zzz...

Damn I’m tired today…zzz…

Danish author Thomas Ladegaard writes a few nice words about this blog and re-posts the video by Imperiet. Yay!

Found the album by now split-up quartet Coolsville (former band of Jonas Breum) at the local CD store the other day. Certainly different from the sound of BREUMM, and the melodies aren’t as strong. Nevertheless it’s quite enjoyable.

Excellent Swedish synth pop duo Ostrich has been promising us new songs for some time, but seems to be experiencing a few computer problems. Be patient and the songs will be published in April (hopefully)!
+ Icecold Kisses

April Song by Biker Boy has been posted and is available for download (for one week only).

Dies und Das...

Forgot yesterday to recommend the recent Flashback Friday post. I'm old enough to remember when those songs were released, so bear with me!

It's Saturday, so there might be a good chance that some of you are going out dancing tonight? If so, I suggest that you listen to this one by Home Video. Should get your feet started.
+ I Can Make You Feel It

If that one doesn't work, maybe this one by Electric Valentine does?
+ A Night With You

Thanks to J.A. I've received a message from French indie pop band My Raining Stars, who asks me to listen to their songs. All This Time certainly leaves me starving for more!
+ All This Time

And J.A. pulls another fine indie pop band from his sleeve. This time it's the Swedish (of course) six-piece Plain Good.
+ Wasted Things

I've been listening to a few more of those songs I downloaded yesterday. Sadly most of them are just garbage.

Gangway - Mountain Song...

At the time of its release (1992) the video was considered "too violent for TV". Judge for yourself (remember to watch it to the very end), but the song remains an absolute classic! More info.

Imperiet - Märk Hur Vår Skugga...

I guess you have to be a hundred year old Scandinavian to remember this one? You probably think I'm insane, but this is one of the best songs ever...EVER!

Even more shorties...

...or to be more accurate. This is another one of those "my inbox is drowning and I need to something about it" posts. Earlier tonight I spent an hour reading promo mails and downloading songs, so now it's my playlist's turn to be jammed with new stuff for me to check out.

+ Annuals - Sore
Never heard of this band (quite a few of those around), but this is a really nice acoustic inspired indie pop/rock tune. Definitely a pleasant start to what could end up being a long evening/night.

I've just deleted the first track tonight. Probably won't be the last!? No - there goes another one! And another one...

+ Birthday Boys - Wasted
First single by this new Canadian quartet (formed in December 07) and a really good one it is. One of those tracks I find very difficult to describe, but this is a kind of acoustic rock that you immediately realize must be by a North American band.

+ Bridges and Powerlines - Uncalibrated
Opening track from the Brooklyn band's forthcoming debut album. This has a lot of potential and it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what is missing. But sadly something IS missing, which I guess is preventing this from being an amazing song.

+ Culture Reject - Inside the Cinema
Fascinating in the most irritating way. Once again impossible to label...oh what the xxxx...why don't you just listen to it?

+ Ladytron - Black Cat
Even though this really shouldn't be my type of music at all, the new track from Ladytron does make me look forward to the forthcoming album Velocifero.

Check back tomorrow night for another post like this one...

Shorties...

One album I just can’t let go of these days is Night Falls Over Kortedala. It’s such a phenomenal album and I will forever be embarrassed that I didn’t discover it in time for it to make my 2007 toplist.
+ The Opposite of Hallelujah

Another singer-/songwriter Teitur will release his album The Singer in the US later this spring. The media went absolutely berserk when it was released in Denmark and almost drowned it in a rain of stars from the reviews. Personally I think it quickly becomes boring hearing him doing his Bright Eyes imitation.
+ Catherine The Waitress

Meho Plaza covers the classic Haircut 100 track Love Plus One. Now what should one think about that one?
+ Love Plus One

I’ve just ordered myself a Hype Machine t-shirt!

I plan to add more stuff tonight while the rest of Denmark is watching X Factor...

Listening...

It’s time to work my way through some of the many new CD’s recently found in the mailbox.

This is the complete list of today’s “menu"…comments to be added during the day.

Midnight Movies – Nights EP
2 of the 6 tracks are the band's versions of Night in White Satin, which I would have no problems living without (especially the one sung in French). However the remaining 4 tracks (2 new ones + 2 remixes) are simply excellent alternative rock tunes (with some shoegazing influences) and easily makes the EP worth the investment.
+ Should Have Known

Soundpool – dichotomies + dreamland
+ Do What You Love

Elika – trying got us nowhere
The debut album by Brooklyn duo Elika might only contain 7 tracks, but it pretty much has everything one should expect from a debuting shoegaze band. Musically the band doesn't distance itself from the rest of the pack as the duo combine the typical electronic soundscape with pretty female vocals and noisy guitars. But since everything is woven together by some real well written tunes, the album certainly indicates that this isn't the last thing we'll hear from Elika.

I've done a bit of shopping at Matinée Recordings and if you're into lovely indie pop, I can only recommend that you pick up these 3 extraordinary fine EP's. They'll cost you 5 buck each, and with the current USD rate everyone outside the US should pick up a copy today!
Bubblegum Lemonade – Ten Years Younger EP
+ Ten Years Younger

Strawberry Whiplash – Who’s In Your Dreams EP
+ Who's In Your Dreams

the electric pop group – sunrise ep
+ I Could See The Lights

Back from the cold...

I'm back from 5 days in what turned out to be winter cold and not at all spring-like Warsaw and as always the world has been busy turning while I was away, so let's take a quick look at some of the stuff that has happened...

Hits In The Car favorite Andrew Boland has a new song up called The City Lights.
+ The City Lights

Late Night Venture front man Søren Hartvig has written an excellent piece on shoegaze. It's pretty obvious where the inspiration came from if you listen to this track from the band's forthcoming album.
+ Skylights

The Zvook Mescalin remix of the BREUMM track Silhuetter is now available as a free download. 3 more weeks and the album will finally be released.
+ Silhuetter (Remix)

And while you're busy downloading. Why not grap the Truth Telling Peekholes EP by Majorian from the band's Myspace page?
+ Truth Telling Peekholes

12 weeks and counting...One Weekly Gun has recorded a new track.
+ Prenuptial Agreement

The brilliant AirSpiel track I mentioned last week is now free to download.
+ Seventh Heaven

More shorties (evening edition)...

Indie MP3 "discovers" Tellus about the Moon.
+ Wwwm

From March 24 the new single Seventh Heaven by Scottsmen AirSpiel will be available as a free download from the band's webpage. And what a mighty fine new baby it is.

One of the sad stories of last year was the split up of the talented trio Port Largo. Now Caspar of the band has created his own solo project called A Graceless Phrase and already has 3 fine tunes to offer as free downloads.
+ Everything is All We Need

The Sound of Arrows has just been signed by Labrador, and you really need to look no further than the new track Danger! to understand why!
+ Danger!

Shorties...

Check the new blog of Late Night Venture front man Søren Hartvig. Seems like he's also been to a Blue Foundation concert recently.

11 weeks old and the project is still running. One Weekly Gun has posted a new track. This is one of the best ones so far.
+ Open up Your Eyes

Chris is back! Check out those fantastic pictures!

J.A. pops in and recommends the catchy Seaside by US new wave/electronic act The Echoing Green.
+ Seaside

Stream the new VETO single Built To Fail at Myspace. Still have no speakers, so I'll have to wait until tonight!

the finest kiss writes about Northern Portrait.

People Press Play and Blue Foundation...

After some domestic negotiations, I managed getting Saturday evening off, so I could join a couple of friends at our local venue to experience Blue Foundation live. As usual my hometown showed its appreciation when a lesser-known band drops by, as around 100 persons (we actually tried counting them) showed up. So the band certainly won't come around these parts again any time soon, as there cannot have been much money left for the pension fund. Overall the band delivered a fine concert and the songs work very well when performed live. Afterwards I spoke a few words with Bo of the band, but in my usual ill-mannered way I was more interested in talking to him about him being the 4th member of The William Blakes than the concert he had just been a part of.

The big revelation of the evening however was the supporting act People Press Play. No warm-up had been announced, but happy we were to spend 25 minutes listening to this talented and very interesting electronic/experimental/down-tempo quartet that really isn't such a distant musical relative to the evening's main act. And lovely it was that you had no use for earplugs during their set. Nice to finally meet a band that understands that louder isn't necessarily better. Prior to the concert People Press Play was completely unknown territory to me, so surprised I was to learn that the band had released an album last year on the German label Morr Music, - and obviously I immediately picked that one up at the merchandise boot after the concert (as well as a copy of the Sweep Of Days album by Blue Foundation). It probably will be the soundtrack of this working day, and so far this very electronic based and laid-back album has left a quite positive impression. Below the video for the lovely These Days as well as the album track Hanging On.
+ Hanging On

Plushgun - Just Impolite - The Video...

Every regular knows I love this song. The video is rather weird, but quite funny at the same time!
+ Just Impolite

Evening shorties...

The Google Page Rank of the blog has improved from 4 to 5. Very nice me thinks.

Want to listen to some yummy indie pop? Then stream the new track dan semua kan berubah by Indonesians Sunny Summer Day. You probably won't understand a word, but the melody is absolutely gorgeous.

For some reason I couldn't access blogger.com this afternoon. Still haven't figured out why, but everything seems to be working fine now.

Just received a message from NY shoegazer's Elika that they'll be sending me a promo copy of their new album Trying Got Us Nowhere. Perhaps mentioning Soundpool earlier today helped?

Listen to the first single from the forthcoming album by racingpaperplanes. The band is from Gothenburg and that's all you really need to know, to understand what we're dealing with!
+ In and out of coma

Seems like Suburbia will the second single from the Spleen United sophomore album Neanderthal. This is the video...

Finally it's Friday...

If you could see me now, you'd see a big smile on my face, because what a demanding week it's been. My youngest daughter has been hit by Chicken pox (not my fault), I've not been able getting any sleep (the young one's fault), I'm damn busy at work (partly my fault, as I'm one lazy bastard) and my body is still soar from go carting Monday evening (driving directly into that wall was entirely my fault). So a quiet weekend is certainly something I'm looking forward to!

The above has in various ways influenced the number of posts this week, so consider this a somewhat weak attempt at doing a bit of catching up.

What seems to be not so long ago, I always used to write about shoegaze bands. For whatever reason I don’t seem to do that anymore (at least not as often as I would like to), so the other day I was one happy receiver of a promo mail about the release of the second Soundpool album Dichotomies & Dreamland. I’ve only listened to the three tracks posted below (here's to them mailing me the album), which all features lovely female vocals that suits the mix of synths and those guitars so incredibly well. More stuff like this in the future please!
+ Lush (What Becomes You)
+ Pleasure & Pain
+ The Divides of March

Death Valley Sleepers has posted a brand new track and boy hasn't he been listening a lot to The Jesus and Mary Chain? Still excellent stuff!
+ Left Me High

Swedish indie pop duo The Sweet Serenade sent me a message yesterday suggesting that their song I Can Never Die could be “the next hit in your car?”! With handclaps, vibraphones etc. it certainly features some of the appealing elements of the genre that will make you put it on repeat and once you’ve listened to it more than once you realize that it’s a real catchy one!
+ I Can Never Die

Just to rule any misunderstandings – oh yes – I sure needed a dictionary to figure out what Skoldkopper (Chicken pox) was called in English!

Album delay...

The Radio Dept. writes this in their Myspace blog:

"I spoke too soon.
Sorry, the album's been delayed until like August or something. Some sort of single will be released in May."

Bad news really...

A step forward…

I’ve been whining about those missing speakers for too long now, so the other day I finally was a bit proactive and went out and bought myself a CD player. Not a big one, but nonetheless a CD player. So after 40 days of musical starvation I can finally listen to some music at work again. Still cannot stream and download stuff (oh well – I can, but I cannot hear a thing), but since I belong to the last 10% of the population, who insist on buying CD’s, I have no shortage of music to choose from.

So far Night Falls Over Kortedala is my new office "darling" and I fully understand why that album by Jens Lekman was widely popular among a large number of bloggers last year. This lovely album contains 12 fine pop songs finding inspiration in various genres and from several other artists.
+ The Opposite of Hallelujah
+ Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo

For the 10th week in a row One Weekly Gun delivers as promised and posts a new track. This time it’s a tribute (ups sorry – wrong word) sarcastic comment to Mr. Tap Dance himself a.k.a. The President of the U.S.A.
+ Yessir, I Can Boogie

Excellent Swedish indie pop band Tellus About The Moon has posted two new tracks for streaming. Lovely stuff as always and I’m currently “negotiating” hard for the songs to be made available as free downloads.

Blast...

Probably the worst thing that could happen...the new single Once You Used To by Swedish electro pop trio Gentle Touch in the mailbox and no speakers on the computer. So I'll have to wait at least another 10 hours before I can listen to it...is it any good? Taken from the album In memory of Savannah (out next week - March 19) that will be released on Songs I Wish I Had Written.
+ Once You Used To

Tonight I'm listening to...

...the incredibly infectious and super cool Scene I - Just Like You Don't by Danish electro pop duo Blue Swan. Found via this article and I fully agree with Jonas that this sound like something caught in-between Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode. Taken from the 2005 EP Intentionally Miserable and I will now spend the rest of the evening pouting and wondering why the world has been hiding this song from me for so long! A hoard of other tracks are available as free downloads from Mymusic.dk, where you unfortunately still have to be a registered user to be able to download anything (whatever happened to that English version?).
+ Scene I - Just Like You Don't

The Weekend is (almost) upon us...

No drinking this weekend I swear!

UK singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner will release his debut album Hand Built By Robots on April 29 in the US, and as an appetizer a 3 song iTunes exclusive EP is now available including the gorgeous Dream Catch Me. When I mentioned the song for the first time earlier this year, I borrowed the quote “that was one sensitive guy with at guitar” and listening to that track again, I clearly recall why I thought the quote was spot on. More interestingly the album (which spent two weeks at no. 1 in the UK album chart back in August last year) will be out in Denmark on April 7 – the day after he plays a concert at Vega in Copenhagen.
+ Dream Catch Me

US psychedelic pop band Midnight Movies will release a digital EP called Nights on Tuesday (March 11) on New Line Records. The promo track Should Have Known leaves a fairly OK impression.
+ Should Have Known

Swedish indie rock band Emerald Park is giving away a new track called A Higher Loss and despite the band claiming that it's noisier than usual, it still very much bears that typical Emerald Park/Moonbabies Ola sound.
+ A Higher Loss

A brand new edition of Støj på Frekvensen is up.

This and that...

The title of today's post could easily have been "Shorties", but I thought it was time for a change, so by using a maximum of creativity I came up with another really fine one...(OK - if you don't get it, I'm being sardonically sarcastic here!).

I'm a bit puzzled why reviewers weren't as excited about the Band of Horses concert as I was. Summing up these 4 reviews (1 2 3 4) the average is 3½ stars out of 6! Come on guys - you gotta be kidding! Or did you spend most of the night in the bar?

Last night I had the privilege of listening to the unmastered versions of two brand new tracks by A Classic Education. They are not up for streaming yet, but I promise you that this is something you should be looking forward to. I was also informed last night that the band is a six piece, so I will refrain from calling the band a trio in the future!

The moi Caprice webpage is finally up and running.
+ For Once in Your Life Try Fight for Something You Believe In

Last night I also managed to find some time to check out a few new tracks, and one that really stuck was Smooth Brotha by L.A. quartet Rue Melo. Mixing Hip Hop, dance, R&B etc. this is not something one should expect would appeal to me at all, but after a few listens I found myself tapping my feet and moving my upper body to the beat of the song. Don't worry - I can still be super indie cool if need be, but this track just has this something that makes it so damn hard to resist.
+ Smooth Brotha

Midweek shorties...

The Band of Horses concert last night was just brilliant (though at least this reviewer begs to differ) and I can only recommend that you check them out the next time they visit a venue near you. Someday soon I hope! Oh – and having a couple of beers and pizza with three of the Frekvens boys was pretty cool as well.
+ The Great Salt Lake

The new single Someone you replaced by Kind of girl is now streaming at Myspace. And a mighty lovely one it is! Hopes are that the debut album will be out in August...

According to the band's Myspace blog, Rich Costey, who produced Frengers, will also produce the next/new/forthcoming Mew album. So it's time for all of you who didn't like And The Glass Handed Kites, to start hoping that this means a return to the "old sound". Recordings are scheduled to take place somewhere in NY in May...

Excellent Italian trio A Classic Education informs us in a Myspace bulletin, that new songs have been mixed and should be up in a few days (hopefully). Will the new ones be as good as these?
+ Victories At Night
+ Stay, Son

In another Myspace bulletin The Monday Photo does a little advertising for a live concert tomorrow. Guys – when will you announce the release of an album? We are quite a few impatiently awaiting exactly that piece of information! As much as I’d love to see you live, Miami Beach is simply too far away – especially on a Thursday night!

A few more Loop a Loop remixes are now available.

Another episode of Desperate Housewives (yikes) will be aired on Danish TV tonight, which hopefully gives me 50 minutes of quality time without untimely interruptions, where I can check out some new music.

Shorties...

My wife just sent me this picture. Click on it, spot the red circle and then you know where to find me during working hours. Unfortunately it's not a snapshot captured today!

I seriously need to get some speakers for this ancient computer at work. March Song by Biker Boy is now available to stream and download (for free during the first seven days of March) and for the aforementioned reason (no speakers equals no music) I haven’t listened to it yet. But hopefully it's just as excellent as the previous two tracks of this interesting and quite ambitious project.

It’s Band of Horses night tomorrow. Looking forward to see what I've read should be a very good live act. Also looking forward to meeting a few of the friendly lads from the Frekvens team.
+ The Funeral

You’re probably fed up by how I’m trying to hype Northern Portrait, but all I can say is get used to it. My copy of the Fallen Aristocracy EP arrived Saturday and I promise you that it will take you on a trip to indie pop heaven for12 minutes 20 seconds. Angmoh has posted one of the older tracks not on the EP.

Danish electronic pop/rock act Volvoe is looking for a new bass player. So if you live in Copenhagen (or somewhere close), are serious about your music, know how to play the bass etc. etc. – why not send the boys an email?
+ Organized Faults