Country: Norway
Ulver reports: "We have recorded some hippie songs, from the sixties, bands like The 13th Floor Elevators, Byrds, Jefferson Airplane and stranger Aquarian folks. We aim to make this into a full album, a kind of Ulver kicking against the pricks." Expect a sample tune to appear online soon. In other news, the band recorded a collaboration with US doom act Sunn O))) following their appearance at the last Øya Festival, but it is still not yet finished due to the difficulty of getting everyone together in the same place at the same time. Still, they hope to have it ready for release in spring. And lastly, read an extremely extensive interview with the band at Avantgarde-Metal: http://www.avantgarde-metal.com/content/stories2.php?id=127
Duplicate Records will be putting out a vinyl edition of Virus' acclaimed "Carheart" album sometime around January/February. Also on the way from the label is the full-length debut from Lydia Laska which will be called "Krankenhaus" and should be out sometime around April.
Pitchfork's best videos of 2009 list includes clips from El Perro Del Mar, Fever Ray and Röyksopp: http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7737-the-top-music-videos-of-2009/
Pitchfork has a 5-minute edit of Lindstrøm's epic 40-minute version of "Little drummer boy": http://pitchfork.com/news/37228-hear-lindstrms-little-drummer-boy/
Personally, five seems like too much.
Here's the playlist for this week's radio show Sirius XMU:
01. TALK 1
02. Kommun - I don't say anything
03. On Volcano - Out of sight
04. Turboweekend - Something or nothing
05. TALK 2
06. The Idle Hands - Hearts
07. Thåström - Linnéa
08. Fronda - Mitt allt
09. TALK 3
10. We Are the Storm - A song for our city
11. High Hats - The end
12. Wardruna - Kauna
13. Halph - New money
14. The Scrags - TV messed up mind
15. TALK 4
16. They Live - Magic glasses
17. Ison & Fille - Jag skratter idag
18. Nitad - Rädslan
19. TALK 5
20. Elmo - Shine down on us
Reminder: my show airs every week on Sundays and Mondays at 11pm ET on Sirius XMU. That's channel 26 on Sirius, 43 on XM and 831 for DirecTV subscribers.
Scandinavian acts confirmed for SXSW 2010: Ólöf Arnalds, Julian Berntzen, Adiam Dymott, Francis, The Kissaway Trail, Unni Lovlid, Lowood, Mixtapes & Cellmates, Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks), Movits! and Surrounded.
5
Hard to get around it: Ofag is a pure ego. Five friends convene in a recording studio to hang out, play a little improv music; someone hits record and then they release it on their own label. It's not as if the end result is unlistenable (it's not), it's more a question of why. Why waste the plastic? I'm sure it was tremendous fun for everyone involved and there's no reason they shouldn't be proud of their work, but why not make it digital-only? Or better yet, offer it as a free download? Do they honestly think that fans of their other bands (Heroes & Zeros, Superfamily, Balkansemblet) will be stoked on it? Or that they'll cross over into the already over-saturated experiment/freejazz scene? Doubtful. This is for friends and family, perhaps even the curious superfan, but most of all, it's for themselves. That's fine, but I can't recommend it for anyone else.
- Avi Roig
Oslo Grammofon has signed Rosix-Noir and will be releasing a 2-track 7" from them in early 2010.
MIC Norway reports that Bigbang's latest album "Edendale" will be getting a US release in January: http://www.mic.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2009112412233617369192
Apparatjik, the all-star project featuring Jonas Bjerre (Mew), Guy Berryman (Coldplay) and Magne Furuholmen (A-ha), will release the new single "Electric eye" as a digital download on November 30 via their own (cryptic) website: http://www.apparatjik.com/
The excellent Swedish label Kning Disk has assembled eight new releases for the end of the year, including two 8" lathe-cut + art packages featuring Kim Hiorthøy and Anla Courtis/Fredrik Söderberg, a Mats Gustafsson 3x7" box, a reissue of "Farväl Falkenberg" and more: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=124374902&blogId=519342477
Norwegian artist Håkon Kornstad is featured in the latest issue of Downbeat: http://www.downbeat.com/digitaledition/2009/Current/_art/DB0912.pdf#page=16
Nö Music has a great tour diary from The Cables recent trip to perform for the Norwegian troops in Afghanistan: http://www.nomusicmedia.com/2009/11/22/afghanistan/
Ofag