Here at the laundry-office, we would like to salute our readers and wish everyone a happy new year. We didn't really get that many new readers in 2007, but we don't care. There are still quite a lot of you every day and as long as someone findes something inspiritional we kind of overachieved!
We will see you next year with more groundbreaking stories. Hopefully we will be able to break the news that Led Zeppelin and Van Halen will guest the legendary Roskilde Festival. If anyone has enquieries, please feel free to contact us via the link provided in the right bar.
Enjoy the video below. It's fun pop-up book puppetry.
Wolfgangs Vault is the kind of shop you can visit and browse and feel entertained in without ever leaving a dime at the counter. Wolfgangs Vault sell all kinds of rock music memorabilia (soo cool tshirts), but the way interesting part in their business is free and it features the complete archives of legendary rock impressario Bill Graham, whose headliners included Johnny Cash, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Janis Joplin, Aerosmith, Jefferson Airplane, AC/DC and Phish.
Today I've heard an evil liveconcert with Black Sabbath from Pittsburgh Civic Arena dated back to september 2. 1978. They have Neil Young concerts, Byrds stuff, Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin from Fillmore East and bunch of other totally vintage-style concerts. The flash-based player is way cool, allowing you to play only tracks, view bandinfo, post to friends etc. Just sign up for free and get in. It's the link of the last week this year, I'd say.
As always we bring you late news from the edges of the alternative pop world. This time we are late telling you about The Blow aka the two girls Khaela Maricich and teammember Jona Bechtolt. To me these two are a perfect pair and their record Paper Television is just plain addictive. It's minimal indie pop and of the intelligent lo-fi drumbeat kind. Even more than icelander Hafdis Huld in which this duo reminds me.
Just check out the song Parentheses below - it's a absolutely gorgeous song set in a supermarket and helps its lovesick protagonist through the store, with a heartbreaking verse: "If something in the deli aisle/ Makes you cry/ You know I'll put my arm around you/ And I'll walk you outside." Better late than never, right?
I game for getting this the number one christmas hit. So merry christmas!
An as an extra christmas bonus, it should be mentioned, that as a celebration (?) of the closing of the Arab Strap website, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton is offering a free download of a previously unreleased song. Again, merry something. To all good night (mp3)
The Moby Quotient determines the degree to which artists besmirch their reputations when they lend their music to hawk products or companies.
The equation factors in the artist, how "underground" they are, the social character of the company, and how wealthy the artist is. Interesting! (via snarkmarket)
This is not a top 11 list of best music videos of 2007, but these I've stumpled upon in the past year. And I like. There are many more, but here is a serving with different stuff; there's consistent popsongs here, freaky stuff with nice lightning and videodirection, a truely amazing Arcade Fire song about exploiting children (Joe Simpson) and just plain good music. Enjoy.
Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
It's soon Christmas and there's nothing like some music for the season. I found the website of Joe Sixpack, which is part e-zine, music guide and wacky carnival mirror for his overstuffed, overly musical brain. I don't really know about the design of the website, but this dude has heard a lot of music. All his knowledge is put in a database and presented on his site. So if you want to be inspired for the season or just want to know more about hick music, alt. country, bluegrass, hillbilly fillies, western swing or are curios on country gospel, you have just found yourself an ever-expanding source of reviews. Below some YouTube from some old Johnny Cash holiday shows. Enjoy. It's a bit corny, but what...
Johnny Cash Christmas Show '77 - Cash, Orbison, Perkins, Lee
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash 10th anniversary Christmas
Thursday Ryan Admas proved that he is one of his generations best alt-country-rockers to move a audience and perform unforgetable beautiful songs. And now I just discovered that you can learn to dance to his song of the year 2007. I don't know about you - but I'm gonna practice alle weekend. Enjoy!
Sitting here early saturday morning trying to do some reading for my exams. But for some reason my mind is drifting around fantasies about The Nationals concert next friday in the southern part of Copenhagen, which is going to take place in an old cinema. I don´t reckon it´s going to be a roundtable thing like this (even though, that would be nice), but i´m deferential for whatever this amazing band will serve me. But while waiting I should (and not at least: you should!) have a look at La BlogothequesTake Away-shows. Here you will find some acoustic live videos directed by blogger, director and much more Vincent Moon, who also directed some of The Nationals videos. The videos are lo-fi, shot in daily locations, but often with a original twist (and with the recognizable Vincent Moon aesthetics).
Here at the Indie Laundry office we often fail in trying to be all upfront with the newest music. Once again I must admit that I first today met Menomena, and they have been absolutely worth the wait. Especially the album Friend and Foe, newly released on the mighty Barsuk Records. Should I mention some bands alike, stuff like Flaming Lips, Clap Your Hands, Arcade Fire and Wolfparade would pop up. Menomena are a trio from Portland, Oregon and plays experimental rock. They create most of their songs using a homemade computer program that loops their instrumental riffs and the bass and drums play off one another intricately, blending punk- and funk-inspired beats with more straightforward rock emphases.
But they do have melody lines as well. More than most indiebands. A lot of stuff is going on on the album, but if you check out the mp3 below you will be delighted. It might be conventional, but it's memorable and varied. The textures beneath the vocals are constantly shifting. And listen to the piano passage over two completely different rhythm tracks. It's... well... awsome.
You can't be too bad if you take a 35 years break from the music scene and still manage to return in style. In 1970 ' with only one album and a bunch of singles to her name - Vashti Bunyan quit her promising and critically acclaimed career to raise her kids and look after animals.
Her debut album 'Just Another Diamond Day' is widely regarded as a hippie-folk classic, especially among popular freak-folk acts as Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective. Perhaps, their succes has ease the way for the return of Vashti in 2005 where the succesful 'Lookaftering' came out. A couple of week ago a combilation of her 60's singles, 'Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind' (the title of her Jagger/Richards-penned debut from ´65) was released.
This is extremely pleasurable music. Acoustic, simple, free and if you liked the vocal of Cocteau Twin's Elizabeth Fraser on Massive Attack's hit 'Teardrop', this could easily be right up your alley! Just lend your ear to this:
Mugison (Örn Elías Guðmundsson) has just grown on me the last two years. From not really caring about this crazy bizar icelander, I'm all hooked on his beautiful mess. Just yesterday I received his newest release 'Mugiboogie' and it's absolutely just as wonderfull of the same folksy electronica, acoustic guitar and impassioned vocals I've come to like on his debut Lonely Mountain and Mugimama, Is This Monkey Music? I can strongly recommend this album. It's like strong acid! Check it out for yourself below from icelandic tv (RUV). Song is the grungy and loveable 'To the bone'. Guitarplayer is Pétur Ben.
Buy the album here and have it shipped without any costs. You can also buy it on mp3 for less.
When we're done excusing for being busy and neglecting our dear IndieLaundry, we welcome ourselves and you back with Kylie! Just to get the bloodstream flowing again. The evergorgeous Kylie Minogue will release album 'X' very soon and besides being hot she actually has a certain nice something on her comeback single '2 Hearts'. At least this mix. The single is worked together with swedish electronic duo Studio and has an understatet popappeal. Kylies voice sits rather uncomfortably in the mix here, secondary to Studio’s guitar flourishes and glitter effects. As they gradually move even further away from the song they were tasked to re-interpret, the track becomes thicker and more interesting. Try it out. And we will be back with indie-stuff very soon! Sorry!
It is time to be breathtaken again. Tomorrow is Sigur Ros Day if anything as the Icelandic quartet returns with the gorgeous documentary dvd 'Heima' and the double cd 'Hvarf/Heim'. Both releases has a retrospective theme.
'Heima' is a homage to their homeland Iceland's nature and culture from which the group has drawn inspiration to craft their unique blend of atmospheric soundscapes and thunderous noise. Similarly 'Hvarf/Heim' is a combination of new editions of some of their very earliest and largely unknown songs (Disc 1) and acostic versions of songs from their four main albums (Disc 2). Right now, you can stream the entire double album at SigurRosSpace. That, I can only recommend!
Also, do not miss this hilarious interview where the four guys absolutely torment an interviewer on NPR. I guess, they basically just want to let the music do the talking...
I really like the web music ehm.. phenomenon(!), last.fm. Its bottom-up engineered software system seems to be in a league of its own in designing finely tailored playlists just for me. It covers every corner of my musical taste while avoiding things that I logic-defyingly don't like in the very same genres. Now, last.fm has expanded business to a mail service containing various music recommendations. That's how I discovered the American duo Beach House.
On their Myspace site they refuse to be pinned down by simplifying genre terms, especially folktronica. Not only must I admit I haven't encountered that term before but also when hearing the songs of their 2006 self-titled debut, I find it quite useful here. But alrighty then... Imagine Portishead, Grant Lee Buffalo and Mazzy Star meeting and smoking some of whatever it is that Devendra Banhart smokes. This results in a dreamy, spacy, decadent style that can be quite enchanting.
Here are a couple of tasters from their album but be prepared to hear a lot more of these two in 2008 when they release their second effort "Devotion".
NB: For our Danish readers - Beach House actually visit Denmark next Saturday, the 20th. However, they play in Fredericia... which is just about the strangest thing I've ever heard. But If you live nearby I strongly recommend you to go.
Today it's the official Radiohead day. Of course we tried to download the album for 0£ from their site. The encoding is not my cup of tea. Only 160 kbps. Fair enough, but they could have done better. Maybe we'll have to buy the old skool album when it's out, probably in '08. Musicwise it's nice! An interessting discussion on the subject here.
There are moments in my life where I really like Jose Gonzalez. Sometimes he is just way to fragile, gently and soft, but overall he really is one of my favorite swedes. Now you can catch him in a full concert, recorded in Washington, D.C. Of course it's NPR delievering this for you. Check out Teardrop - a new Gonzalez-cover. This time Teardrop from Massive Attack. Below I also put some links for some very interessting all new music videos for Gonzalez. These videos are directed by the very interessting directors Mögel & Andreas Nilsson adding some both surreal and beautiful characters.
Radiohead generates a lot of attention these days with their new free cd 'In Rainbows' coming out wedensday. I'm pretty exited about this new album. Read a nice article from todays Times on what this release might lead to for the global music industry. What puzzles me most about this album is why it hasn't been leaked yet? Every normal release would have been released so few days prior to a launch-date. More on that subject here.
These days I'll do anything to help my favorite footballteam - AGF - win some points. I don't know if this will help any bit, but Made of Buildings is from Århus and has a fine debutalbum out called 'The World has been stolen by cynics'. It's indie and it's not of the happy go lucky kind of indie, which I'm not sooo crazy about. This is a bit darker and has some very nice minimalist melodies on it. The vocals works pretty good and in glimpse Made of Buildings reminds me of The American Analog Set and The Album Leaf. So in the good spirit of the band and our footballteam AGF - go visit and support these boys.
It's exciting times in the record-industry. It seems that the web is about to kill old-school music-distribution totally. Today Radiohead announced that you can download their new album from their website in ten days, and YOU decide the prize! Access to music gets easier and easier. My favorite hippie Devendra Banhart just put his entire new album om his Myspace page. Thanks! If you are an old-school guy like me who in fact likes cd's for the stereo and magazines in your hand, I can recommed the new Uncut-magazine, where Devendra has compilated a cd showing his personal taste. Exciting times!
Hurra Torpedo has been around for years. And they rule! They call themselves for the worlds leading kitchen appliance rock group. It's absolutely brilliant fun from Norway. Classic.
Last week the crowd at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium last week when Jack White joined Dylan for the first ever live performance of the Blood on the Tracks gem “Meet Me In The Morning.” Jack must feel very special. Next month Elvis Castello will join Dylan on his tour. We salute the Jack White-Bob Dylan collaboration with the YouTube video below. A stunning version of Dylan's modern classic. Also it's said that Bob Dylan has announced that he'll kick off the second season of his acclaimed radio programme very soon. Guestlist includes Jack White.
This entry started off while I was on the bike in some pretty heavy rain. Suddenly my mind started rapping "Whatever bubbles, bubbles up... I feel!" I rarely rap in the rain - or any other places I might add - but this is a classic. Sorry. "Lucas With the Lid Off" was a smash hit in 1994 and featured the half danish rapper Lucas, which no one have heard of since then. The single is quite irresistible, full of crazy beats, reaggae scats and great horn loops. It's kindof fun. But what is more cool is the unique video, directed by a young Michel Gondry. It's just as weird as the song; shot in one continuous take while moving between several sets. I guess this must be the first artist Gondry has directed that hasn't been able to ignite anything but matches since his debutalbum. Btw called Lucacentric?!?!
This Sunday a bunch of your servants here at Indie Laundry will head to the Opera in Copenhagen. Admittedly, not exactly our home turf but the occation is too good to miss when The Good, The Bad & The Queen take the stage as the Danish Crown Prince Couple hand out their yearly culture price.
Each year the Crown Prince has an important say in who is to perform. The two previous years has presented no other than Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. Not bad taste, indeed! On this picture he shows just how much he rates Damon Alburn and his new mates in The Good, The Bad & The Queen:
Some of us also attended last year's sterling concert by PJ Harvey where she gave a very early taste of the stunning 'When under ether', first single of her brand new low-key album "White Chalk". Watch that performance here:
Ok... it just wouldn't be fair of me to not give you some of the good-bad-queenies as well so enjoy this:
Besides being the most depressive time of year, this november is a crazy good month for concerts in downtown Copenhagen. So far I have by far exceeded my monthly limit having added so brilliant artists as Ryan Adams, Okkervil River, The New Pornographers, Arcade Fire and The National to my concertlist. AND considering Animal Collective. I know that The National is a great band live, so what I'm really interessted in here is the warm-up. The canadian musician Hayden Desser is that man and he is so compelling that I'd almost wish he would put on his own concert. Or at least play for more than an hour.
In 2004 he released Elk-Lake Serenade which is his best album to date. And it is beautiful, small but large. Hayden loves detuned guitars, his lyrics are clever and has a certain talent for building some very intimate acoustic landscapes. The music is mellow with subtle strings and handclaps and has this lazy late-night feel to it. His voice and his way of vary the simplicity makes it feel really really good in your ears.
Hayden is combining elements of both rock and folk music and has a voice that is able to channel both the falsetto highs of Neil Young and the wavering raspy low tones of Leonard Cohen. Hayden has his own recordlabel Hardwood Records and a new album is in the making, due for release in 2008.
Remember to check him out and make friends with him on his MySpace profile. He has only 192 friends due to a servercrash!
Ever wanted to play bass like Alex James in Blur? Well, why not hire him as a teacher. On new website NowPlayIt you can in fact have him as a teacher for 4£ for a song. ALex James and lots more are available for drum, guitar and bass teaching so you can play with the best. Of course you don't wanna pay for this, so just go for the preview-section. And Alex James is in fact quite funny on these small clips. Mostly because he just looks as if he doesn't give a shit about what he is doing in Blur. Maybe he isn't really doing anything at the moment because the band is on pause. Or are they?BTW: Alex James has a book out.. it looks like good fun. While we wait for new material, I'll go see The Good The Bad @ The Queen in the Royal Opera on sunday. My expectations are high. Below you'll find a couple of nice Blur-songs and one of their really good videos (clockwork orange-style) and most likely, best songs.
Back in the 80's before the word 'indie pop' made any sense, there was an English band that actually possessed all the qualities of that very genre. Oddly named Prefab Sprout fronted by Paddy McAloon produced a couple of clever, elegant and delightfully awkward pop albums in the middle of that period.
Probably the best of them, ´85's 'Steve McQueen', has just been released in a remastered edition including a bonus cd of new acoustic versions of the songs.
Like most indie music this album didn't create a lot of havoc on the charts but the critics drowned it in superlatives. This is no surprise as these very slick songs, effectively manage to cover all sorts of influences, from 1940's cabaret style to bossanova, and doing it without ever loosing sight of McAloon's masterful melodies.
What strikes me most is how well this music has stood the test of time. Here is some opportunities to judge for yourself.
The biggest of them all, Neil Young, is so kind to the human race, that he will release a new album in October. Hell, yes! Listen to the new tune 'Ordinary People' here - 8 minutes long - and fucking great!
The new Rilo Kiley album is rather disapointing. Sounding much more mainstream and overproduced, it's not so interesting as expected. But on the other hand - mainstream pop hasn't sounded so good for years! Jenny Lewis is a brilliant singer and the titel song is... a perfect popsong.
Another one of those webapplications offering you free music, letting you upload your own mp3's and create playlists. Looks pretty neat. The name is Deezer and they are of course in a lot of legal jeopardy. As always in these cases you can enjoy full service while negotiations are ongoing.
Just a short entry about norwegian multiinstrumentalist Silje Nes, which I layed my ears on today. Silje grew up on a tiny town called Leikanger, in Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway. Then she was studying and now she is signed at the cool label FatCat Records - the label from which Sigur Rós took off to EMI. She is one of these girls exploring all kind of instruments, mixing and matching acoutic instruments with electronic sounds, making the result both organic and very human and fragile. It sounds very nice and her debutalbum will be released pretty soon.
When there's nothing good in the telly - very often right? - and you still need that 30 minutes of evening entertainment, why not go download some episodes of the brilliant HBO-show Flight of the Conchords. I'm sure it's not legal, but it's all very easy, thanks to Bittorrent . Flight of the Conchords is in fact not a tv-show, but a folk, pop, and comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie of the rock band The Black Seeds and Jemaine Clement of The Humourbeasts. The two are billing themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" The combination of witty banter, characterisation and acoustic guitar moments is very good fun to watch. ALso pay attention to the musical references, such as Fleetwood Mac's "Love Square" in episode 1. Try it out.
This YouTube-video is Flight of the Conchords performing Business Time.
After some a-rotation on the home-stereo, I must conclude that the debutalbum from 6-pieces danish indiegroup (out in October) The Elephants is absolutely adoring. In 2005 they released the ep Lazybones and showed which road they were heading down. I'm not sure this upcoming release is the final destination, but it's certainly a very promising band debuting in october. The sound is picked up in the 60's and the influence is without a doubt from that of Beach Boys, surf and indie. The vocalwork works fine on most of the songs and the use of two singers - Bjarke Bendtsen and Martine Madsen - add some original harmonie flavour to the mix, which often consists of some very swooping basslines, divers drumming and swinging guitarrifs and creatively use of percussion, pedalsteel, ukulele and even the surreal instrument - the theremin! It's really very enjoyable and must be brilliant live.
All in all the album is full of life and happy orchestral poppitude. Sometimes a bit over the top, I must add. For example on Shivers, which really feels like being run down by a collegeband on speed packed with ukules, flutes and whatever was on the shelf. The melodies works on most parts brilliantly, even though the vocal work sometimes makes it a bit boring. But it's good vocals. Warm and powerful. Have a listen to Obvious below. The clapping on that track is awsome! Love it.
The band is based in Copenhagen and recently signed with german recordlabel Tapete. The album will be available in Scandinavia through swedish Dotshop.se.
The best band ever to come out of Wales, Super Furry Animals (no, I'm not forgetting Manic Street Preachers and, ahem, Tom Jones) have recently released their 8th album, entitled 'Hey Venus!'. With melody, humor and imagination to burn, the Welch pack have so far failed to make anything less than hugely enjoyable records and this one doesn't seem to change that.
Apparently, they are a nice bunch of animals too as they are letting us all listen to 'Hey Venus!' in its entirety on their Myspace. Go listen!
Do you also need something to do in your lunchbreak? Weel, watch these two videos with Toronto-based alt. country band. They sound like a mix of Iron and Wine and Gomez and will without doubt help you to get unstressed. The music is better than the videos though, so maybe you should just close your eyes insteed!
For hours I've been hypnotized by a blank Blogger-page. Pure emptiness and no nirvana. Well, it's not always that easy to oversee and navigate the indie-universe, so I set out on a small quest for inspiration. And got it. From the very nice Rachel - a last.fm-friend. The band is DevotchKa, and it's really just brilliant.
The group is from Denver and has been descriped as a crossbreed between numerous influences; cabaret, spaghetti Westerns and dance music from eastern Europe. DevotchKa operates in the most beautiful and enjoyable corners of the indie-genre. They hit some kind of fame when they did the score for the superb indiemovie 'Little Miss Sunshine'.
DevotchKa has just released their 2004 record 'How it ends' in Europe on ANTI Records. It's a brilliant album featuring Nick Urata doing vocals sounding like the Moz and Sufjan Stevens. DevotchKa song has this backwood feel, a bit of Calexico and of course the sounds from their homeland the Ukranians. Last year DevotchKa released 'Curse your little heart' and that EP is not available in any stores - at least I havn't found it. But it's great, featuring four coversongs. Check out the oft-coveret The Velvet Underground 'Venus in furs'.
Lots of fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are apparently posting themselves on YouTube doing cool interpretations of the songs. Now the band have postet five of their favorites on their Myspace-site. Here is a few:
Last night I went to Radiohuset in Copenhagen to watch the japanese avant-gardes in Boredoms. It was scary! Here is a report! I was waiting a very long time in front of the building for my friend. So long time that the already late-arriving Albert Hammond Jr. from The Strokes arrived even earlier. Albert Hammond Jr. (playing Copenhagen tomorrow) tried to be more late, so we stood all alone in front of the venue and smoked, but his friend wanted him in. Therefore we arrived a little later and became the latest! So much for rockattitude from NYC! Well, in Radiohuset, which is this amazing architectural gem (built in the 30's by the leading exponent of functionalism Vilhelm Lauritzen) the Boredoms ensemble turned a ferocious energy towards us. I had nothing but arty expectations towards this evening.
Boredoms has three drumkits as mainfocus, adding surreal sounds, trance-inducing drones and powerchords. It's all really like a wicked sonic sideshow. It's really hard for me to explain the music, because it sometimes isn't really music, but just pure noise! Boredoms sometimes embrace traditional rockstructures, but then again it's more tribal, electro-driven and chaotic. In periods the three drummers painted some pretty weird visions for my ears, leaving me all jawdropped. At one point they sounded for 10 minutes like a marching circus-orchestra on acid, other times they just beat the hell out of some distorted neon-city-reality and layered it with some groovy housevocals and an almost human rythm. But most of the time it was just about screwing with our minds and creating chaos, destroying and rebuilding. They played at Roskilde Festival some years ago where the lead-"singer" broke his legs during the perfomance.
To me this concert is undeniable one of the most disrupted experiences I've had at a concert, and I don't really know if I ever will listen to them again. If I would it should be Maybe Vision Creation Newsun or Super Ae. Boredoms disconnect themselves from any rules in music and breaking barriers in a sonic overdrive isn't very boring at all.
Just discovered Rosie Thomas. Wonderful folk-indie songwriter. And what freinds she's got. Her latest album "These Freinds of Mine" is a collaboration between her and Sufjan Stevens and Damian Jurado. These three guys made some beautiful balads and duets with harmonies that levels Brian Wilson and CSN&Y!!! Stream the great album here. I recommend to start with "Say Hello" with Sufjan. Or try this great song which, like several other songs on the record, has New York as scene.
I just bought a coulpe of Sufjan Stevens t-shirts at the great labet Asthmatic Kitty. They were so kind to send med a sampler of all their bands for free. And it's amazing. Melodic, weird, funny and cool music, that clearly shows that Sufjan isn't the only good taste at AKR. Check out thier own AKR-radio at their website here. I especially fell for Bunky and Rafter. Listen to Bunky's "Chuy" at their myspace. You cannot help dancing. And even worse with this mp3 from Rafter: Rafter - zzzPenchant
On behalf of rapper Kanye West, actor Zach Galifianakis - of "Dog bites man" fame - and Indie Laundry darling Bonnie 'Prince' Billy have made a contender for music video of the year. Sporting as two top class farmers they give a whole new hilarious twist on rap videos. This suggests that maybe Kanye West actually can be self ironic and that is most welcome!!
Next month the great The New Pornographers release their new album "Challengers". I have browsed cyberspace for some teasers and I must say this really excites me.
Whether the entire album will reach the brilliance of their 2005 release 'Twin Cinema' remains to be heard, though. But especially the first single 'My Rights versus Yours' is an instant winner.
It´s a bit old news, but as a distant light on a grey day in rainy Denmark it´s so great. For that reason it needs to be mentioned again. What I´m talking about is Maria Taylor and her new album Lynn Teeter Flower. Here is a link to her My Space. As a quick taster I have embedded a very fine live version of the song Xanax from her first album 11:11. May the rain turn in to dancing light bulbs.
We are not too proud of our level of activity here on the blog. And in general. But it's holiday-season and we are doing all sorts of stuff away from computers. Last year we did a big Roskilde roundup, but we'll skip this year and just bear this amazing festival in our minds and drop you some lines whenever anything pops up from that event. Right now the memories are just pure mud and bliss.
This morning the sky is grey, it's monday and I'm not working. It's fantastic. So these next few lines about Calvin Harris, a young scotchman, creating floor fillers in a truely charming manner. Exactly what you'll need on a quiet monday or maybe on a sweaty saturday in the club. His electrobeat single 'Acceptable in the 80s' has spun a bit on our national popstation P3, and his album 'I Created Disco' is in the same sleezy drummachine genre. In some interludes it's not that funky, but for most parts it's just pure synth-entertainment. See it as nothing more than a snack.
Well. We promise you to bring you more rock. Right now on my playlist is Figurines, Ryan Adams, Bob Dylan 'Nashville Skyline', Beastie Boys, Kings of Convenience. More about fantastic danish indieact Figurines very soon. Thank you for reading.
People have been asking if rock is dead or if we are just on vacation at Indie Laundry. Well - we are still recovering after a very wet, extremly fun and musically very satisfying festival. Best of all the Roskilde spirit, that you cannot find anywhere else. Here's my personal best of Roskilde 07:
Arcade Fire - The opening concert in the big green tent. Small sound problems, but fantastic concert, that almost made me cry and dance at the same time. Here they are live in an elevator!!
The National - Fantastic concert. Songs got even more deepth live. Click here for great NPR-stuff about National, where you can download a concert with the great great band.
Brian Jonestow Massacre - Off course chaotic concert. But brilliant when the band was playing and not arguing. Rumors said tha Anton Newcombe drank 2 bottles of disgusting danish booze before entering the stage. Cooool!! Click here to go to the bands brillinat website, where you can download all their albums.
Wilco - Showed their brilliancy sunday afternoon. The concert were just a couple of hours too short. They made the rain go away... Sky Blue Sky mp3
After a quite period the staff at Indie Laundry is more or less getting back from summer mode to treat you all with more indie goodies. The main event during this break has without a doubt been Roskilde Festival. As usual it was super fun. Actually, it was rad! Loads of rain and mud but we stuck to it and partied like madmen. There was lots of great music experiences but the one song that epitomizes the spirit of our camp was without a doubt 'Halloween Head' from Ryan Adams' new album Easy Tiger.
We heard it excatly 813 times and here you can watch it. The very strange video makes perfect sense for me.
While this blog is taking off for this years Roskilde Festival, read this piece from Rolling Stone about the record industry's decline. Subtitle "Record sales are tanking, and there's no hope in sight: How it all went wrong"
It's my last day at work before a two week holiday - including Roskilde Festival! - and why not begin the day by... not working. So here's a little something for you all: I have always had a weakness for Swedish singer Robyn. Throughout her decade-long career she has put out a respectable bunch of simply irresistable pop tunes.
Even though not brand new, it is definitely worth lending your ear and eye to her latest video 'Konichiwa Bitches'. I may not like much pop but when it is this fun and creative, I surrender.
I don't know about you, but I had quite an addiction to Kula Shaker when they released K back in 1996. I loved the organ riffs and their instrumental skills making some of the singles excellent blasts of colorful neo-psychedelia. In the long run, I was kind of annoyed by all the mysticism and Indian spirituality and the record ended way back in my collection. In fact I began to hate the band. Too much repeating on the Sanskrit-textet Tattva and organ-driven Govinda too me, but now this band might win me back - at least for a while. I dug into the news that they are putting Strangefolk out in august. And by the looks of the top notch video Second Sight I'm pretty pleased. Also about the music. It takes me back to the 90's post-britpop era reminding me of Hurrican #1 and still twists with phychedelia swirling guitars. The video and music of Second Sight combined gives me strong associations to the late 60's music and to none other than Austin Power! Their new take on the tune shows ironi and humour and that is enough for me to embrace them once more. Just for the fun of it, because I don't ever think that I will be a fullblown Kula Shaker fan. But, you go Crispian Mills in you Bruce Lee Enter The Dragon-style!
Note: While googling around I found that the British political magazine Open Eye in the spring of 1997 denounced Mills as one of Britain's "New Age Nazis", revealing that Mills' unsuccessful previous band, the Objects of Desire, had used the motto "England will rise again", and had performed at a 1993 conference at Wembley called "Global Deception" where speakers included the anti-semitic propagandist Eustace Mullins and the American writer and conspiracy theorist William Cooper. Link here. Well, just if you're interested!
While we raincheck the unrelieable but still exiting weathersite of Accuweather for weathernews for the Roskilde Festival, you might want to read a little something on some of the bands recent liveperformances. The mother of all crazy summerfestivals - The Glastonbury Festival - is ending tonight with The Who playing. 180.000 people are there! In mud! Glasto has some of the same acts that soon will enter danish ground. So here is link for reviews. I would have liked to hear Conor Oberst shout "Can you turn that violin up?", but hell, I'm more than satisfied with the years Roskilde programe.
This Tuesday is going to be something special... For the first time since the tragic death of nine young men during their concert at Roskilde Festival in 2000, Pearl Jam is finally ready to play in Denmark again. Having attended that dreadful event, Tuesday surely will be a occation for massive goose bumbs attacks and a time to pay respect to the families of the nine.
Musically, since their explosive burst onto the top of rock stage in ´92, the grunge veterans have found a steady and more healthy level of succes. Accomplished later albums such as 'Riot Act' and 'Pearl Jam' is proof of a band that masters the combination of maturity and inner rock'n'roll fire.
All along Pearl Jam has steadily grown into a world class live act. This awesome site contains career spanning recordings of their live shows. Finally, here is little gem showing Pearl Jam at Roskilde 1992 -at the zenith of their popularity!
In two weeks time, the coolest kid on the planet Mr. Ryan Adams and his Cardinals, release the eagerly anticipated 'Easy Tiger'. They have already begun touring it which recently included a small European tour. The fantastic fansite Ryan Adams Archive is always packed with bootleg torrents and can now offer a stunning, piano-based concert from Paris, June 3rd. If audio is not enough, then go here and watch five 'Easy Tiger' songs from the concert + interviews.
Due to a recent skateboard accident (sic!) you'll see Ryan not doing anything but singing and making a few trademark weird hand signs. And what's almost even more noticable: the man is unpeccably dressed in a suit and well-combed.
These few songs only raise my already extremely high expectations. All of them seem capable of becoming future favorites but especially "Halloween Head" has got me by the balls. Dig it here in the studio version:
With the music festival season getting underway, NME has collected a bunch of more or less great festival moments. If you don't bother to watch them all, I will recommend Queens of the Stone Age with Dave Grohl showing what a beast of a drummer he really is. If only he would join them for good.
Also, you shouldn't miss a catastrophically dressed Michael Stipe misspronouncing Thom Yorke's name. Finally, Flaming Lips live must never be missed, even when Wayne Coyne has a rather bad throat - I can't wait to experience their magic at the upcoming Roskilde Festival.
M Ward at Conan with Neko Case and Jim James. Fuckin sweet. Gonne see him support Norah Jones in August. I just wonder why it isn't her supporting him. Go figure!
Here are my recommedations for your Roskilde 07 ultimate experience. Click the artist’s name for a mp3 taster! Thursday Brian Jonestown Massacre Don’t miss the fantastic songwriter Anton Newcombes chaotic band. Guaranteed entertainment! Arcade Fire Neon Bible is the second best album in 2007 so far. Friday Cold War Kids New and cool rock. Camera Obscura Belle and Sebastian go home! Roky Erickson A sad story with a happy end.. hopefully. Saturday The National Never has boring music sounded better! Holly Golightly Still got the blues... Soulsavers feat. Mark Lanegan Mark Lanegans vocal makes all artists better. Sunday Wilco Best album in 2007 – without a doubt.
+Flaming Lips, Björk, Grizzly Bear, Artic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem, Whistest Boy Alive, etc. -
Over and over I've listent to Blonde Redheads seventh album "23" and it's a stunning album. More pop orientated than Misery is a Butterfly, but still remarkably lush and mysterious and very beautiful. A highly interessting band. Kazu Makino is haunting and in this new video for single Top Ranking put your ears to her vocal harmonies turning almost futuristic girl group . I like the stopmotion video as well. Directed by Mike Mills and features an absolutely gorgeous Miranda July.
Once again my colleague forcefed me something different. And what a treat this time. Pop Levi, from Liverpool, is that man and his debut album The Return to Form Black Magick Party sounds like all the best pop, you've ever heard - and all at once. This cd combines the spirits of Bolan, Dylan, Syd Barret, and Prince. Earlier on he has worked as a ice van driver and a hairmodel. But he has also done bassplaying with Ninja Tune Recordings band Ladytron. You really should check this guy out. There is something timeless to his freaky style of combining genres.
Hjaltalín was founded in the fall of 2004 by four Icelandic friends. The bands' formation and music style changed over the following years with odd experiments with electronic music before settling into their indie-rock sound.
Hjaltalín recently topped the Icelandic X-id chart with "Goodbye July / Margt að Ugga", a very unique track sung in two very different styles, both in English and in Icelandic. The English part sounds like a modern indie track, very catchy and then the Icelandic part sounds like a traditional old lullaby.
"Goodbye July / Margt að Ugga" is available for download at Hjaltalín's MySpace profile, have a listen and leave your comments.
The band got pretty nice reviews at Iceland Airwaves 2006 and are set to release an album sometime late this summer. They just performed a track from the new album live on a local tv show "Kastljós" tonight so I'm including a link to that as well.
The new film about the late Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, is making the critics smile at Cannes Film Festival 2007. The film title is "Control" and it is the first motion picture by the famous photographer Anton Corbijn. Unfortunately it isn´t released until september. But then again, who f..... cares. Go to the source itself, therefore I recomment the original. It´s maybe not joyful and happy days, but there is not a lot to smile about in a world dominated by western ignorance and lunatics.
Frenchmen Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay form the amazing electronic duo "Justice". Previously known for remixing well known artists such as: Britney Spears, N.E.R.D, Fatboy Slim and Daft Punk they are turning heads all over the world with their soon-to-be-released album † (read "Cross"). As other large electronic releases this year, their album has already been leaked to torrent sites such as Mininova and of course I've snatched my own copy.
I really can't recommend this album enough - it's got everything you want and in all the right places. I havn't been this excited about a dance album since I first got Royksopp's "Melody A.M"!
Here at the laundry-office, we would like to salute our readers and wish everyone a happy new year. We didn't really get that many new readers in 2007, but we don't care. There are still quite a lot of you every day and as long as someone findes something inspiritional we kind of overachieved!
