New music from Danish act Mixtune for Cully aka Aage Hedensted (ex-Yellowish) featuring backing band help from folks in acts such as Bodebrixen and Larsen & Furious Jane, among others. The new album "Season of silence" will be out in March.
The semi-finalists for the 2011 Nordic Music Prize have been revealed:
Sweden:
Anna Ternheim - The night visitor
Jonathan Johansson - Klagomuren
Loney Dear - Hall music
The Field - Looping state of mind
Mattias Alkberg - Anarkist
Lykke Li - Wounded rhymes
Anna Järvinen - Anna själv tredje
Deportees - Islands & shores
Veronica Maggio - Satan i gatan
Goran Kajfes - X/Y
Denmark:
Larsen & Furious Jane - Dolly
Michael Møller - A Month of Unrequited Love
Oh Land - Oh Land
Mikael Simpson - Noget Laant, Noget Blaat
The Late Great Fitzcarraldos - The Late Great Fitzcarraldos
Malk De Koijn - Toback To The Fromtime
Iceage - New Brigade
Thulebasen - Gate 5
When Saints Go Machine - Konkylie
Hymns From Nineveh - Hymns From Nineveh
Finland:
Von Hertzen Brothers - Stars Aligned
Röyhkä & Mattila - Kaksi lensi tuulen mukaan
22-Pistepirkko - Lime Green Delorean
French Films - Imaginary Future
Siinai - Olympic Games
Rubik - Solar
Regina - Soita mulle
Michael Monroe - Sensory Overdrive
Mirel Wagner - Mirel Wagner
Chisu - Kun valaistun
Iceland:
Sóley - We Sink
Lay Low - Brostinn strengur
Ham - Svik, harmur og dauði
Sin Fang - Summer Echoes
ADHD - ADHD2
FM Belfast - Don’t Want To Sleep
Gus Gus - Arabian Horse
Mugison - Haglél
Björk - Biophilia
Apparat Organ Quartet - Pólýfónía
Norway:
Razika - Program ’91
Lars Vaular - Du betyr meg
Jonas Alaska - Jonas Alaska
Team Me - To The Treetops!
Ane Brun - It All Starts With One
Stein Torleif Bjella - Vonde Visu
120 Days - 120 Days II
Montée - Renditions Of You
John Olav Nilsen og Gjengen - Det nærmeste du kommer
Martin Hagfors - I like you
This list will eventually be culled down to a final 12 on December 1 before the winner is crowned on February 16.
Danish indierockers Larsen & Furious Jane have pledged to give away their first album "Zen sucker" as a free download provided that 3000 people download their latest record "Dolly" and then 1000 "like" them on Facebook. More here: http://www.momowave.org/main.php
Gaffa is streaming the new Larsen & Furious Jane video "Window shopping": http://gaffa.dk/tv/clip/897
The new Larsen & Furious Jane label website (as mentioned here) is now online with their new album "Dolly" which can be downloaded for free: http://www.momowave.org/
Danish indie act Larsen & Furious Jane have confirmed that their new album will be called "Dolly" and will be released via the band's own label now that is defunct. There's no official release date yet, but the lead single "Out of pocket" can be previewed here: http://www.momowave.org/
Torsten LarsenThe subtitle to "The big payoff" should adequately prepare you for the contents of Torsten Larsen's (of Larsen & Furious Jane) album: "A collection of low-fidelity demos 2005-2008". This three-year period covers the time Larsen & Furious Jane spent on their exceptional album "Zen sucker". Demo recordings are typically the territory of diehards, those who want to hear the evolution of an artist's or a band's songwriting from the early drafts to the finished product, and there is an element of this on "The big payoff" -- the bare bones of tracks like "Tisminton" and "Oh, Perrey Reeves" may well prove only beneficial to serious Larsen & Furious Jane converts -- but there is also a decent amount of material that feels misplaced. Opener "Surrender" is among the strongest of these recordings, and one can't help but feel disappointed that it never found its way onto "Zen sucker". It's difficult to be terribly critical of "The big payoff": at its worst the recording acts a rough prequel to a fantastic album and at its best it feels like a collection of solid b-sides. The fact that is offering "The big payoff" for free doesn't hurt either.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
The new Torsten Larsen (of Larsen & Furious Jane) demo collection "The big payoff" is available as a free download in exchange for an email address: http://larsenandfuriousjane.bandcamp.com/
Alcoholic Faith MissionDenmark has established itself as a sanctuary for offbeat pop musicians. I was easily won over by Slaraffenland's "Private cinema" and Larsen & Furious Jane's "Zen sucker", to name just a few, and it is within this eccentric, peripheral vein of pop music that Alcoholic Faith Mission exist. On "Gently", which begins (and continues on as) a lavish, beautifully layered composition, a female vocalist delicately sings: "Just 'cause I'm a whore, you know it doesn't mean I don't feel it when you fuck me." This strange juxtaposition of the beautiful and the base continues on in the next track, "Nut in your eye", a track that by name alone should be on a throwaway hip-hop album, but in substance falls not too far from the realm of Broken Social Scene. "421 Wythe Avenue", while moving away from the resplendent/sexual parallelisms, continues on musically in much the same way as the opening tracks -- ethereally layered electronic elements and vocals, solid acoustic and electric guitar work, all tethered to shifting centers and uncertain musical landscapes. There is a tragic beauty here, one that blends the emotional registers of Mixtapes & Cellmates and Moonbabies, yet remains quite distinctively an original construct, and it is this ingenuity that sets Alcoholic Faith Mission apart from many of their contemporaries.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Not in stock quite yet, but ready for pre-order: Larsen & Furious Jane - Zen sucker (LP)
In case you missed it, our glowing review of said album is right here. Yet another new release that's only available on vinyl in the physical realm, so be sure to grab a copy!
Danish indie act Larsen & Furious Jane is offering up the song "Dancing bear" as a free download via myspace: http://www.myspace.com/larsenandfuriousjane
Larsen & Furious JaneDespite the laughable name of both the group and their album, Larsen & Furious Jane are by far one of the best bands I've heard this year. An amalgamation of the melancholic immediacy of fellow countrymen Kashmir and the more contemplative vein of Interpol's register -- though this American influence only extends so far, most notably on "A deathbed conversion". A naming of influences also does little with an act like Larsen & Furious Jane; the majority of the record is difficult to place in this way. "Zen sucker" is a wonderfully luxuriant album -- its various components are in no hurry, despite the rather short length of the songs (only two tracks break the 4-minute mark), taking their time to build off the first moments of a composition and creating a extraordinarily functional mass of instrumentation, the timbre of the voice chosen to appropriately settle into this mixture: an almost Ian Curtis/Paul Banks tone adopted on "A deathbed conversion"; a somber, nearly-spoken register taken with "Snakes in the grass"; a contemporary Brit-pop style utilized within "A car that comes with the job"; a very Scandinavian quality (similar to The Radio Dept.'s approach) imbued into "Fine". In the end, "Zen sucker" is a record painted in almost every despondent, sorrowful hue that we've come to expect from Kashmir's contemporaries, but that somehow fits into these early summer days. There is a fragile sense of a hope intertwined in the beauty of Larsen & Furious Jane's music -- sometimes that's all you need.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Danish indie Morningside Records is offering up a few new tracks from Larsen & Furious Jane for free download: http://morningsiderecords.dk/?page_id=48
Morningside Records has confirmed that the new Larsen & Furious Jane album "Zen sucker" will be out on May 19. Expect samples to be online soon.
Danish indierockers Larsen & Furious Jane provide a bit of insight into what to expect from the band's forthcoming album: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=47682405&blogID=253920724
