[MP3] The Electric Pop Group

Svíþjóð? Já.

Gautaborg? Check!

Jú, The Electric Pop Group er einmitt frá þessu Mekka indiepoppsins, Gothenburg. Það er mál manna  að það hljóti að vera alveg afspyrnu leiðinlegt að búa í þessari borg, og þessvegna komi svona rosalega margar góðar poppsveitir þaðan. Samnefndur frumburður þeirra leit dagsins ljós árið 2006 og næsta plata er væntanleg í þessum mánuði. Þeir félagar eru á mála hjá bandarísku útgáfunni Matinée.

Maður verður aftur 18 ára þegar maður hlýðir á tilfinningaþrungna texta þeirra:

... when she appared from nowhere
it was like a dream come true
she was all you ever wanted
you thought she felt the same for you
you spent some brilliant nights together
then your heart stopped when she said
I only want to be friends with you
I just don't think that I'm in love with you
I like you and I like the things you do
but I only want to be friends with you
and you feel like she's playing with your heart
she's tearing you apart
should have known it from the start
she's playing with your heart...

Og margur nútímamaðurinn þekkir eflaust sjálfan sig í þessu textabroti:

I first met you on the internet
your nickname was perfect, I just had to check
I smiled when I saw that you liked The Smiths
how could I not like a girl like this
I sent you mail and I got a reply
you seemed to like the same things as I
I asked if you'd like to meet me sometime

Það fyrra er að sjálfsögðu úr laginu "She's playing with your heart" og augljóslega tilheyrir seinna textabrotið laginu "Popgirly". Hlýðum á þessi tvö lög, og íhugum svo að flytja til Svíþjóðar.

[MP3] The Electric Pop Group - She's playing with your heart
[MP3] The Electric Pop Group - Popgirly

Myspace

[MP3] Tiny Microphone

Þessa dagana get ég bara ekki hætt að hlusta á lagið "You disappear" með stúlkukindinni Kristine sem er frá Chicago og kallir sig Tiny Microphone. Þetta lag er svo ofboðslega fallegt eitthvað í einfaldleika sínum. Minnir kannski svolítið á Distortion plötuna með Magnetic Fields. Það grípur kannski ekki alveg við fyrstu hlustun en svo límist það við heilann. Einföld laglína og bara einn kafli út í gegn með mismunandi áherslum, fallegur hávaði og svo einstaka sinnum bjagaðir hljómar sem sveigja einhvernveginn út í kant og lenda næstum út í skurði.

Þess má geta að Kristine er einnig söngkona og gítarleikari hljómsveitarinnar Very Truly Yours sem er nýverið farin að buzza svoldið á óháðum tónlistarbloggum. Eflaust vel þess virði að fylgjast með í framtíðinni, og við hlýðum líka á eitt lag með þeim.

[MP3] Tiny Microphone - You disappear

[MP3] Very Truly Yours - Popsong '91

Tiny Microphone á Myspace | Very Truly Yours á Myspace

[MP3] Star Trek - Fantagóð mynd

Ég var að koma af alveg fantagóðri forsýningu á nýjustu Star Trek myndinni, sem ber einmitt heitið Star Trek. Það er alveg óhætt að segja að hún veldur ekki vonbrigðum. Það er jafnvel það mikill hasar í gangi að hún gæti vel höfðað til þeirra sem ekki hafa fylgst með Star Trek áður. Hitt er þó annað mál, að það eru endalausar vísanir í upprunalegu sjónvarpsþættina, og allar eru þær smekklega gerðar, oft á tíðum smekklega "smekklausar" með vísun í hvað gömlu þættirnir voru hrikalega hallærislegir. Gaman að sjá Christopher Pike skjóta upp kollinum en hann var aðalhetjan í upprunalega allra-fyrsta pilot þættinum, sem gerður var áður en sjónvarpsserían fór af stað, svona til að "pitcha" hugmyndinni. Minnir reyndar að hann hafi þar endað með því að vera rúllað um í kassa, og gat þá ekki tjáð sig nema með því að blikka rauðu ljósi. Hann er ívið hressari í nýju myndinni. Sylar stendur sig líka ljómandi vel sem Mr. Spock. Þumalputtar upp.

Listamenn af ýmsu tagi hafa gjarnan tekið Star Trek upp á arma sína. Heyrum hér í nokkrum tónlistarmönnum:

[MP3] Urursei Yatsura - Phasers on Stun

 [MP3] Dýrðin - Mr. Spock

[Video] The Firm - Star Trekkin'

Og þar með lýkur Star Trek umfjöllun dagsins.

[MP3] Projekt A-Ko

Nýverið bauðst mér áframhaldandi staða sem gestapenni á breska vefritinu indie-mp3.co.uk. Ég hef nú ekki mikinn tíma þessa dagana til ritstarfa, en tókst þó að hósta upp úr mér núna nýverið viðtali við skosku sveitina Projekt A-Ko, sem var stofnuð upp úr rústum frábærrar sveitar sem hét Urusei Yatsura. Projekt A-Ko varð til árið 2001 og gaf núna nýverið út fyrstu breiðskífu sína, Yoyodyne.

Ég náði tali af forsprakka sveitarinnar, Fergus Lawrie, og læt hér fylgja með viðtalið og tóndæmi. Njótið vel.

Some of you might remember a little band from Glasgow, Urusei Yatsura. Formed by Fergus Lawrie, Graham Kemp and siblings Elaine and Ian Graham in 1993, the band released three albums, We are Urusei Yatsura (1996) , Slain by Urusei Yatsura (1998) and Everybody loves Urusei Yatsura (2000). 

In 2001 the band split leaving Graham to work on solo material while the others went on to form Projekt A-Ko which, incidently, released their debut album, Yoyodyne, just over a week ago. Listen to "Here comes new challenger!" while you read on.

Indie-mp3 got hold of front man Fergus and talked with him about the new album, the Glasgow music scene, the band's obsession with sci-fi and anime, and reveals what Fergus really does with his fans.

Indie-mp3: Hi Fergus. Tell me a little something about the background of the band. Who are you, where do you come from?

Fergus: I was at university in Glasgow and mucking about in a band called Urusei Yatsura. We did a fanzine and sent John Peel a demo. He liked it and came to see us play. After that a van started turning up all the time to take us to do gigs and recording sessions. We did hundreds of shows and recorded about eighty songs, traveled all over Europe and America and met fantastic people and bands. Then one day the van stopped coming. Three of us kept rehearsing every week and called ourselves Projekt A-ko. Eventually we released a new album which came out on 20th April and is called ‘Yoyodyne’

I-MP3: What's your influence?

Fergus: I'm not a big obscurist or anything so you can probably guess my influences listening to the tracks, obviously late 80s/early 90s guitar bands JAMC, Pixies/Breeders, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jnr, Pavement, Wedding Present, Vaselines, Pastels, Sugarcubes, Stereolab, Galaxie 500, Mudhoney, Drop Nineteens, Throwing Muses, Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips, Radial Spangle also Beck, Velvets and Bowie. When the band started we would listen voraciously to loads of different stuff though, 60s, 70s, Byrds, Astrud Gilberto, Tallulah Gosh, Mamas and Papas, Go Betweens, The Three Degrees, Beat Happening, Monkees, Sarah Records (esp Fieldmice), Moby Grape. Graham had an amazing record collection that he would share with us which was a real musical education for me. UY was a real fan band, we just wanted to emulate our heroes, trying to combine everything we loved with a strong pop element. Up until now I see myself as a songwriter working within this ‘indie’ genre/tradition, whatever that is or was. MBV and Sonic Youth are the two bands I rate most in terms of motivating me to make music and for being true innovators.

I-MP3: Tell me a little about the new album.

Fergus: Well its very much on a trajectory from Urusei, we’re shedding a few things, trying a few new things. Most of the songs were written by 2003/4 and we started recording with Steven Ward who was our guitarist for a while, however he got really busy with work and various other bands so recording and mixing proceeded really slowly, and of course the longer it went on new songs came along and we had things we wanted to change…The whole thing was probably done in just a few weeks of actual time but it got stretched out until December 2008 when the final master was completed, but that’s cool, I’m really pleased with how the record came out, Steven did a fantastic job and its nice to have making music as an ongoing process in your life rather than an overwhelming obsession. Its possibly more coherent than the UY albums since there’s only one principal songwriter (although everyone contributed hugely).

We just released it ourselves, DIY, its how we started out and it just felt natural. After such a long time it seemed more important to just get it out as soon as possible than worry about getting a label involved, plus we were interested to see just how much the internet has changed things. I’ve spent a lot of time stuffing envelopes and writing emails!

I-MP3: The name Project A-Ko appears to be derived from an anime movie featuring "love triangle of three school girls and their confrontations with aliens, giant robots, and women who look like burly men". You have previously (in Urusei Yatsura) made some solid references to manga/anime, Star Trek and, I'm guessing,  role playing ("slain by elves?"). Tell me a little more about your influences in this regard. Do you all share this enthusiasm with science fiction, or are you poking fun of nerdism? How is this evident on the new album?

Fergus: Well it started as a kind of tongue-in-cheek-but-serious championing of geeky subjects, just from our own personal obsessions and shared experiences of being outsiders (‘different at school’ as someone posted on one of the old UY videos)—pop culture, comics, videogames, early home computing etc. and this gradually expanded a bit into preoccupations with difference and otherness in general, literature, science, art. On the new album I used a lot of cut ups, random generators, mistranslations, film quotations, archaic language etc. in the lyrics, trying to get as many different modes of communication broken up and crammed together, definitely trying to be courageous with words even if they didn’t always work.

I-MP3: What happened to Graham?

Fergus: These days he’s a roadie for Hard-Fi.

I-MP3: A little while ago I noticed you (Fergus) had a side project of the droning kind, some kind of artistic statement sounding like it could be the opening act for Sunn O))). What's up with that?

Fergus: I got into buying pedals off ebay and one day picked up a Death by Audio Total Sonic Annihilation which introduced me to feedback looping and Noise in general. It was a really liberating experience because it broke the various habits and musical ideas that I felt trapped in after UY and let me just improvise and feel textures and sound again. So I call myself Obscure Desire of the Bourgeoisie and do the odd noise gig.

www.myspace.com/obscuredesireofthebourgeoisie

I’ve also done a piece called ‘Untitled’ with about ten guitars played by office fans, its just the most amazing sound but it takes a lot of work and requires a really big venue, so far its been performed at the Northampton Fishmarket Gallery and Govan Town Hall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nUSKOK3b8

I also recently had a residency at Dundee Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art collaborating with percussionist Jon Adam, we did a recreation of Alvin Lucier’s ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’ amongst other things. This activity has been an amazing inspiration and I’ve met some great guys like Kylie Minoise, Wounded Knee and Neil Simpson of BuffalobuffalobuffaloBuffalobuffalo and started investigating sound art from a theoretical perspective.

I-MP3: For a while there I thought you wrote Kylie Minogue. But what's currently happening in the Glasgow music scene? You're still based there, right? What other bands should we be checking out?

Fergus: I’m pretty busy so I don’t get out as much as I’d like, the noise scene in Glasgow/Scotland is pretty amazing at the moment with loads of fantastic acts eg Noma. I recently saw Black Sun who are a totally brutal hardcore punk band. Grozny seem really good but they had some technical issues when I saw them, they still rocked though! St Deluxe have a really good album out just now and Sparrow and the Workshop make lovely country folk. Danananakroyd are doing really well, obviously. Should mention Johnny Foreigner too, even though they’re not from Glasgow and I’m sure you’ll have heard of them.

I-MP3: Actually I haven't. But how about Projekt A-Ko touring? Any upcoming gigs?

Fergus: No shows planned just now, we’re concentrating more on getting our next album done. ‘Yoyodyne’ was kind of unfinished business, it was important to feel we could do an album as good as anything UY released and tie up old ideas and habits and I think we succeeded. We’ve moved on a lot since we recorded it and most of the next album is already written and will more strongly reflect our current inspirations especially MBV, Sonic Youth and Noise music…

I-MP3: What's a Yoyodyne and who's Ichiro?

Fergus: Can’t you Google! Ichiro Suzuki is a Japanese baseball star who plays for the Seattle Mariners, I’ve always loved the idea of translation and mimesis and his situation seemed to express a lot of that, at least to me! Yoyodyne refers to Pynchon, Star Trek, dirt bikes and various internet start ups!

From the new album:
Projekt A-Ko - Here comes new challenger! (link fixed)
Projekt A-Ko - Molten Hearts
Earlier demo recording:
Projekt A-Ko - Ichiro on 3rd

More songs on their homepage!

Myspace | Homepage

[MP3] Jangle popp frá Írlandi - Language of Flowers

Language of Flowers var indiepopp sveit frá Belfast sem lagði upp laupana fyrir tveimur árum síðan. Sveitin var á mála hjá eðal plötuútgáfunni Shelflife og undir áhrifum frá Field Mice of Heavenly sem allir áhugamenn um Indiepopp þekkkja af góðu. Meðlimir sveitarinnar fuku burt með vindinum og lentu meðal annars í sveitinum Help Stamp out Loneliness og Camera Obscura. Eina plötu gáfu þau út, Songs about You sem kom út árið 2004.

Hérna er lag af henni, gullfalleg gítar ballaða sem heitir "Leaving".

[MP3] Language of Flowers - Leaving

[MP3] Frábært indiepopp frá Spáni - Juniper Moon

Tvímælalaust besta bandið sem Spánn hefur getið af sér, Juniper Moon frá Ponferada. Bandið er nú hætt störfum en meðlimir sveitarinnar eru sumir hverjir í hljómsveitunum Linda Guilala og Sportbilly, sem enginn þekkir.

Hérna má hlusta á þetta ágæta lag, Volveras:

[MP3] Juniper Moon - Volveras

[MP3] Bitch Magnet

Bitch Magnet var svokallað Post-Hardcore band, stofnað í Oberlin College í Ohio árið 1986. Þeir félagar fluttu sig svo um set og eru yfirleitt orðaðir við Chapel Hill í North Carolina. Sveitin gaf út þrjár þrusufínar plötur smekkfullar af smekklegum hávaða. SooYoung Park hét forsprakki sveitarinnar en hann gekk síðar til liðs við hljómsveitina Seam og seinast band sem hét ee.

Star Booty og Umber voru að mínu mati betri plötur sveitarinnar, og hérna eru þrjú lög af þeim. Hressandi hávaði vel þess virði að hækka í. Það mætti mögulega líkja þessu við eðalbönd eins og Shellack og Fugazi.

[MP3] Bitch Magnet - Sea of Pearls
[MP3] Bitch Magnet - Circle K
[MP3] Bitch Magnet - Big Pining

[Fleiri lög með Bitch Magnet má finna hér]
[Bitch Magnet á Last FM]

[MP3] Animal Hospital kemur á klakann

Bandaríski raftónlistarmaðurinn Kevin Micka, sem kallar sig Animal Hospital, er væntanlegur hingað til lands um miðjan næsta mánuð, og mun hann halda líklegast þrenna tónleika hér á landi í allt. Pilturinn er ættaður frá Boston og er vinur The Juliet Kilo sem spilaði hér á landi 2006 með Mr. Silla og Mongoose og fleirum stuðböndum. Kevin hefur helst sér til frægðar unnið að hafa hitað upp fyrir ofurhljómsveitina Beirut. Hann þykir alveg frábær á sviði, og eflaust ekki verri þótt ekkert sé sviðið en vænta má að hann komi fram meðal annars í 12 Tónum og Kaffi Hljómalind.

Tónlistin er svona minimalistískur experimental  hljóðheimur uppfullur af míkróbítum a la múm. Við skulum hlýða á tóndæmi:

[MP3] Animal Hospital - A safe Place

[Myspace]

[MP3] Bag of Joys á fimmtudaginn

Nú er komið að þriðja Sýna og sjá kvöldi Nýlistasafnsins þar sem óháðir tónlistarmenn og þekktir spekúlantar koma saman einu sinnu í viku og fara yfir sjálfstæða tónlistarsköpun á Íslandi við upphaf 10.áratugsins.

Fimmtudaginn 19. mars kl. 20 munu meðlimir hljómsveitarinnar Bag of Joys koma í safnið og ræða feril sinn í máli og myndum, gefa tóndæmi, sýna heimagert prentefni og skella ómetanlegum myndbandsupptökum af bílskúrsæfingum í tækið.

Hljómsveitin Bag of Joys var stofnuð í Breiðholtinu árið 1992. Þá voru í hljómsveitinni Þorsteinn Bjarnason, Gústaf Bergmann Einarsson, Unnar Arnalds og Sighvatur Ómar Kristinsson. Sveitin gaf úr spóluna "Minnir óneitanlega á Grikkland" árið 1995 í 25 tölusettum eintökum. Síðar var þó bætt við 15 eintökum vegna gríðarlegrar eftirspurnar hjá Dóra í Plötubúðinni. Eftir útgáfu spólunnar yfirgaf Þorsteinn hljómsveitina og við tóku stífar æfingar fyrir upptökur á sjötommunni "Nú á ég vermand vini" sem kom út haustið 1995. Skömmu eftir útgáfu sjötommunar bættist söngkonan Lena Viderö í hópinn. Geisladiskurinn "Eins og ég var motta" kom út árið 1997 á vegum Smekkleysu en uppúr því hætti hljómsveitin. Árið 2001 voru svo haldnir tónleikar í Kaffileikhúsinu þar sem flest lög frá ferli Bag of Joys voru leikin.

Sýna og sjá í Nýlistasafninu er á dagsskrá einu sinni viku fram í miðjan maí og munu m.a Arnar Eggert, Yúkatan, Saktmóðígur, Kolrassa Krókríðandi, F.I.R.E Inc og Á túr koma fram og setja sig undir smásjána.

[MP3] Bag of Joys - Sveitasnakk

[MP3] Hávaði er góður ...

... en hugljúft popp er líka gott!

[MP3] Brittle Stars - Souvenir (OMD ábreiða)

[MP3] Dubstar - Stars

[MP3] The Icicles - Whirling 

 

[MP3] The Postal Service - The District sleeps alone tonight

[MP3] Serge Gainsbourg - Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais (Ég kom bara við til að segja þér að ég er á förum)