Revised release dates for Mew

The release date for Mew's new album "No more stories..." has been revised to August 17 with the new "No more stories EP" preceding it on June 29. Tracklist for both at Gaffa: http://gaffa.dk/nyhed/32699

More Mew details surfacing

Gaffa has managed to track down a few details on Mew's upcoming album + single: http://gaffa.dk/nyhed/32530
The jist: the album "No more stories..." is confirmed for an August 19 release in Finland (and possibly elsewhere?) with the first single "Beater repeater" being issued on June 1. Furthermore, there will be a "No more stories" EP on July 1 which will include two live tracks and a b-side.

Mew to play support for NIN

Danish act Mew will support Nine Inch Nails on tour in Europe this summer. Dates here: http://tour.nin.com/

Am I pretentious? Yes

Mew has kinda/sorta revealed the title of their upcoming album: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=35725465&blogId=483596236

MP3: The River Phoenix - 5 wheel drive

Okay, one last promo mp3 before Friday's Danish Dynamite showcase. The River Phoenix are a band that manages to transcend their abominable name to deliver solid emopop on this particular track, "5 wheel drive". Nothing groundbreaking to be sure, but if you like soaring octave chords, heavy half-time choruses and earnest, keening vocals then these guys will surely satisfy. Sand off the dark edges from either Mew or Lapko and you get the picture. Not quite as sugary as Jimmy Eat World's best material, but awfully close, so let's play it safe and file 'em under guilty pleasures for the time being.
As for the rest of the Danish Dynamite lineup, since there's no way I'll cover 'em all (even if I wanted to) I'll just pass along this zip file so you can familiarize yourself on your own time: [click here]

The River Phoenix - 5 wheel drive

Interview: The Late Parade

New Mew in June

Gaffa is saying that Mew's new album will be out in June: http://gaffa.dk/nyhed/31153

Danish act Mew have begun mixing their new album.

The Deer Tracks
Aurora
Despotz Records

"Yes this is my broken shield", the opener to The Deer Tracks' debut record, is a track that could easily have overshadowed the rest of the album. And while "Aurora" never again reaches the stellar heights of the closing minutes of "...broken shield", the band has plenty of other avenues to explore. The electronic production on "Aurora" is nothing short of fantastic, combining the glitchy with the organic, folding the vocals and guitars effortlessly into the mix, and creating dense, lavish compositions that effortlessly span the emotional range from triumphant to melancholic. Strangely, there are only little touches to connect this project to David Lehnberg's previous bands (Leiah, Ikaros, Ariel Kill Him), with far more connections drawn to acts such as Four Tet, the Notwist, Sigur Rós' "Ba ba ti ki di do" and Mew. "Aurora", despite the range of its influences, is a distinctively Scandinavian, if not characteristically Swedish, record -- showing beauty to be both a thing of wonder and tragedy, and effortlessly so. As I wrote for "Yes this is my broken shield", The Deer Tracks have raised the bar. "Aurora" is one of the great albums of 2008.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson

Jonas Bjerre (Mew), Guy Berryman (Coldplay) and Magne Furuholmen (A-ha) have apparently joined forces in a new supergroup under the name Apparatjik. The trio recorded the theme song for upcoming BBC2 series "Amazon", premiering on September 22, and so far has no plans to do anything else.

Mew checks in from the studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTBsdiFr8pU

Murmansk
Chinese locks
Around Your Neck

"Vague language" alone is testament to the fact that there was enough of value in 90s music for Murmansk to draw from, to combine into their own register, and this second track of "Chinese locks" flickers alive in ways that I can only remember moments of Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins songs comparing to. The opening title-track prepares listeners for an onslaught similar to that of Mew's "And the glass handed kites", where equal emphasis is placed on the energies of the guitar and drum work, in the end building up an intriguingly thick soundscape of instrumentation. The first breakdown of "Nothing but the moon" is one of the more epic interludes I have heard in a while, not necessarily in its scope, but in its execution: resounding, thunderous drums punctuating layered guitars, wisps of soft vocals floating just above the fray; and this theme is repeated throughout the remaining breakdowns of the song. This amalgamation of the grunge themes of the 1990s with the more expansive sound of acts like Mew is worked and reworked throughout the album, the focal influence shifting all the way through, and thus it never starts to feel formulaic.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson

MP3: Lapko - Killer whales

Lapko is a band I stumbled across recently, somewhat randomly (thanks for the totebag Daniel!). I had seen their name before, but had never fully investigated due to their affiliation with Fullsteam Records, one of Finland's biggest indie labels. I know that it's unfounded (and unfair), but I can't shake my prejudice that they only put out watered-down punk/hardcore records from bands like Disco Ensemble. Anyhow, Lapko proves to be an exception (along with Downstairs, Callisto and many other bands the label represents) and their most recent album "Young desire" sounds surprisingly fresh. Opening track "This is aggressive melancholy" serves as an apt descriptor- before I even peeped their bio I was thinking that they sounded like a mix of Mew and Tool, two very obvious comparisons. And after watching the video for today's mp3 selection "Killer whales", you might want to add The Cult to that list as well. This is the kind of stuff I find to be woefully underserved in today's "hip" quarters, as intelligent hard-rock with obvious arena-sized aspirations is not nearly as fashionable as willfully obscure indierock. Too bad, 'cuz all too often, you're missing out.

Lapko - Killer whales

Check out the new video for "Killer whales" from Finnish act Lapko: http://www.netinfect.de/aextern/lapko/lapko_killer_whales.wmv
I just recently got into these guys- good, intelligent hard rock kinda along the lines of Mew and Tool.

Here's the playlist for this week's radio show:

01. Figurines - The wonder
02. TALK 1
03. CS Nielsen - Happy
04. Superfamily - Teens of the 70s
05. Winter Took His Life - Oh
06. TALK 2
07. Frivolvol - Out come the knives
08. Bogus Blimp - Untitled jazz no. 1
09. Firefox AK - Pushing
10. TALK 3
11. Disfear - Get it off
12. Biker Boy - March song (Kalle J remix)
13. Eskju Divine - Darkness all around
14. TALK 4
15. Dogday - New romance
16. Mew - Am I wry? No
17. Det Är Jag Som Är Döden - Hello!
18. TALK 5
19. Familjen - Huvudet i sanden
20. Darkthrone - Skald av Satans sol
21. Caesars Palace - (I'm gonna) Kick you out
22. TALK 6
23. Lack - Behead
24. Bertine Zetlitz - Fake your beauty
25. Hebosagil - Old prophet
26. TIAC - OTW
27. TALK 7
28. Marybell Katastrophy - Hip
29. Strip Music - Never die
30. The Social Services - Electric brae
31. TALK 8
32. At the Gates - All life ends (live)
33. Fireside - Jupiter
34. Ulver - Funebre
35. Paper - They're gonna keep me
36. TALK 9
37. Convoj - Cultural legacy
38. Maia Hirasawa - Still June
39. Silverbullit - Run
40. TALK 10
41. Massgrav - Vuxenliv