Scandinavian Culture Viewed, Reviewed & Interviewed
2006.05.27
— Music
There are two famous and often quoted sentences in icelandic rock history. One is a statement made my Einar Örn, singer of the well known Sugarcubes, while he was an angry punk in a band named Purrkur Pillnikk around 1982: “It doesn’t matter what you CAN do, it’s what you DO that matters”, and this view has no doubt inspired many a musician since then. The other, less famous quote, was made by Gunnar Hjálmarsson in his band Bless, and it constitutes the whole lyrics of one of their songs: “Total silence is good…. but good noise is good too!”
It is with the latter quote in mind that I proudly present to you Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
Daisy Hill Puppy Farm was in it’s prime in 1987-1988 and released one 7″ single and an EP named Spraycan. Their walls of noise and feedback were rather an astounding experience for concert-goers then and was heavily influenced by the likes of Jesus and Mary Chain. The vocals were usualy drowned in beautiful distortion and feedback. The front-man of the band, Jóhann Jóhannsson has since moved on to become a respectable musician, composing music for movies and theatre, and has worked with f.e. Emiliana Torrini, Marc Almond and Barry Adamson. He is now also part of Apparat Organ Quarted which I’m sure many are familiar with. For my part I consider Daisy Hill Puppy Farm his finest work. Sadly the band suffered a major blow when the drummer unexpetedly parted from this world.
Jóhann kept it going as a solo project for a while but what I heard of that didn’t come close to this, and the project was abandoned with just a song or two appearing on a compilation CD on Lakeland Records. Oddly enough this band is never mentioned in his discographies, perhaps intentionally, but it should be championed as the band that brought feedback and distortion to Iceland, and re-issued all over the world.
Check out their cover version of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” which appeared on the 7″ single, turn the volume to 11, and though total silence is good remember that good noise is good too!
Daisy Hill Puppy Farm – Heart of Glass
Photo courtesy of Björg Sveinsdóttir – bsmyndir.mis.is
2006.05.22
— Music
After several posts written by my Noisedfisk colleagues about some kind of music I’m not really into (finnish heavy metal? swedish post-rock? come on, guys!!!), I thought I had to write something about pop… i mean p!o!p!. I just posted something about Whitest Boy Alive, but I’m delighted to report about the concert Maia Hirasawa played in Copenhagen last saturday. ‘Cause I just spent a wonderful week-end in the wonderful Danish capital and it gave me the opportunity to see the wonderful Maia Hirasawa live. The regular readers of Noisedfisk might remember that Maia is the Swedish girl who recently won the Sami contest; that she can be seen on stage with her friend Annika from Hello Saferide; that she’s cute, funny and -even more important- talented…
She played live last Saturday at Café Blågårds Apotek, in front of a bunch of indie kids and other Danes who were apparently more interested in their pints of öl than in the music she played. Too bad: they should have listened more carefully, ’cause Maia and her friend Josefine Lindstrand played three sets from 9 to 11.30 and created a fantastic atmosphere. Maia is able to sing the sweetest slow tunes with a delicate voice and her acoustic guitar, but also to play some of her best melodies with energy, a good dose of fun, a piano and toys such as a plastic xylophone.
You can listen to (and obviously download) four songs on her myspace, but you’d better buy her new debut EP, titled My New Friend. And if ever you have the opportunity, go and see her play with Hello Saferide (Sweden, Denmark and… France again in the next few weeks) or with a jazztrio: they’re gonna have concerts in churches all around Sweden in July…
2006.05.22
— Music
I’ve been pretty offended since the Kings of Convenience cancelled the gig they were to play in Paris, a couple of years ago. Since then, various things happened in the world of Erlend Øye, including electro-stuff, remixes and europop kind of tunes I’ve never really loved…
Fortunately, here he comes again, with the band Whitest Boy Alive, signed on the Swedish label Service (home of the great The Embassy, Jens Lekman or The Tough Alliance). Here is what they have to say about Whitest Boy Alive: “International proto-poppers Erlend Øye, Marcin Øz and Sebastian Maschat plays music as a band on, gulp, traditional instruments. And it sounds lovely.
Whitest Boy Alive left the electronic music to again find the sound of people actually playing together, thus having recorded the album live in their studio (previously Erich Honecker’s secret hideout in Café Moscau) without layering, editing or effects. There is the guitar, the bass, the drums and the voice. And the result is astonishing.
Erlend’s breezy yet intimate voice and every tone get the same amount of room and care in this airy and personal ten song production. And each and every song is as strong, making “Dreams” an outstanding album and “Burning/Inflation” a, well yes, double A-sided single.
Still, the band’s background in club music can’t be missed at their live shows: The vibe is quite high when they mix the songs together with a steady kick drum dj stile, Erlend crowd surfing but ending up stuck in the disco ball…
A truly original pop band making the simplest sounding songs the hardest way, making us feel the beautiful sounds of human interaction again.”
Dreams, their first album, will be released in June 2006. Meanwhile, you can listen to it on the Service website and have a look at their homepage on Myspace.
2006.05.21
— Music
Okay, perhaps we all know everything about it, or just don’t care, but sorry, I just have to!
Finland has actually won the Eurovision 2006 song contest, with the highest score anyone ever received in the history of Eurovision. The team work of the nordic countries was flawless as well, as the finnish monsters of LORDI and their entry song Hard Rock Hallelujah received the full 12 points from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. Good job!
The finnish act was somewhat exceptional, as where the other countries participated with the common catchy pop tunes, Finland entered with a bunch of horrid monsters playing rock, with axe guitars and flames flying around the stage. As unreal as the whole contest felt, in the end it’s no big surprise Lordi won, but how Lordi got into the contest in the first place, remains a total mystery to me.
What a historical event.
Related linkage:
2006.05.18
— Music
It’s such a pleasure for me to introduce a fantastic post-rock orchestra from Scandinavia.
Sickoakes, from Stockholm, Sweden, was born in 1999, as the founding members Mats (guitar), David (bass), Jonas (saxophone), and Simon (guitar) started to play together in an old candy factory. Since then, Sickoakes have released 12″ splits, CD-Rs, net-releases, toured around Sweden, and got two more members – Jacob (saxophone) and Erik (drums). Now, the complete orchestra have released their debut album “Seawards” under Type.
This group – with its beautiful record of majestic post-rock – is, NEARLY without a doubt, making its way to my personal topten! Just press play and leave the rest to your imagination. Truly fantastic stuff. Also it warms my heart to know Type’s direction of expansion, this label never stops blowing my mind.
Listen to hi-fi clips of Sickoakes – Seawards:
1. Driftwood
3. Oceans on hold
6. Wedding rings & bullets in the same golden shrine (part II)
or this full-length track from their 2003 demo:
3. sickoakes
Visit:
I’m not technically Scandinavian, but I’m still very proud of all you scands and swedes out there, for this!! Thank you!
2006.05.14
— Music
I don’t know much about Trouble and Strife except they are from Stockholm and they write some incredibly fun tunes. And yes, they are Joakim and Jacob, they both play guitar, and are assisted by a mean-sounding drum machine. Their song, “I got a plan” reminds me very much of a great NYC band named The Metric Mile which has a similar if somewhat softer and more serious air about them.
Check out Trouble and Strife on their homepage or visit them in MySpace. On both sites you can download more songs for your listening enjoyment, but here are the songs that I appreciate the most. Indeed be sure to check them all out, they all rock, in their own special naive indie-pop way.
Trouble and Strife – I got a plan
Trouble and Strife – He never changed
Trouble and Strife – New shoes
It won’t hurt either to check out this excellent The Metric Mile song, since it sounds so swedish:
The Metric Mile – Amateurs
2006.05.12
— Music
Our beloved Boomkat is featuring the finnish label Fonal Records along with Paavoharju, at their latest editorial. The editorial contains semi-long interviews with Es and Paavoharju, a chunk of pictures, a Fonal mix by Type Records ceo Xela, and a cool Paavoharju movie! That’s Finland for you, baby! Check out the editorial RIGHT HERE!
If you’re not familiar with Fonal Records, it’s a small finnish indie label, releasing mostly stuff that I’m not even trying to drop into categories, except, well… “good weird”, or, just “plain weird”. Most artists under Fonal are finnish, so this is a good point to start getting to know the alternative music scene of Finland. More Fonal-related information can be found at the Fonal Records website, along with a web-based pop-up jukebox that you can just leave on to play once started!
Closely related linkage:
2006.05.09
— Music
The Way Down have a knack for writing catchy pop melodies. It’s members, the vicious bass-breaking Drain Thoroughly, the finnish born Polly Hardon and Maggi Thunder, have a colourful background in various angry icelandic (and finnish) alternative rock bands since around 1987. This is a secretive bunch with assumed names and I’m guessing they want their past musical achievements buried and forgotten.
However, The Way Down is in fact a reincarnation of a rather cool band named California Cheeseburger, and I’m sure they don’t mind me telling that the drummer also has a hand in a band named Bacon.
Here’s a few songs of interest:
The Way Down – Methamphetamine
The Way Down – For John Denver’s Head
One more song is on their MySpace page and I suggest you head on over there and be their friend.
2006.05.08
— Music
At last I found a reason to write about my favourite band of all times, Belle and Sebastian. Obviously, they’ve got nothing to do with Scandinavia, except when they tour and play in Malmö (13/5), in Oslo (14/5), in Trondheim (15/5), in Stockholm (17/5), in Göteborg (18/5) and in Copenhagen (19/5). I’ll be in Copenhagen at this time, too bad we can’t make it to the concert.
Even worse (or better, for those of you who can make it): Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, a wonderful Swedish duo signed on Labrador, will support them at those scandinavian concerts. “There’s something very playful and extremely catchy about their music that makes our bodies quiver each time we hear them”, as they say on the Labrador website. “Suburban Kids with Biblical Names is Johan Hedberg and Peter Gunnarsson. They make and record their music in the hallway or the storehouse at the home of Peter’s kind parents. Johan makes simple drafts of the songs and then Peter polish them and turn them into shiny pop songs.” You’ll find three songs to download from their Myspace homepage, as well as Rent A Wreck, Funeral Face and Loop Duplicate My Heart from Labrador. I guess those songs are convincing enough.
As convincing is this track, Marie, from the upcoming Sambassadeur EP, thanks to the Swedish website Shaktar: “Marie is the best song by Sambassadeur, even better than Between The Lines. Marie is Belle and Sebastian’s Sleep The Clock Around”, as they say. [great, two opportunities in one post to talk about B&S...]
2006.05.04
— Music
Just found this new music-blog that will undoubtedly be of interest to most of you: Absolut Noise is in English and French (when will they translate it into swedish? ;-)) and is dedicated to the Swedish rock scene. In the last update, Mattias Alkberg is being interviewed (The Bear Quartet), but there is much more to read, like posts about a new Jens Lekman who’s called Diktendo (i’m looking forward to listening to him), or posts about the lovely El Perro Del Mar, or a short interview with the “real” Jens Lekman. If i’m not mistaking, the wonderful Hello Saferide has been interviewed as well and this will be published soon.
[I guess you've noticed that i can't help talking about Hello Saferide in my posts. Sorry for those of you who don't love her music. But really guys, you should give it a try: she rocks!!!]
Apart from that, I saw The Concretes last week-end in Glasgow. Hum, well. I had fallen in love with their first album but honestly, I find “In Colours” a bit disappointing. Same thing for the new Radio Dept. album… I’d be interested to get your feedback about those 2 new albums: what do you think?
Anyway, the highlight of the month is that Sambassadeur are releasing a new EP May 3rd. It will be called “Coastal Affairs” (which reminds me of the Field Mice “Coastal”, and that’s a cool thing…) and you can download one of the 4 songs, Kate, from here… and don’t forget to (re)read this wee interview published on Noisedfisk a while ago…
Picture: Sambassadeur
