Water and more...

The heat has been almost unbearable in Denmark the past few days, and I cannot recall that I’ve been drinking this much water ever before. Hopefully the happy people attending this year’s Roskilde Festival are following my example and drink lots of water and not just beers. Beers are good and pretty fucking close to being the most essential fluid on the planet. Except on warm days like these where it’s dethroned by water on the top of that list of essentials. The last time I attended a festival (this one back in 1995) I had the greatest Thursday drinking (lots and lots of) beers in the sun, but paid the price and spent the entire Friday in the tent totally hung-over and dehydrated, which meant I was too exhausted to stay up to see Bon Jovi! Hang on! 14 years later I suddenly realize that this wasn’t the biggest sacrifice after all...

Stick around for more ramblings, tunes, news, mailbox findings etc...

Did you remember to download the Rikers EP I mentioned earlier today? It's awesome!

The William Blakes has announced that the band will be playing a couple of live dates at this year's Pop Montreal Festival. This has to be one of the most interesting new constellations (in this case prefer this term rather than "bands") coming out of Denmark the past few years and hopefully they'll be well received by the Canadians. I’m rather confident that the band's music, which I've previously described as something like "Arcade Fire meets Talking Heads", will appeal to the North Americans. Plans are that the trip should include one or more Toronto dates as well. So if I have any Canadian readers; go see them!
+ Violent God
+ Running Up That Hill (Kath Bush cover with Spleen United)

Paul Rijnders of Anything Box shares his remix of the track The Breakaway, which happens to be a song recorded by his own solo project Goodbye July.
+ The Breakaway (Kult Litre Remix)

I've just started to read a few promo mails and listen to some songs. There's plenty to choose from!

Here's something quite interesting. Liverpoolian trio Bagheera has sent out their promo mail to a large number of music blogs (remember to always use bcc), thus securing that it will be considered spam by most mail hosts. I always take a quick look at the spam mails before deleting, and somehow this caught my eyes. The band itself believes that their music will appeal to fans of Grizzly Bear and Yeasayer, but since (shame on me) I'm not all that familiar with either band, I cannot really say whether that's true or not. But the band's 4 track EP Hollow Home is really interesting and quite challenging, and definitely something I need to take further look at, sometime soon!
+ Old Machine

Have forgotten to mention that Boxstr.com seems to (finally) be working fine again! Getting a little value for my hard earned money!

The single Back Out On the Streets (Savages) by Americans The Armed Forces does sound somewhat like The Cars, so despite being infectiously catchy, it can hardly be labeled as highly original. But the band's album release strategy is definitely quite unlike something I've seen before!
+ Back Out On the Streets (Savages)

I've just downloaded the Liechtenstein debut album Survival Strategies In A Modern World and have found out that it's not even 23 minutes long? Blink and you'll miss it, but wouldn't be surprised if it's f*cking fabulous! Listening and yup! This is good stuff!
+ Roses in the Park

Rikers - Easter Eyes EP...

Canadian duo (which now seems to be a quintet) Rikers has finished the recordings of their first EP and has generously made it available as a free download from their website. The 5 track Easter Eyes EP has (according to the band) taken longer to record than originally planned, but as it turned out the end result was definitely something worth waiting for. Every track is a dynamic piece of indie rock dominated by the great melody, chiming guitars and the haunting lead vocal of Ryan Kennedy, which all combined sounds like the perfect mix of lots of other bands. However it does somehow seems rather pointless to begin listing all of those (more or less obvious) influences, as the band more than anything sounds like Rikers and not like a rip-off of some other band(s). I doubt very much that a better and more intriguing EP will be thrown your way for free this year, so grab it while it’s there, because it shouldn't be long before various labels come knocking at their door.
+ Anywhere Else

Friday music...

Time is still sparse and one hour from now you’ll see me running out of the door, as I’ll have to be somewhere else...far, far away from any computers. But since it means that I’m going to be eating an excellent lunch, that's just fine by me. This also means that today the music will have to do its own talking, as I’m just going to post a bunch of the many fine tunes recently found in the mailbox and various other places. And trust me when I say that it’s a fine bunch varying from dance over instrumental via indie rock to world. I’m “experimenting” with box.net as an alternative file host, so bare with me, if things aren’t working properly and I’ll do my best sorting things out, whenever I get back online.
+ Great Northern - Houses
+ Rikers - 10000 Miles
+ Better Than Ezra - Absolutely Still
+ Ozric Tentacles - Mooncalf
+ Evan Voytas - Getting Higher
+ Hermas Zopoula - Courons Courez
+ One eskimO - Givin' up (Don Diablo Remix)
+ New Ruins - Symptoms

Rikers...

Canadian duo Rikers are giving away a couple of newly recorded tracks from the band’s recently launched website. The songs are a little bit noisy, somewhat 80's inspired and certainly quite catchy, so I really cannot help using that worn-out The Jesus and Mary Chain meets Editors description. But I do think it fits the music pretty well or maybe you have a different opinion/can think of an even better description? The website indicates that the duo will play its debut (?) live concert somewhere in Toronto in December, but information is still sparse.
+ Easter Eyes
+ Curtain Call

Shorties...

As some of you may have noticed, I’m testing a new banner. Created by Ryan Kennedy, who used to play drums in Birthday Boys, but is now lead singer in a new project named Rikers. So brand new it is, that the band's webpage has been up for less than 24 hours. His new project does sound a bit like Editors meeting U2 – doesn’t it?
+ Rival Schools

Much talked about Danish duo The Storm are giving away the track The Beauty Of Small Things for free at Myspace. Don’t know for how long it’s been available, so this could very well be last month’s news. Anyway I’m surprised to see the band doing this, but perhaps it should be seen as a marketing response to the album’s lack of success? Good pick by the way, as this is easily the best track of Where The Storm Meets The Ground.
+ The Beauty Of Small Things

This morning it became painfully evident that no one at Danish Radio (P3) reads this blog, as they (once again) aired the annoying Don’t Get Me Wrong by Pretenders. Thought I explained two months ago that the song is utter crap.

The debut album Life After Ridge by Swedish twee/indie pop trio Twig is out today on Plastilina Records.
+ Helen of Troy

I’m still not high on that new moi Caprice track Love At Last Sight. The thing is now streamable at Myspace and apparently the title of the new album will be We Had Faces Then. Crossing everything possible that the album won't let me/us down! UPDATE! According to Gaffa the single will be free to download some time this week at Myspace.

An “The Electrical Barometer” update: Northern Portrait is still sitting firmly at no. 2, while Oliver North Boy Choir dropped 3 spots to no. 6. So please remember to vote!

I’m currently listening a lot to the new fine albums by Marching Band and Choir Of Young Believers. I’m hopeless at writing reviews, but I really ought to write something nice about both of them. On that same list are the new ones by Glasvegas and Noah and the Whale.

The new four-track EP Climbers & Ramblers by Danish indie pop/folk rock 5-piece Green Lives is pretty damn fine. Download the whole thing at Mymusic.dk or 3 tracks at Myspace.
+ Treetops and Rooftops