mix him up with the new wave keyboards of the Killers and add just a pinch of the cheeky B-52's and what you get might very well be this blog's new darlings: the Alpine. Having heard only 2 full and promising songs by the band, expectations were running high when your favourite reporter (read: the owner of the fingers doing all the typing) were on her way to Musikcaféen, Århus' probably most intimate music venue.
No larger than your average living room, this place was packed with an approximate of 150 nicely dressed specimens on the windy-weathered Friday evening that was the 24th of February.
Kiona did the warm up, as previously mentioned: very interesting front vocal, also very cool hair cut but but but very misplaced warm up band according to my notes. The Alpine's set was a soothing mix of uptempo party-starters and mellow tunes, among them a polka-sounding tune about going camping with your dysfunctional family: "Winnebago", which didn't put a downer to the overall mood of the event, but served as an interesting interlude presenting a very interesting and innovative side to the band's songwriting and melody making. The Alpine's repertoire is varied enough in genre, but perhaps not in sound, and as well with the studio versions of the songs, the live experience of the insisting keyboard could tend to grow a bit tedious over the span of 12 songs (+/- a few). With that said, the band should have roses thrown at the feet of their frontman Peter Boesen in who the band really holds a lot of its weight. The skinny bird-like guy with the chronic flushed pink cheeks is a true entertainer, and he took full advantage of the close encounters with the audience that the intimate settings of Musikcaféen allowed him.
The same positive adjectives you can imagine being implied through the ramblings above, you can apply to what could be a review of the album which came out yesterday. "On feel trips" is an overall super comfortable acquaintance, and is offered for a simple price of 100 kroner at your local Stereo Studio. This is the album Robbie Williams should've made, but thank the gods somebody else did, it sure as hell made it easier to get tickets!

What would Björk do?

2006-02-20T18:17:00.002+01:00

It's been approximately 8 months since our favourite Icelandic volcano Björk released her last album "Drawing Restraint 9", which at the same time served as soundtrack for her husband's weird-artsy movie of the same title. So what has she been up to all this time? Past time hobbies of the hobbit-like mother-of-two could very well be bouncing on top of geysers or visits to various fashion houses green-lighting outlines for new rags for her spectacular wardrobe. Although both of the above seem more than likely to have happened, they have not, at least this time around.
Instead, Björk has been embarking on a trip to Banda Aceh, Indonesia, until December 25th 04 known for poor fishermen families residing at beautiful beaches, now more known for even poorer orphans of said fishermen families and overflooded swampy wasteland. Björk launched a charity CD containing cover versions of her hit-single "Army of Me" (off her 95 album Post), donating the incoming dough to Unicef and their work with the thousands of kids in the tsunami-struck region, who managed to get out of the tragedy alive, but left without their parentals. Unicef invited Björk on a trip to see how rebuilding the area has developed, and to get an insider's view on how the fate of the tsunami-hitten children has turned for the better thanks to Unicef, and in part her work on raising money for the project. Non-familiars of Björk's peculiar clothing-style might think the picture above is from a day where the singer was performing as entertainment for the children, but the highly eye-appealing stockings are infact Björk's super cosy, yet fashionable and comfortable even in 30+ degrees celcius, leggings of choice!

Björk noticed the lack of fashion sense, and kindly donated some collection samples, which were discarded due to lack of lime-green and bird-feathers. As the pictures clearly show, the children were very grateful. Rumour has it that a choir of school children from the region will join her, when the launch of her new album is being transmitted via satellite from Mars. Date is yet to be determined.

For information about it all REALLY went down, check the article on Unicef's official website:
Unicef article

The best things in life are free...

2006-02-17T11:22:00.000+01:00

or cost 100 kroner!

March 10th, Scandinavian Congress Center, Århus, 19:00/7 pm
FREE Mew concert sponsored by Jyske Bank for account holders, and non-account holders (that bank must have enough money) in between the age of 18 and 24. This will be my second time seeing this band live, after my first glimpse from behind approximately 2000 people one late night at Roskilde Festival last year.
Mew: www.mewsite.com

February 24th, Musikcafeen, Århus, 21:00/ 9pm
Double concert with 2 of Denmark's most promising new bands: The Alpine and Kiona. My enthusiasm regarding The Alpine just won't seem to decrease. This band deserves more hype than the word "hype" has ever generated before. Their album lands on 27th of February, alongside the long waited debut of another respectable Danish newcomer Veto (www.vetonet.dk), the Danish version of The Killers: Campsite, and We Are Scientists . TheAlpine: www.thealpine.dk

The second band, I have only heard one song by, all promising for the live aspect of it and is likely to fall in the taste of poprockers everywhere. Like the Alpine the band consists of 4 guys and a gal, but here the female singer is the front figure. Here's a link to their song "slowmotion": http://www.kiona.dk/audio/slowmotion.mp3
www.kiona.dk

good news for people who love good news

2006-02-15T18:33:00.000+01:00

"Dark side of the moon" performed live in its entiety by Roger Waters on Orange stage at this year's Roskilde Festival. (I'm just gonna let that one stand for a moment)
........
...

That was the headline that greeted me after returning from school this morning, and may I just say that I think many a partout ticket is going to be sold, only by the account that this legendary sort-of-frontman, bass player, singer and songwriter of Pink Floyd (yes thee Pink Floyd) is on the bill of artists who will be playing at northern Europe's largest music festival.
After an endless amount of set backs for the release date of their most anticipated DVD release of the astounding Pulse concert from 1994, the "final" (until further notice) date of release from EMI now being September 18th, this must be a pretty OK substitution to make the otherwise dreadful waiting time just that bit sweeter.
The optimal would've been a reunion tour with the entire band, but but but I am more than satisfied with at least seeing one member of the most magical band on this planet, giving it his all to 75,000 people on a beautiful Danish summer night.
Get tickets you crazy diamonds.....or to quote the master himself: "I'll be joining you there!"

Ladies and gentlemen

2006-02-14T17:57:00.000+01:00

Welcome ya'll to my newest attempt on keeping a blog reasonably frequently updated. You are now part of an experiment, alongside yours truely, but I am the surgeon and you are the guinea pigs!
This blog will contain occasional brain spillings, and if non occur I will do my best to scrape out some samples for you to fiddle with for your own amusement.

About myself. I am a 20 years and 7 month old example of the gracious species called Homo Sapiens. I live in Denmark with my girlfriend of 9 months Laurence. She is very sweet and from Canada.

In my daily life I study English at university, 2nd semester so things are still rather new. On Friday's I produce one hour of radio at night, along with my partner in crime Howard Stern....no wait...Majbritt is her name. When I'm not occupied with any of the 2 things mentioned above, I surround myself with my lovely friends typically for a quiet evening of watching stupid reality tv shows or whatever's cute on Animal Planet, or we go out and drink ourselves crazy to the brim of oblivion. Among my favoured topics of conversation are: music, music, music, politics, religion, philosophy and.....oh and music!

Oh well enough for now, I'll see you at the ramparts!