After yesterday’s pretty exhausting bus ride and sleeping a lot we worked today at the report of day two of our experiences on the Danish showcase festival SPOT. If you missed day 1 make sure you’ll check it here!

Volcano day party

Our day started with a showcase event hosted by the Copenhagen-based management company Volcano. A lot of great Danish bands fly under the wings of Volcano, but for this occasion they focussed on three of their newest and developing acts. We missed the first Freja Loeb, but came right on time for the second The Floor Is Made Of Lava. They probably have been compared to Kings of Leon a thousand times, already played at Roskilde and opened for the likes of Oasis,Nephew and Ac/Dc. A good band in the poppy-sense of the word, and with enough potential to become one of the ‘big’ ones. It was fun to see them play in such an intimate setting, and to see that they are skilled musicians to besides the hitmachine they ought to become.

The third act – Broken Twin – on which Volcano treated the visitors was way more interesting. They haven’t released a single song, and we heard after the show that this was actually their first gig, didn’t noticed. Broken Twin is a female duo consisting of the two 22-year old Emilie Marie Kjær and Majke Voss Romme. Their sound developes on good melodies and melancholic tunes driven on their vulnerable posture. Their first EP is expected to be released in late summer, keep an eye on them.

Marybell Katastrophy & Nils Frahm

With the list of our first conformations Nils Frahm was one of them. So we were pretty curious to see a show from this Berliner live before Incubate 2012. Different than the show is gonna do at our festival he played together with the Danish avantgarde pop act Marybell Katastrophy. We were pretty glad to see that this show, which was held in the beautiful theater of Aarhus called Musikhuset, was seated, because that’s really a must for a show of Frahm. After the first song with a few technical problems we did get treated of a really wonderful set which was perfectly balanced on Frahm’s neoclassical music and the electronic bombastic music of Marybell Katastrophy.

The show, which consisted (sadly enough) only six songs, was pretty well structured; with the pretty serious and sometimes even intense music the pianist and the female singer made between the songs pretty lively notes, that brought some extra ‘air’ in the show. But a disadvantage of this kind of special collaborations is that you will end up with mixed feelings; you know that this a special occasion and they will (probably) not gonna tour with this project. Despite this fact this was probably one of the best performances that we saw this weekend. And it makes us really looking forward to the solo show that Nils Frahm gonna given at Incu12.

Mads Björn

After I heard Mads Björn’s single ‘New Sailor’ on the Spot-ify playlist I really got exited. An excitement that got unrewarded during his show. Turned out that New Sailor was one of the few highlights and that the rest of his set was – sorry to say – mediocre. His performance was to gimmicky and not spontaneously. The Danish crowd loved him though, maybe because his in-between-songs-jokes were good, to bad I didn’t understand a word he said. So, one more listen to New Sailor and then I’ll leave him be.

Altmodisch

Nobody can deny that the singer of Altmodisch sounds pretty like Ben Gibbard, singer of Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service. And if you’re listening to the music it looks like they are most inspired by the last band. Since it seems that Gibbard isn’t doing anything with The Postal Service anymore we were glad to find a new band that deals with this kind of music. But besides potential hit single We Look The Same the band is not in possession of enough tracks like that to keep us enthralled.

Annasaid

These Dannish Mathpoppers music is accessible and ambitious. They follow in the footsteps of Bloc Party, the slipstream of Foals and added a little poppyness of Two Door Cinema Club. With their debut album ‘Jua’ they aim for the big venues, but they’ve not outgrown the more compact location ‘Katapult’ yet. Their show is really entertaining and professional. Their music is tight, the frontman is a born entertainer, but they lack in creativity. The songs played are all exchangeable and flat. Nothing that you haven’t heard before.

XXXY

When we found out that XXXY was playing this year’s SPOT we were quiet surprised. A typical XLR8R-name from London, from who we are fan since his EP Every Step Forward, was the onlyUK act from this scene. A pretty cool name who should play, because of the darker UK-bass sounds, in a grimmy place and after 12 AM. Instead the organisation did put him on 9.30 AM in The Garden, which is a pretty nice stage outside where people could stand on the roof, put really nothing for this kind of music. And with a really cheap Katy B-ripoff act (Aersoul) before XXXY, this performance didn’t turned out how it should be. What he was doing, a deephouse djset with some poststep tunes, was pretty cool, but still hard to judge because the location/situation was so shitty.

:Of the Wand & the Moon:

One of the more well-known acts on the bill of Spot Festival. :OtW&tM: was also one of the acts on the bill of Incubate 2009 edition. As one of the leading acts in the neo-folk scene, their performance at Spot was expected to be dark, eerie, soothing etc etc. And of course it was, but that didn’t make it less entertaining. The signature leading acoustic guitar and keyboard, backed up by all sorts of instruments and the long oooooh’s and aaaaah’s of the female vocalists made it sound like a dark folk opera. The subjects of their lyrics also underpin last made statement.

Zebra & Snake

The Finish band Zebra & Snake played at the Voxhall, which is a pretty cool venue, with a nice bar. By the EP Sweetest Treasure and a remix for The Good Natured which appeared on Kitsune Compilation 9 the band sounded like the new \\ wave (yes separately, we’re not talking about new-wave!) sensation. Unfortunately it did really work out on stage. Besides the voice of the frontman, which sounds very like the old Bowie, the band didn’t convinced us.

Prinspóló

All day I waited to see the crown bearing Prinspóló. So as the moment was finally there, I walked to the wrong venue, waited 15 minutes in line and upon entering I noticed Asbjorn on stage. I could really smack myself to the head, but luckily I didn’t as I rushed to the correct venue. Upon arriving they just started my favourite song, that you can find below. Of all the showcase artist that played at Spot I really hope Prinspóló makes it, so I can see an entire show.

Kúra

When we checked out Kúra‘s track Anchor we thought that we finally found the new Portishead/Massive Attack and because this band ware planned as the last act of the whole festival our expectations were maybe a bit high. But where an act as Portishead comes with a lot of tension and mystery in their music, the music of Kúra live was pretty boring and less exciting. The day after we heard that this band, besides making last year a successful record, didn’t do a lot of live performances yet, because the band was separated in two countries (Iceland & Denmark). So we have to admit that maybe after some more gigs this band can grow and can turn into a more exciting live act than it his right now.

At the end of this really busy weekend we can conclude a couple of things. First of all we really liked the atmosphere around the festival. Cool to meet and talk with new people (from our country, but also other countries). There were a lot of things going on, and we think that we’ve got a nice overview what the festival is made of. We saw a lot of bands, some were a bit disappointing, some were better than we expected and maybe the most important thing; we feel like we’re a bit more up to date to the stunning music scene of Denmark and other Scandinavian countries.

First photo is made by Tom Roelofs, second photo is made by an iPhone.

In 2009 AU (pronounced as ay-yoo) performed during Incubate in the Batcave (now Stage01) at 013. Now, almost 3 years later, AU switched to the The Leaf Label (Hometapes outside EU) and released their first album on that label ‘Both Lights’.

Now, after the first released single ‘Solid Gold’, they released a stunning new animated video for the song ‘OJ’. The acid-soaked video was directed by Japanese film-maker Takafumi Tsuhiya. Check the video below, and grab your free download on Soundcloud. You can also download the Solid Gold b-side under/epic on their Bandcamp.

Tomorrow the 12th edition of Rotterdam’s finest art and music festival Motel Mozaique is gonna start. With a lot of different performances, arts & bands it’s hard to choose what you have to see. Of course we like headliners like Patrick Watson, The Antlers and Apparat band but we like to give you some tips of acts that still have to prove themselves.

Light Asylum
Before this duo from Brooklyn (where else?!) started playing music together the frontwoman Shannon Funchess already gained some experiences on stage; she sang as a background singer from bands as TV On The Radio, !!! and LCD Soundsystem. After their first EP In Tension we are really looking forward to the debut of Light Asylum which is scheduled for the first of May. The first song of the album Shallow Tears is already listenable and sounds familiar to the EP: Dark, synth-wave and, what Pitchfork said “They sound like warriors sent from the future”

Great Mountain Fire
It’s weird to hear that the debut of the Belgian band Great Mountain Fire, Canopy, didn’t get a lot of attention when they released it in August. Luckily the band gets little by little finally what they deserve. You could say that we heard this kind of music the last couple of years before, you could also say that it was a long ago that we sing-a-long so easily with songs of a band from Bruxelles.

Jameszoo (Live)
Mitchell van Dinther aka Jameszoo isn’t an unknown person for us, he played at the opening of New Jacks with Incubate last year. A lot of things changed since then; he played at festivals like Eurosonic and 5 Days Off. Also musically he has changed; now is playing live with jazz piano player Gideon Van Gelder. As a prelude for his debut album, which is scheduled for this fall, he released in February his EP Guanyin Psittacines full with tropical beats floating between jazz and electronic hiphop.

120 Days
You can’t call the Norwegian guys from 120 Days hard workers. They started playing together in 2001 and finally after 5 years, in 2006, they released their self titled debut. Now after more than 5 years after their debut their back with another self titled album, we wrote about them earlier in the Spotifriday of week 10. Luckily the five years were completely worth it; the music of their new record sounds really different and more of these times. Highlight; Almost 10 minutes of dancing with instrumental song Dahle Disco.

Soap&Skin
We end this list our favorite new Motel Mozaique artist with another old Incubate-artist; Soap&Skin. When the Austrian girl Anja Plaschg came to our festival in 2009 her debut Lovetune For Vacuum was just released. The follow-up is the mini album Narrow; a wider album with songs instead of only in English and German, Voyage Voyage, which is probably one the finest songs of this album, is in French. For this gig in Rotterdam she is gonna play with an ensemble, which is pretty exciting.

We recently changed our line-up page. Since we are doing that every year here is a brief history of all the different line-up pages we had. You  can click on each thumbnail to go to the belonging site.

2007                                         2008                                             2009
        

2010                                          2011                                         2012
    

Sleeze Selecter aka SAH Selecter is co-founder of the Wirwar soundsystem in 1996, organising lots of squat parties in the most freaky locations. He also became a Crackbeats resident-dj in 2004. His alias SAH Selecter plays very diverse tunes with great skills, from mashup/breakcore to tekno to 8-bit, but his true love is oldskool house, and to go back in the days he started BACK 2 JACK, a night that promotes oldskool house/jacktrax/old school acid!

Sleeze Selecter played at Incubate 2009 and now he made an hour-long mix, which you can download for free! Check our Soundcloud or listen below, enjoy!

The German female singer/songwriter Soap & Skin (Incubate 2009) is finally going to release a new album! It’s called ‘Narrow‘ and it has the weirdest site we’ve seen this year (apart from Space Ghetto ofcourse (NSFW)). And if that news didn’t make our day already, she released a new song to promote the album!
Although you should be very happy to finally here some new material by Soap & Skin, this song (‘Wonder’) isn’t going to brighten up your depressed grey office Thursday morning. But what can we say? We love to revel in our own misery (we booked Malcolm Middleton for Christ sake). But apart from the depressing mood, the song is gorgeous. Listen to the song here:

 
Soap&Skin – Wonder by PIAS Entertainment
You can pre-order ‘Narrow’  here.

Cooly G (Incubate 2009) delivered a new mix full of deep house with some dubstep, classic piano loops and trance like beats. She performed at the infamous Boiler Room and brought a 45 minute mix of music for us. You can download her whole set and listen and view the DJ-set here. Have fun!

I have a love/hate relationship with Eurosonic/Noorderslag. The first 25 years of my life i lived in and near Groningen, so i know how the city behaves without music industry people. This year is my 9th time to visit the festival, the first time as a delegate. In the past i saw some amazing shows at Eurosonic by bands like Serena Maneesh (Incubate 2010), Dungen, Wardruna (Incubate 2009), Hello Saferide, Joensuu 1685, Finn. (Incubate 2009), Zu, Islaja, etcetera. So yes, i love festival for the fact that they always have some great new bands. Groningen is a great town. Vera is great.

I’ve got reasons to hate the festival as well. Eurosonic/Noorderslag’s goal seems not to be creating meaning for artists and audience, it seems to be there to facilitate economic transactions between people working in the music industry. Its conference is for the middlemen, not for artists. Artists are hardly to be found at the conference and for delegates the bar seems more important than the stage. The main goal for a big part of the 3000 delegates is to drink as much beer as possible and stay as long as possible in a bar called Knarie (which is very uncool according to our cool/uncool list).

As a delegate I have two goals for the 4 days of the festival. I try to have my meetings in the daytime and see bands in the evening. First day of Eurosonic/Noorderslag is just a starter. First thing to do is pick up the badge and anonimise the RIFD chip that goes with every wristband. There’s no opt-in here, only opt-out. That’s a shame. People don’t have to know where I am or where I was. If I want to tell people, it’s my own choice and I will choose my own medium for it. I don’t want e-mails from booking agents later telling me I was at a show of their band and need to book them. There’s many other reasons why I don’t want to be followed if I don’t know who gets the information afterwards.

Ok, first meeting is with Jason Edwards, booking agent at UK agency 13 Artists. Two of his artists (Gallops in 2011 and Hyetal in 2010) played at Incubate before. We discuss possibilities to have Grimes and Factory Floor at Incubate in september. He’s a very nice guy, I hope it will work out with the bands. In the mean time the festival opening starts, including free drinks, so everyone is close to the bar and the networking starts. Thanks to Jason I meet Emma Hogan, agent of Let’s Wrestle (Incubate 2011) and Pulled Apart By Horses (Incubate 2009), and Ben Coleman (programmer at Green Man festival). Via Bernadette of Austrian Music Ambassador Network I meet Reini Seyfriedsberger of Ink Music (Suuns, a.o.) and Waves Vienna festival.

After sharing dinner with the Alles Los crew (dutch bookers for The Ex, Loops Haunt, Soap&Skin, Ford&Lopatin, Bert On Beats, Daniel Haaksman, etc.) I head to De Spieghel for Norwegian all-girl band Razika. Catchy songs, but a very static performance. Not so good. French Films are from Finland and is the band everybody was talking about when I was at Finland’s Lost In Music festival in october. Pop tunes for people that like The Vaccines or The Drums, but I like French Films much better. Lisa Hannigan has about 83 musicians on stage, but basically all she needs is herself to be pretty boring. Definitely not my cup of tea. Best band of the night is 120 Days from Norway. I’ve seen them at Eurosonic a few years ago and since then I heard nothing of the guys. Now 5 years later nothing much has changed except that they’re not 17 anymore and their sound is more polished and bigger. Good professional show, that almost makes me dance (i’m not a dancer). Recommended if you like Factory Floor, Gatekeeper and K-X-P.

Since it’s sometimes hard to understand what we’re doing for people who haven’t visited Incubate yet, I try to meet some booking agents we work with, so I can explain them a bit and give them our festival guide to get an impression. On thursday i’m meeting Clemence and Ditte of Elastic Artists, one of the bigger UK agencies. Clemence is representing bands like Of Montreal, Nguzunguzu, Small Black and Blouse, while Ditte has Jacuzzi Boys (playing in Eindhoven soon!) and Paws on her roster. All these bands would be very cool for Incubate, so it’s good that they’re responding very positive to everything I tell them about the festival. The same goes for Nathalie of Primary (WU LYF, Creep, Ariel Pink and TEARIST), Isla of  Nomanis (Papercuts, Cass McCombs, Peaking Lights, Thulebasen) and Ron of Mojo. All very nice people! Ron suggests an amazing project for Incubate 2012. Hopefully more about that soon!

Something that can help with booking a band is talking to other festivals that might be interested in the same bands and see if the combination of two or more shows is interesting for a band or booker. Last year Waves Vienna had a great line-up, two weeks after Incubate. That’s why I meet up with Johanna and Reini who work at the festival. In 2012 their dates are three weeks after Incubate, so the chances that we’re really gonna work together are not big. It’s always good though to hear from each other how the other is organizing their festival. For the same reason Frank and I have a very positive talk with Lode of Leffingeleuren. Leffingeleuren 2012 will be in the weekend of 14-16 september, Incubate is 10-16 september, Lode has a great taste, so we’re excited to work together on some bands.

At thursday night there’s three bands worth mentioning: Thulebasen, Thread Pulls and Iceage.
Thulebasen recently got much more attention because of the success of their friends Iceage (who they replaced at Incubate 2010), but this band is totally different from Iceage. No punk, but psychedelic noise rock weirdness, recommended if you like Black Dice. First part of the show is still a bit boring, but the longer they play the better they get (and how more empty the room gets).
Thread Pulls is another psychedelic noise rock band, a duo from Ireland with drums, guitar, treated vocals and trumpet. Amazing live performance, best band of the day, will definitely try to book them for Incubate this year.
Secret closing act at the Belmont showcase is Iceage. They play in Het Paleis, a venue not made for live music, especially not for a band like Iceage. The music industry audience and the bad sound don’t help either. A bit of a letdown, but every reason to come back on friday in Vera. Frank and I start a moshpit from the start and finally there’s a show at the festival with a non-lethargic audience. Even Vera’s promoter and living legend Peter Weening is jumping in the front. The only two other artists on the friday to make a very good impression are Mirel Wagner from Finland and the mind blowing Za! from Spain.

Saturday is Noorderslag: I don’t like crowds, so I leave early to see Crowds in Vera.

The Norwegian duo Humcrush and Norwegian vocalist Sidsel Endresen are coming to Tilburg on the 14th of December. Sidsel Endresen performed at Incubate 2010 and is now playing a show at the Paradox with Humcrush, existing of Thomas Stronen (drums/electronics) and Stale Storlokken (keyboards). The support act of that evening is SVER, a classical schooled band that is fascinated by Northern-Europe. SVER has three bandmembers, Bram Stadhouders (Altguitar/electronics), Aart Strootman(stereo baritoneguitar/samples) and Fons Toonen (Drums/percussion/dronetank). Bram Stadhouders and Aart Strootman both performed at the Incubate Festival.

This is a must see! A night full of Incubate artists at the Paradox, Tilburg on the 14th of December. Tickets are € 13,00 and it starts at 21:00, so be there!

Among the best performances we had in our short Incubate history. I think it’s quite fair to put the Pulled Apart By Horses show at Incubate 2009 in that list. They have a new album coming out somewhere next year. And now they released a single to promote it. It’s called V.E.N.O.M.  and it rocks like a motherfucker.

Check it out!

An EP, titled ‘polymers are forever‘ will be released on 11th November on Remote Control (Australia) and on 14th November on XtraMile (Britain and Europe) with an initial small amount of imports being shoveled the way of the USA, that land mass which is a little to the left of Wales. Pleased doesn’t quite cover it. The possibilities, literally, are end-ful.

Running order is ‘polymers are forever’(*1), ‘with apologies to emily pankhurst’(*2), ‘new adventures’, ‘my wife is unhappy’, ‘dry hate’ and ‘destroywhitchurch.com’. It has a running time somewhere in the region of twenty one minutes and is ‘very nice’ ((c) my mother, last week). The first three songs are taken from the album sessions (see below) whilst the final three are earlier demos we didn’t have the time, money or inclination to re-record. At this stage I have no earthly idea if the EP will end up being pressed on vinyl but the chances, as ever, are dramatically increased the more people ask.

Just saying.

‘polymers are forever’ (the song not the entire EP) will appear on the album ‘the plot against common sense‘, which will be released in early 2012. More about this later(*4). We are really VERY VERY HAPPY with this record, which is perhaps ONE DAY away from being finished, whenever we can fit that in; I would like to apologise in advance to my bandmates and the cat(*5) for how drunk I get upon its completion.

(*1) I have read some pretty demented comments about this song after just one radio play (and subsequent streaming). Gary Numan? Obvious Cure references? LIMP BIZKIT? None of these are things. None. Of. These. Listen again. With ears. EARS. (*3)
(*2) this is the DELIBERATE title of the song. A reviewer for a magazine, who shall remain nameless changed ‘emily’ to ‘emmeline’ on a setlist she was given earlier this year. How cute.
(*3) laptop speakers do not count.
(*4) and I ask you to interpret the word ‘later’ generously.(*7)
(*5) the odd seizure and shitting-on-the-doorstep episode aside, Chicken is doing well.
(*6) one balls reference per blog – new policy.
(*7) this is code for ‘be patient’.

Cooly G is releasing her debut album, which is entitled Playing Me, in the beginning of 2012. She performed at the Incubate festival in 2009. Where she let us know about her new vibe and new sounds, mixing dubhouse and minimal house. In those years she has released numerous EPs and had collaborations with other artists. For example the magnificent Narst’/Love Dub 12″ in 2009 at the Hyperdub label. She collaborated with Scratcha on his DVA music label.

There is no further information about the album, but when there is we will update you immediately. Keep an eye on the blog, because on the 7th of November she will release a new 12″ where she guides her sounds with her own vocals. The vocals are even more prominent than ever before. For the 12″ she collaborates with French dynamo producer Simbad and Baltimore house legend Karizma. Here are a few tunes to keep you satisfied till the 7th of November!

via FACT magazine

In their own words:
“After this UK tour we will be splitting up. I’m proud to say we are a bunch of best friends who sound better right now that we ever have and we will play this last tour harder than we’ve ever played.”

(photo by Nick Helderman)

Unfortunately not new material from the Wardruna camp, but still this video of ‘Løyndomsriss’ from the 2009 album ‘Runaljod — gap var Ginnunga’ is worth the watch! We had Wardruna play Natuurtheater back in 2009 and have Glen Hansard and Battles play in the same setting for this year’s Incubate! You can view the new video below here.

Schlachthofbronx (Incubate 2009) are back with new gems! We’ve already previewed the original track with video a little while ago but the EP with five remixes is out now as well. Listen to the goods here! Mp3s can be bought through your favorite mp3-channel, check out the Mad Descent blog for the links.

Tonight and tomorrow at Kunstencentrum in Belgium, Hasselt, the legendary apocalyptic folk band Current 93 will perform two exclusive shows. Their lineup of artists for this show is pretty impressive and includes the likes of Baby Dee, who is also performing at Incubate 2011 and James Blackshaw, who performed at Incubate 2009. See the full lineup below here. There are still tickets left for the show so head over here to grab yours asap!

The Current 93 lineup for these two shows include;

- David Tibet (UK) – vocals, guitar (Nick Cave, Mark Almond, Antony & The Johnsons Psychic   TV, 23 Skidoo, Nurse With Wound) http://www.copticcat.com

- Baby Dee (US) – keyboards, piano (Marc Almond, Will Oldham, Andrew WK, Robbie Lee,   Max Moston (Antony and the Johnsons), The Kamikaze Freak Show) http://www.babydee.org

- Alex Neilson (UK) – drums (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Isobel Campbell, The One Ensemble of   Daniel Padden, Trembling Bells) http://www.myspace.com/tremblingbells

- Andrew Liles (UK) – guitar, electronics, percussions (Nurse with Wound, Faust, Danielle   Dax, Hafler Trio…) http://www.andrewliles.com

- James Blackshaw (UK) – electric and acoustic gtr (Josef Van Wissem, Brethren of The Free   Spirit, Young God Records) http://younggodrecords.com/Artists/Index.asp?C=1988

- Keith Wood (US) – electric gtr (Hush Arbors, Six Organs of Admittance, Sunburned Hand Of   The Man, Ecstatic Peace) http://www.ecstaticpeace.com/kits/hush_kit.html

- Eliot Bates (US) – oud (Kinetik Trance, Cornell University NY) http://www.eliotbates.com

From January 20th ’till 27th, Mad Professor organizes a very special festival/trip to Gambia! Mad Professor played at Incubate 2009, which you can find footage from below the text!

“Ariwa Sounds are proud to present The Back to Africa Festival in the Gambia  January 2012. This festival is part of the celebration of Ariwa Sounds 30 year anniversary in business. The festival site is in the south of the country, in the sea side resort of Batukunku. The festival will be spread over the week starting January the 20^th until January the 27th. Festival goers will be entertained with live performances from a variety of artists from the label. We also plan on having workshops, seminars in the morning before performances. There will be a variety of performances from local and international artists.”

Artists on board so far include: Turbulence, John Mclean, Dego Ranks, Tippa Irie, Mad Professor, Earl 16, Pan Africanist, Papa Levi, Macka B, The Robotiks, Sista Audrey, Aisha, Sandra Cross and Soulfire.

More information about the trip will be announced shortly on Ariwa Sounds.

Bass Clef, the man behind the wheels of steel at Incubate 2009, has two forthcoming tracks on Punch Drunk. You can preview them underneath here on Soundcloud!

Great news! Raffertie, who played at Incubate 2009 as part of the Generation Bass program has signed to Ninja Tune! He’s got a debut album coming up early 2012, but by signing up on his mailing list you can already download the track ‘Not Asleep, Not Awake’. Head over here to sign up.

Watch this exclusive video from Dananananakroyd’s (Incubate 2009) newest single ‘Muscle Memory’ over at NME. Vocalist Calum Gun says of this track: “It’s about remembering to be yourself when things around you are changing.” Below is a cool exclusive video of their show at Incubate 2009 (only been watched 40 times)!

Check out this cool video of the Schlachthofbronx’ (Incubate 2009) song ‘Chambacu’ from their Nasty Bass EP on Mad Decent!

Caspian had some trouble on the road and therefore have only played a short set at Incubate 2009. Yet, it was nothing short from amazing! Now you have the chance to check them out again at Koornbeurs in Delft, who already had a very succesful post-rock evening last year with bands like Maybeshewill and Upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start. Supporting Caspian on this evening will be two other great post-rock acts, Tides from Nebula from Poland and Germany’s Kokomo. We can give away 2×2 tickets for this show.

How to win
We can give away 2×2 tickets for this show. All you have to do is send an email to win ATT incubate DOTTT org with your full name and the answer to the question “Describe us the ultimate setting for listening to Caspian!” ps. You can do this by writing something down but also by sending pictures, movie (clips) or whatever you come up with! Creativity will be appreciated and rewarded! Please mention “Caspian” in the subject line. Good luck!

We somehow missed this rare occasion Jandek took the stage in January. We were very fortunate to have him perform at Incubate 2009, but his live performances are rare. And this one was véry special, as this was a one of show with drummer BJ Wilson from HEALTH and bassist Mike Watt from Minutemen. Thanks to the 21st century, there’s some proper footage of this unique show!

Taken from The Walrus

Vincent Dams was a guest at Incubate 2009 as part of the New Jacks project. At Luycks Gallery, you can now view his exposition ‘Bits and Pieces’ until April 16th. You can check out the full description (in Dutch) when clicking ‘Read More’ and here’s an example of his work. More on the website of Luycks Gallery!

Op vrijdag 4 maart opent in Luycks Gallery een nieuwe solotentoonstelling van Vincent Dams (1983) onder de titel Bits & Pieces. In Dams’ universum vervult de verbeelding een centrale en problematische rol als tolk van ‘de innerlijke kermis’, vol humor, tragiek, spel en ernst. Met hun referenties aan de kunstgeschiedenis, de literatuur of fictieve collega`s roepen Dams’ vaak surrealistische, intrigerende schilderijen, tekeningen, foto’s en installaties meer vragen op dan ze beantwoorden.

‘Het is minder vreemd dat in zijn werk motieven als die van de dansende tafel voorkomen, dan dat hij juist aan deze tafel zijn werk placht te schrijven.’

Met dit citaat van de Duitse cultuurfilosoof Walter Benjamin geeft Vincent Dams een statement af over zijn eigen werk. In het magische universum van Dams vervult de verbeelding een centrale en problematische rol als tolk van ‘de innerlijke kermis’, vol humor, tragiek, spel en ernst. Met hun referenties aan de kunstgeschiedenis, de literatuur of fictieve collega`s roepen Dams’ vaak surrealistische, intrigerende schilderijen, tekeningen, foto’s en installaties meer vragen op dan ze beantwoorden.
De opening vindt plaats op vrijdagavond 4 maart om 17.00 uur en wordt verricht door Oscar Wyers (1983), schrijver, muzikant, performancekunstenaar en vriend van de kunstenaar. Op 14 april is Vincent Dams te gast in het auditorium van museum De Pont in Tilburg voor een kunstenaarsgesprek met moderator Alex de Vries.

Located at the Warmoesstraat 139 in Amsterdam is gallery W139. W139 focusses on continuous production and presentation of contemporary art since 1979. Currently they’re hosting an exhibit called ‘We will never know for sure’. Tomorrow (!) 30th of March, Manon van Trier (who was one of the contenders of the New Jacks project at Incubate 2009) will have a performance there. ‘We will never know for sure’ is an exhibit from students of the Sandberg Institute in collaboration with curators Christina Li and Yael Messer.

We’ve already posted one track of the new Anaal Nathrakh (Incubate 2009) album a little while ago on the blog, yet there is another new song from the upcoming album Passion. Decibel won’t let us embed this piece of brutality so you’ll have to visit the Decibel site here to check out this new bit! The album will be released on May 17th.

Yes you got that right, one of the most scary persons in the world, being frontman from black metal band Gorgoroth for many many years as well as playing in folk act Wardruna (Incubate 2009) has turned his life upside down. Vice has posted an interview with last year’s “Gay Person of the year” in Bergen, Norway about fashion, relationships (with his 19 year old ex-boyfriend, see picture), women and wine. Read the whole interview here. And yes, what the fuck! indeed.

What’s the vision behind Wynjo, the fashion label you started with your ex-boyfriend, Dan DeVero?
Really, I’m not a designer. It was Dan’s idea, Dan’s vision. I’ve pitched in, given a friend a hand, but only financially. I function more as a channel for others. Dan and I haven’t spoken about this for some time. It’s not the planet I’ve been on lately. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a fashion show.

“What’s your relationship to women?
I am very fond of proud women. But I don’t like girls. They’re disgusting. It’s a form of submissiveness that I strongly dislike. I could never be physical with a female being. I dislike their curves, and I never understood breasts. I think it has something to do with their excessively lowered center of gravity. I like masculine lines much more.”

Your Demise played at Incubate 2009, while they were on tour with The Number Twelve Looks Like You and Misery Signals., They have just finished a tour with Stick To Your Guns, Let Live and Break Even and update their fans throughout their Youtube channel with footage from the road!

Frank Kimenai is present at the yearly SXSW festival, he will give us live blog updates from Austin! This is the third part in the series!

After 2 relatively easy days of gigging, Thursday was gonna be a busy one. Started out with lunch with the guys from the Philly Fest, a new festival in Philadelphia, that’s being organized by 2 independent promoters that are friends of my friend Shawn. Met them last year, and helped them out a bit a while back with contracts etc. They are cool dudes, and it was good to hear that the first edition of this film and music fest went well. Had an interesting talk about how to raise money for festivals. These guys are working with a lobbyist that searches for sponsors for them. He gets a 15% cut of the sponsor money after he hauls in $60.000,- The guys are also working together with this big stock broker from Philly, that invested $300.000,- in the fest together with a group of other investors. They bought “shares”  in the festival, and expect a return on investment of 19% in a year. Hope it will work out for them. It’s interesting to see the constructions that Americans have to raise money. I guess a litte entrepeneurism wouldn’t hurt Dutch festivals, but all in all, these constructions seem high risk…

After lunch, I went to Emo’s to hook up with my friends from Norwegian experimental doom metal band Altaar. Haven’t seen them in a while, so it was good meeting up and hanging out with Sten and they guys. We watched Kverletak, which was actually a pretty good show, with a lot of young kids dancing some sort of a cross breed between moshing and breakdancing. Funny to watch. Hung out with the guys for a while and found out that one of them is playing in a death metal band that I wanted to book for Incubate, called Obliteration, and the other one in a black metal band that I wanted to book, called One Tail, One Head. Small world, once again. After some beers, we decided to check out Beerland, where the Chaos in Tejas showcase was on. Great line-up with Altaar, Cult of Youth, Zola Jesus, Liturgy and a bunch of other cool bands playing. Too bad that nobody was really there during the Liturgy show. They ripped!

So, time to go see the The Hague showcase. After my blog post caused a lot of commotion last year, I was really curious to find out if this year went better. They chose a way better venue for it than last year. It was in Red Eyed Fly, a nice and smaller venue on Red River, not as posh and pretentious as the one of last year. I walked in during Pop Up Animal kids. It wasn’t that busy, about 70 people there I guess, mainly people from the Hague and the Netherlands, but also some US crowd. To be honest, I think the band was quite ok, but I still don’t think it makes any sense for a band of this size to play here. It just isn’t to a level that it makes a difference here yet. After that, The Deaf were on. They had a pretty decent crowd, I’d say about 150 people, and drew some friend from last year and the prior shows, some I guess you could say that they have some kind of a following here. Wich is good ofcourse. Music wise, I think the Deaf are an amazing bands, and if they try really hard, and hopefully connect with some local band, or a US lead in general, like a booking agent, or a manager, they might be able to do something in the States. There’s just so many bands over here that you really need to make a difference, otherwise it’s absolutely of no use to play here. Americans have enough mediocre bands of their own. My Norwegian friends liked it, by the way…. ;)  About the showcase. I still think it is well spent tax payers money. With all due respect for the bands, I think showcasing for a small city like The Hague, on a big festival like SXSW, is more like window dressing. I think the way to do it, is find a functional connection with a (couple of) strong partners, like labels, e-zines, local bands, or booking agency. Promote it together, involve each others network, and create synergy, because this way, it just doesn’t really make a difference, and the investment is not sustainable at all.

So, after the free The Hague beers, I went down to see Roky Erickson with Billy Gibbons. I saw Roky last december in Antwerp, which wasn’t all that good. He had the same band here with him, and they still weren’t all that good. Billy Gibbons only played 2 songs, and no solo’s or whatever. It weren’t the best 10 bucks ever spent, I guess I’m kinda done with seeing Roky playing live…too bad.

I went down to see John Maus, who I missed (but will see on an Incubated show in Tilburg), and saw a bit of Castanets, and briefly bumped into the guys from the Black Atlantic, who are doing extremely well here in the US. Geert, their main man, told me that they were doing a tune for a US TV series (that payed well!!) and that their video will be screened in about 10.000 Mac Donalds and Taco Bell restaurants here in the States for a week, because some marketing dude liked the music and the video. Good for them, altough I honestly must say that it wouldn’t be my choice to get screened at MacDonalds and Taco Bell, especially when you have strong punk roots, like the Black Atlantic guys….

Anyways, after that, I tried to get into a Pitchfork showcase, but it was way too busy. So I met up with my friend Stuart from the London noiseband Dethscalator, and we hung out at the Nanotear showcase in Barbarella. Nanotear is a management and booking agency from Portland, run by one of the nicest dudes you’ll ever meet in music industry, Nathan Carson. Him and the guys from YOB stayed at my place during the last Roadburn festival in Tilburg for a week, because they couldn’t fly out due to that Volcano. I got to know them pretty well, so it was really nice seeing all of them again. The showcase Nathan put up was really good. He got asked by the venue to do it, so he didn’t have to rent out the room or anything. A rarety here in austin. I saw Arabrot, Worm Ouroboros and the devestating doom metal from Yob, and it was all good! Especially Yob, they ripped the place apart. Hope they will make it to Europe in september, so we can book them on Incubate.

Last but not least, I saw Charles Bradley and the Menahan Street Band at Stubb’s. It was simply amazing. Mix the best of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and some James Brown, and you have Charles Bradley. Backed up by one of the best soul bands I’ve ever seen, this was simply the best show I’ve seen on the festival. Hope to see them, or any of the high quality Daptone records bands, real soon back home.

Dananananaykroyd, who played at Incubate in 2009, are set to release their new album ‘There Is A Way’ which will be released on June 13th. The album will contain the following tracklisting:

1. Reboot
2. All Us Authors
3. E Numbers
4. Think and Feel
5. Muscle Memory
6. Time Capsule
7. Good Time
8. Apostrophe
9. Seven Days Late
10. Glee Cells Trade
11. Make A Fist

You can check out the song ‘E Numbers’ underneath here

Taken from Drowned in Sound