Indie Music Finds » Scandinavian

Jónsi – Go Do (music video) + North American Tour

Charlie O'Shea — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:15:53 +0000

The official music video to the first single of Jónsi’s upcoming debut solo album ‘Go’ has been released as shown below. A dark and glittery affair, the video is too fast paced for my liking but it defines Jónsi’s style perfectly.

‘Go’ is now set to be released on the 5th of April 2010. The North American tour dates have been posted here and the first show is to be in Vancouver; a day after the album is released worldwide.

No dates in other continents have yet been announced but it is still being called a world tour so I expect they will be in the near future.

Jónsi – Go (solo album)

Charlie O'Shea — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:36:23 +0000

Jónsi Þór Birgisson of Sigur Rós has begun to reveal his new solo album side project ‘Go’. He’s not giving much away at the moment but I’m sure all will become clear in due course. In the meantime, there’s a free track available to download on his website at jonsi.com once you’ve signed up to the mailing list. Be sure to click the letters of Jónsi on the homepage, it plays snippets of other songs from the album. The ‘j’ is amazing.

Boy Lilikoi – Jónsi

From the tags on this mp3, it is revealed that the album is to be called ‘Go’ and is set to be released worldwide on April 5th 2010. Unlike most of his songs, the lyrics this time are in English. I’m not sure whether the rest of this solo album will be in English but it could show Jónsi trying to gain a more foreign listening audience.

Go Do
Animal Arithmetic
Tornado
Boy Lilikoi
Sinking Friendships
Kolnidur
Grow Till Tall
Around Us
Hengilas

‘Go’ Tracklist (announced 07/12/09)

Sigur Rós Music Videos

Charlie O'Shea — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:31:34 +0000

This is just a post of all the Sigur Rós videos so that they can all be in one place. They’ve consistently made utterly inspiring videos and everyone has just got to see these.

Glósóli, Hoppípolla and Sæglópur are from their 2005 album ‘Takk’.
Untitled #1 (Vaka) is from ‘( )’ released 2002.
Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása and Svefn-G-Englar are from the 1999 album ‘Ágætis Byrjun’.
Gobbledigook is from the 2008 album ‘Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust’.

Which one was your favourite?

Firefly Effect – All The Jokes Are On Me

Charlie O'Shea — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:18:18 +0000

David Mahler, the same guy behind Savage Sparrow has just finished making this music video for the Norwegian band Firefly Effect.

He says it’s taken him “Four months and about 1,640 hand drawn and water coloured frames”. Seriously impressive stuff and well worth your eye time. Subscribe to his blogspot.

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – Fruit

Sophie Stratford — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:00:35 +0000

Copenhagen’s retro soul pop stars ‘The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’ are back with a new single ‘The Golden Age’ and a new album to follow ‘Fruit’. The album is a woozy musical delight of happy soul and kaleidoscopic pop triumphs with a psychedelic blend of retro funky beats and brass band mayhem. Since fronting the Apple iPod Touch advert worldwide with song ‘Around the Bend’ and having their tracks featured on US TV shows, the band has gone from strength to strength.

‘Fruit’ is full of catchy, sing-a-long choruses, and includes singles ‘Around The Bend’, the ‘Golden Age’ as well as more melancholic tracks like ‘Satellite’ and the deliciously groovy ‘Lady Jesus’ a song based on a real life event of a scary Danish religious leader who lived nearby. ‘The Asteroids Galaxy Tour’ are the latest exciting instalment in the new wave of hip Scandinavian pop hitting the UK and are heading for fame faster than the speed of light.

Released 21^st September 2009.

By Sophie Stratford

The Bothersome Man

Charlie O'Shea — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:54:49 +0000

The Bothersome Man is an unusual Norwegian film released in 2006. It was the debut of director Jens Lien and shows an interesting view of life in a soulless city. It is of course in Norwegian but I don’t really mind subtitles. I saw it around a year ago late at night on BBC1 and I don’t think I ever would have come across it other wise. I’m very glad that I did though so I wanted to make sure other people could find out about it.

The film’s protagonist Andreas finds himself in a city with little idea of how he got there. He has is given all the things he needs, an apartment, a job and a girlfriend, yet something is missing and nobody else seems to notice it. The film follows him in his attempt to escape the sterile city and this materialistic life style. Much of The Bothersome Man is metaphoric so I suppose it can be interpreted as you will. Personally it reminds me a lot of the Radiohead track Fitter Happier.

Fitter Happier – Radiohead

Sigur Rós

Charlie O'Shea — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:04:22 +0000

Sigur Rós are one of those bands that have been around for about a decade, are known around the world, and yet are hard to find out about. The Icelandic, ambient rock band have produced five full length albums so far between 1997 and 2008 as well as Rímur and Hvarf/Heim. Although few tracks are in English, a lot of them aren’t in true Icelandic either but in a term they coined called Hopelandic. This involves non-sense words and Jónsi Birgisson’s voice is used as an instrument in itself more than anything else. Another interesting instrumental direction is Jónsi’s use of a violin bow on electric guitar to create a warm background drone which really adds depth to their ethereal sound. Sigur Rós released a DVD called Heima (home) in 2007 which followed them on their free, homecoming, alfresco tour around Iceland. It features some amazing footage and is worth getting a copy of it albeit a bit dear.

Von
Ágætis Byrjun
Rímur
()
Takk
Hvarf/Heim
Með Suð Í Við Spilum Endalaust