Download.
Tracklist – see below for full track notes.
01. Rumskib: Love at first sight
02. Dorias Baracca: Silence
03. Limp: New Autumn
04. Syntaks: Shiftandshade Ahead
05. Scared Crow: I hate you too
06. Balloon Magic: Waking Up
07. Keith Canisius: Omorose
08. Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: In Odense
09. Manual: Saudade
10. Dead Sunday: Brotherhood
11. The Dove is Dead: Moth
12. Dorias Baracca: Shaky Dreams
13. Aerosol: Airborne
1. Rumskib: Love at first sight
-Rumskib was a duo consisting of Keith Canisius and Tine Louise. They only made one album before splitting up – the self-titled 2007 release on Darla Records in the US. The sound of Rumskib is a euphoric blend of 1980s pop, electronica and shoegaze that will appeal to anyone who has ever been in love with Curve, Lush or Cocteau Twins. However this is one of the abstract pieces from that album which deconstructs the dream pop sound into something that’s closer to Fennesz or Tim Hecker in sound.
2. Dorias Baracca: Silence
-Unfortunately Dorias Baracca also ceased to exist earlier this year when lead singer, and main creative force, Buster Svendsen passed away in June, at 19. In the band’s rather short existence they managed to create a unique style of shoegaze that encompass the swathing, romantic noise of early Slowdive and Ride as well as aspects of louder guitar-driven rock from the 1990s. Silence is from the Handsome Meltingpoint EP that came out on London label Club AC30 in January 2010. That EP stands as a great testament to Dorias Baracca’s potential as a band, and their ability to channel their creativity into such a seductive blend of dreamy melancholy and unbounded youthful energy. One can only wonder how a band can reach such an artistic maturity while still in their teens.
3. Limp: New Autumn
-Limp was a unit consisting of myself, Jakob Skøtt, Jess Kahr and Rasmus Rasmussen and formed the basis of the styles and sounds we would later explore through our various soloprojects: Manual, Syntaks and Aerosol. Our aim was to create a kind of post-rock that also borrowed sounds and ideas from 1980s rock (über-romantic, U2-sized peaks) and dream-pop (a healthy dose of chorus and reverb) as well as the detailed programming of electronica that seemed so interesting back then (this was around 2000-2002). We didn’t entirely succeed but we did come up with a few fine moments where chorused guitars, electronics and dreamy analog synths came together with Jakobs powerful drumming in a way that was quite beautiful and unique. Listening to it now the closest reference for the Limp sound is definitely something like 1980s 4AD instrumental outfit Dif Juz (whom we weren’t familiar with back then). We only released a mini-album, Orion, on Morr Music in 2002 that did very well. New Autumn, however, is an earlier track from a demo that eventually ended up on the soundtrack for the film Nordkraft.
4. Syntaks: Shiftandshade Ahead
-Originally Syntaks was a solo outlet for Jakob Skøtt who was previously playing drums in Limp. After a collaborative album with Manual, 2004’s Golden Sun on Darla Records, he released a brilliant dreamy, but also beat-heavy, album called Awakes on Scottish label Benbecula. For his next full-length, 2009’s Ylajali on Ghostly International, he added his girlfriend Anna Cecilia to his musical creations and since then Syntaks has been a duo. At the same time the sound of Syntaks became more airy and moved closer to the lush sounds of Ulrich Schnauss, Kate Bush and Cocteau Twins, relying more on chimey synths and wordless, heavily reverbed vocals than complex edits and electronics. This track is from the brand new album Nachtblende that came out on UK label Parallax Sounds in late September.
5. Scared Crow: I hate you too
-Scared Crow is the moniker used by Kasper Aagaard. He creates haunting, mysterious music that exists somewhere between deconstructed post-punk, lo-fi electronica and minimalism. Durutti Column, Joy Division and John Maus are all meaningful references for the sound of Scared Crow, but Kasper is really onto his own thing. He mainly uses guitars and loop pedals to create all the layers of his music – even the percussive parts. His debut album, Love in a Dream (from which this track is taken) will be released very soon on Danish label A Beard of Snails Records.
6. Balloon Magic: Waking Up
-Balloon Magic is another Odense band that has reached a musical maturity that belies the fact that they are still in high school. They are way too young to be making the intense, finely crafted alternative pop they are creating. Taking inspiration from bands such as House of Love, The Church, Orange Juice, Go-Betweens and other well-selected sources, they manage to cook up pop songs that has all the flow and drive of their idols – as well as adding a very honest sense of teenage angst and melancholy that occasionally verges on darkness. Their debut ep, Mornings, will be released on the fine San Francisco/Portland label Shelflife on November 15.
7. Keith Canisius: Omorose
-This track is from Keith’s first solo album after Rumskib disbanded called Ferris Wheel Makeout, released on Japanese label Quince in 2008. Keith really has his own way of putting compositions together. Unlike so many other producers operating in the field of electronic shoegaze, chill wave or whatever people wanna call it, Keith has a way of creating interesting compositions that take surprising turns and explore the possibilities of songwriting – not merely the possibilities of sound. His guitar playing is super influenced by Robin Guthrie but he has managed to use Guthries ideas in his own way, which this track is a good example of. His music also has a character that’s similar to Mew (a band that’s still awefully popular in Denmark – especially among teenage girls!) but Keith’s pieces has a sense of melody and composition that even Mew could learn a lot from. Since Ferris Wheel Makeout Keith has released two albums, latest This time it’s our high on Darla Records. He also recently started collecting his ambient explorations on a series of digital releases.
8. Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk: In Odense
Ok, this is mostly here because of the title and the Odense field recordings. It’s one of the shorter pieces from our collaborative album that was released earlier this year – the result of working together in Odense, Kiel and London for some years.
9. Manual: Saudade
This is a new Manual track from a forthcoming ep and a good example of what constitutes the ‘Manual sound’. I’ve always been circulating around a specific set of ideas for the Manual albums. Most people seem to think that this comes from lack of ideas, but to me it has always been about exploring in depth a field that I truly consider my own – even though this field might be quite narrow (I also do quite a lot of work very far away from this narrow field, for those who didn’t know). Creating Manual tracks takes long time and careful work, slowly putting chord progressions together that I consider interesting, getting the right tone for each layer of sound I add to the mix. I guess my continuing to work around some of the same musical ideas reflects my insistence that there’s beauty in this work and that there’s still important areas of this style that needs to be explored, even though this style is not awfully popular anymore.
10. Dead Sunday: Brotherhood
This is propably the newest band on this mix as Dead Sunday only started playing together a little more than a year ago. It’s also the youngest band present and there’s certainly something very refreshing about their swirling and noisy brand of shoegaze. Inspired by Chapterhouse, Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive and other classic British bands, they create romantic music about the wonder and naïvety of youth. Whereas a lot of the artists on this mix come from the same two or three circuits and work on collaborative projects together from time to time, these guys suddenly came out of nowhere. Hopefully they will release something soon.
11. The Dove is Dead: Moth
Jens Aagaard (the older brother of Kasper Aagaard a.k.a. Scared Crow) always has his hands in a number of different projects, both solo experiments and in different bands. The music he creates under the name The Dove is Dead blends together ideas from different genres such as lo-fi, post-rock, electronica and alternative pop. Sometimes he will do stuff in the tuneful end of the spectre and sound somewhat similar to Ariel Pink or Washed Out – other times he will sound closer to the repetitive and ghostly sounds of early Seefeel or Slowdive’s 5 EP. This track sort of has a bit of both. At the heart of his operations is a manic creativity that seeks new ways to work with things – with this track, for example, he recorded some layers in an old warehouse to capture the natural reverb of the place.
12. Dorias Baracca: Shaky Dreams
Before lead singer and main songwriter Buster Svendsen passed away in June, Dorias Baracca had just by a tiny margin finished their first full-length album. This is one of my favourite tracks from that album. Hopefully it will be released sometime.
13. Aerosol: Airborne
Aerosol is another soloproject that grew out of Limp. The man with the repetitive name Rasmus Rasmussen creates repetitive music with focus on detailed synthesizer work and hazy guitar atmospheres. The music of Aerosol is often slow-burning – usually starting out with a foundation of simple chord structures and gradually adding layers to create pulsating, melodic streams of sound that brings to mind both Scandinavian electronica in the style of Opiate or Dub Tractor and classic British indie and shoegaze sounds. The first Aerosol release was a 12” EP on French label Active Suspension followed by a mini-album on UK label Unlabel in 2006 called All that is Solid Melts into Air (which has recently been reissued) finally followed by a full-length on American label n5MD in 2009, Airborne – where this track is taken from.
