Whitest Boy Alive
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.
May 27th, 2006 at 20:56
About that annulled gig in Paris, here’s Erlend explanation from the official forum:
We had booked a show at the Nouveau casino,
when we got asked to open for Phoenix 10 days earlier.
We said: ” we’ll only do one show in Paris in this period, (this was the very busy album release time) so we cant , since we have booked a headline show allready”
Someone within the Virgin system were very keen for this to happen,
so they kept asking for it, assuring us that the N.Casino show had not been put on sale. So finally we agreed to do the Phoenix support thing.
But after the that show in paris, people came up to usk asking what to do with their tickets. So some one had lied to us in order for the Phoenix thing to happen.
Sorry for not coming back.
It has many reasons.
Not really very good ones.