Finnish hardcore acts St. Hood and Down My Throat will tour Europe together in June. Dates soon.
MIC Norway profiles the massively hyped Serena Maneesh: http://www.mic.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2006030210371232033417
This week's top 20 Swedish student radio chart:
01. (02) Arctic Monkeys - "When the Sun Goes Down"
02. (NY) The Radio Dept. - "The Worst Taste in Music"
03. (04) Morrissey - "You Have Killed Me"
04. (NY) Soviac - "Ogashaga"
05. (18) Firefox AK - "Madame Madame!"
06. (01) Dub Sweden - "We're so Loud"
07. (13) Hard Fi - "Cash Machine"
08. (NY) Soundtrack Of Our Lives - "Infinite Zero"
09. (11) Håkan Hellström - "Jag hatar att jag älskar dig och jag älskar dig så mycket att jag hatar mig"
10. (NY) The Streets "When You Wasn't Famous"
11. (NY) Franz Ferdinand - "The Fallen"
12. (NY) Thåström - "Om Black Jim"
13. (NY) AFC - "5 för 5"
14. (NY) Ane Brun med Teitur - "Rubber & Soul"
15. (15) Depeche Mode - "Suffer Well"
16. (ÅT) I'm From Barcelona - "We're From Barcelona"
17. (NY) Placebo - "Song to Say Goodbye"
18. (06) Danko Jones - "Baby Hates Me"
19. (19) System of a Down - "Lonely Day"
20. (12) Jaheim - "The Chosen One"
Leaving the chart: Youngblood Brass Band, The Concretes, Foo Fighters, Maxïmo Park, Sandy Mouche, Architectures In Helsinki, Timo Räisänen, Ed Greene, Robyn and Martha Wainwright.
Swedish webzine And the Sound will be relaunching as a record label, booking agency and club night promoter: http://www.andthesound.net/
Via the pHinnWeb mailing list, check out "Sata suomalaista äänimaisemaa" ("100 Finnish soundscapes"), a project to record and preserve Finnish soundscapes, both urban and rural, modern and historical: http://www.100aanimaisemaa.fi/
Unfortunately the site is mostly in Finnish with only some basic info in Swedish, but it does sound like an interesting project.
Finland's Circle is returning to the US with support from friends Cul De Sac:
03/11 - TT The Bear's - Boston, MA
03/12 - Knitting Factory, New York, NY
03/13 - Twisted Tea Bazaar, Charlottesville, VA
03/14 - Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
03/15 - Drunken Unicorn, Atlanta, GA
03/17 - Emo's 4 (Eclipse SXSW Showcase), Austin, TX
03/19 - Launchpad, Alburquerque, NM
03/20 - tba, Las Vegas, NV
03/21 - tba, San Diego, CA
03/22 - Knitting Factory, Los Angeles, CA
Swedish hip-hop artists Speech Defect on tour supporting Breakestra:
03/03 - Spectrum @ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham (UK)
03/04 - Fat City, Manchester (UK)
03/05 - tbc, Edinburgh(UK)
03/06 - Fibbers, York (UK)
03/07 - Tuesday Club, Sheffield (UK)
03/08 - Arches, Glasgow (UK)
03/09 - Jazz Café, London (UK)
03/10 - Jazz Café, London (UK)
03/11 - Vibraphonic @ Phenix, Exeter (UK)
03/12 - The Beach Brighton, Brighton (UK)
03/14 - Mandela Hall, Belfast (UK)
03/15 - tbc, Derry (UK)
03/16 - Hi-Fi Club, Leeds (UK)
03/17 - Sugarclub, Dublin (IRE)
03/18 - Academy Bristol, Bristol (UK)
MP3: Jomi Massage - Journal June II
I'm not sure what my problem is, but I've only just recently started to really dig into the Morningside Records catalogue. I've known about the label for awhile now, but never bothered getting a hold of any of their releases until Figurines started to get international attention. Lame, I know. However, I'm not going to talk about Figurines today (I'll wait until after I see them in Seattle next week). The Morningside artist that has impressed me the most so far is Jomi Massage, so that's who I'm posting an mp3 from today. The most obvious point of reference for JM is "Dry"-era PJ Harvey. You know the sound: caterwauling vocals and noisy, lurching rock interspersed with quieter, more tender moments. But JM trumps PJ by incorporating a much diverse and layered melodic sensibility. I like older PJ stuff a lot, but there's something more interesting going on here that's also, most importantly, much more consistent. This particular track that I've posted today starts off with a droning melody and then explodes into a fireball of white noise which keeps burning furiously until a sudden stop at the end. It's a total cliffhanger of a song, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Jomi Massage - Journal June II
Swedish singer/songwriter Ed Greene will finally release his debut album on March 22 via I Made This. Check out the video for the first single "When the sky is about to fall": http://www.edgreene.net/video/edgreene.mov
A new month means a new "Acid test reel" from Kirlian Crossing: http://www.verdurarecords.com/kirliancrossing/acid.htm
The band's second album will be out in September on Verdura.
Norway's Loch Ness Mouse will have their most recent album "11-22" released in Japan on March 20 through Rosemary Records. It will be out in the US on Danielson Famile label Sounds Familyre in the near future.