Barra Head will have famed artist/producer J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, etc.) mix a few tracks on their forthcoming album: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=47559080&blogID=307331564

The playlist for my radio show this week:

01. Paper - My life is going under
02. TALK 1
03. Mr. Suitcase - You don't smile anymore
04. Camouflage - Violetta du
05. Majessic Dreams - Black out
06. TALK 2
07. Amorphis - Towards and against
08. Beyond Dawn - Among the sedatives
09. Don't Be A Stranger - Perfect problem
10. TALK 3
11. Totalitär - Nej vi ska inte ha nåt
12. Miss Li - I'm glad I'm not a proud American
13. Tiger Lou - A lucky escape
14. Oskar Schönning - Fraid
15. TALK 4
16. Karsten Pflum - Draworder
17. Anna Ternheim - Lovers dream
18. Front and the Factory Lies Beneath - Drown in misery
19. TALK 5
20. Midaircondo - Could you please stop
21. Pg.lost - Yes I am
22. The Perishers - Carefree
23. TALK 6
24. Pistol Disco - Upside down
25. Nasum - The system has failed again
26. Sweatmaster - Mystery
27. The Second Band - The modern age
28. Träd, Gräs och Stenar - In kommer gösta
29. TALK 7
30. Ultralyd - Low waist
31. Ambulance - Forever friends
32. The Social Services - Up in arms
33. TALK 8
34. Barra Head - Overseas
35. Sivert Høyem - Exiles
36. Viola - Imaginary times
37. TALK 9
38. Kornstad - Turkey, Texas

MP3: Imagine I Had Hands - Captive

What better way to celebrate Midsummer than with a brand new netrelease? Regular readers should know by now that I'm a huge fan of noiserock - give me jagged rhythms and so-called "angular" guitars and I'm stoked. Denmark's Imagine I Had Hands, a band I did a mp3 feature on not too long ago, is exactly that and I've been into 'em from the very first moment I heard them. Like many other Danish acts mining similar territory such as Barra Head and Lack, the sound is more harDCore than midwestern nihilism. Think Dischord, not so much Touch & Go/AmRep. When I saw the band was giving their new 4-track EP away on myspace, I jumped at the chance to throw my weight behind 'em too. Good music deserves to be heard. So what are you waiting for? Check out the lead track "Captive" and, if you dig it like you should, go and get the other three.

Imagine I Had Hands - Captive

Danish noiserockers Barra Head are blogging the recording of their new album: http://www.barrahead.blogspot.com/

Danish act Barra Head will be heading to Hamburg in June to record a new album with producer Tim O'Heir(Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, Radio 4, Morphine). No idea when it will be out, but I'd expect a late 2007 release via Play/Rec.

MP3: Imagine I Had Hands - Dead sailor

Saving the best for last, our third and final featured demo act this week is Imagine I Had Hands. Instead of me telling you about them, I've decided to let mainman Adam McCormack speak for himself.

How did Imagine I Had Hands come to be and how has it evolved?
The whole thing started when I found myself without a band after leaving Dublin and my old band Sylvan to move to Denmark. I just began to record some idea tracks on my girlfriend's laptop. When I eventually discovered MySpace and created an account for the project the songs got a good response, so I decided to try forming a band. I really missed playing live and I thought the songs would work well in this context. I met Jens Højland, our bass player, at college and I knew our drummer Casper Ubbesen from when I lived in his hometown. The line up was complete by late November of last year.
Since then we have been going over some old home recordings and trying to figure out what will work and what won't. A lot of the songs turned out quite different when we played them as a band. We have just begun to write songs together at rehearsals. We plan to record a couple of these new songs with Jakob Hvitnov (Barra Head) this week actually. We are quite excited about them. I think they are a little more aggressive and urgent sounding.

How did you hook up with Jakob?
Recording with Jakob came about through our contact with Play/Rec. The guys at Play/Rec have been really supportive in helping us get this band going which is really flattering as there are so many amazing bands on that label. Its nice that they consider us worthy of their support. Anyway, they recommended Jakob to us and we had heard his work on the Play/Rec "Five years" compilation so we were delighted that, when we asked him, he was up for it.
We're still in the process of recording, but so far so great! Jakob is a very skilled engineer and in producing our music he has really had a lot of influence on how the songs have come together. Perhaps just as importantly he is a really cool and easy going guy. The atmosphere is very relaxed which makes things a lot easier and of course makes for better results. We are delighted with how things are sounding and we are excited about working with Jakob more in the future.

So what's next for the band then?
Next, we gotta play live. We are not quite veterans of the road yet with only two gigs under our belts so we are in desperate need of live experience. Our next gig is on May 9th in support of The Paper Chase. We hope to play throughout Denmark this year. We are also looking into playing some shows in my home country of Ireland during the summer and perhaps Germany later in the year. We will probably start thinking about a debut album towards October/November. By then we will have been together for almost a year so the timing would be nice.

Imagine I Had Hands - Dead sailor

Last night's playlist for my show on Sirius Blog Radio:

01. Isolation Years - Yellow cross on blue
02. TALK 1
03. Johndoe - Nattskift
04. Montys Loco - Wasteland
05. Once We Were - Cut corners
06. TALK 2
07. [ingenting] - Mycket vasen for ingenting
08. Margaret Berger - Robot song
09. Namur - Marching
10. Lampshade - New legs
11. TALK 3
12. Maia Hirasawa - Gothenburg
13. Mixtapes & Cellmates - Quiet
14. Fattaru - 100:-
15. Juvelen - Hanna
16. TALK 4
17. Säkert! - Allt som är ditt
18. Sonores - 16th of June
19. Detektivbyrån - E18
20. TALK 5
21. At the Gates - The swarm
22. Barra Head - Kill the lights
23. TALK 6
24. The Tough Alliance - Leg 7
25. Torpedo - My evil twin
26. Alog - Catch that totem!
27. TALK 7
28. Valley Days - 10k angels
29. A-ha - Celice
30. Victims - Who the fuck are we?
31. TALK 8
32. The Vicious - Alienated
33. Viola - Unreal life
34. Zweizz - Nowadays the only boring everything is so frustrating
35. Viktor Sjöberg - Winter guitars
36. TALK 9
37. Closer - The talker
38. Aerial - My god, it's full of stars!
39. The Kissaway Trail - La la song
40. Laakso - Italy vs Helsinki
41. The Psyke Project - Panic
42. TALK 10
43. C.Aarmé - We are the world

Next week: expect lots more killer jams including totally a brand new track from Closer and maybe even a spotlight set on post-rock/ambient music. Good times!

Barra Head was originally scheduled to record their new album with J Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, etc.) this month, but plans have been cancelled due to J's son Callum's ongoing medical issues. Which I hope you should all know about already, assuming you don't live under a rock. Read more: http://blog.myspace.com/barrahead

Check out the video for the new Barra Head single "Undermine": http://www.playrec.dk/default.aspx?section=audio
Easily one of Denmark's best bands.

Danish melodic hardcore act Barra Head on tour with Delbo:

11/18 - AZ Conni, Dresden (GER)
11/19 - Café Wagner, Jena (GER)
11/20 - UT Connewitz, Leipzig (GER)
11/21 - Sunny Red, München (GER)
11/22 - Falkendom, Bielefeld (GER)
11/23 - Cuba Nova, Münster (GER)
11/24 - Brasserie 911, Belvaux (LUX)
11/25 - Foolhouse, Lohr (GER)
11/27 - Anorak21, Kassel (GER)

Danish label Play/Rec has announced the tracklist for their five-year anniversary comp, entitled cleverly enough "Five years". The disc features everyone from their roster covering one of their mates and the results is as follows:

01. Barra Head - If It Ain't Broke (The Unit)
02. The Unit - Simonix/Deserters (Lack)
03. Lack - Kill The Lights (Barra Head)
04. Menfolk - Chilblain Heart (Monoton)
05. Monoton - The Storyteller's Been Up All Night (The Violet Hour)
06. The Violet Hour - Are We Enemies? (Menfolk)
07. Mount Eerie - Not Too Fancy (Janosch)
08. Janosch - Wooly Mammoth’s Mighty Absence (Mount Eerie)
09. The Kind Of Bitter - The Beat Up Blues (The Magic Bullet Theory)
10. The Magic Bullet Theory - Dead Fight (The Kind Of Bitter)

Seeing as how Play/Rec is one of my favorite labels, I can't wait to hear it! There will be a record release showcase at Roskilde tomorrow (see link for details, PS free beer!) and the official release date for stores is July 3.

This week's Friday flashback mp3 post comes from Barra Head, a band who I had never really heard much of before this week until I got their 2004 album "We are your numbers" in-stock on both CD and LP. A risky proposition perhaps, but when a label has other amazing bands like Lack and Menfolk, you learn to trust their ears. Barra Head takes obvious cues from Fugazi and other DC hardcore acts (or HarDCore, as it were), but ups the ante with huge syncopated riffs. Whereas Fugazi's rhythm section often dabbles in dub and reggae-inspired beats, Barra Head's bassist often takes a stronger melodic lead when he's not slamming down chords and locked in precise time with the drums. I've said it before, but I don't think it's often enough: this is some of my favorite kind of music. The fact that there aren't more bands doing this sort of stuff is baffling.

MP3: Barra Head - Overseas

This week's Friday flashback mp3 post comes from Barra Head, a band who I had never really heard much of before this week until I got their 2004 album "We are your numbers" in-stock on both CD and LP. A risky proposition perhaps, but when a label has other amazing bands like Lack and Menfolk, you learn to trust their ears. Barra Head takes obvious cues from Fugazi and other DC hardcore acts (or HarDCore, as it were), but ups the ante with huge syncopated riffs. Whereas Fugazi's rhythm section often dabbles in dub and reggae-inspired beats, Barra Head's bassist often takes a stronger melodic lead when he's not slamming down chords and locked in precise time with the drums. I've said it before, but I don't think it's often enough: this is some of my favorite kind of music. The fact that there aren't more bands doing this sort of stuff is baffling.

Barra Head - Overseas

Danish acts Lack and Barra Head are teaming for a tour together where they will not just play separate sets, but play together as one powerful unit. Read more at their label's website: http://www.playrec.dk/

Updated tourdates for Denmark's Lack:

10/06 - Golden Gate, Berlin (GER) w/The Nothings (Free!)
10/07 - AZ Conni, Dresden (GER) w/Monochrome
10/08 - Les Instants Chavirés, Paris (FRA) w/Tias Carlson
10/09 - Caravan Serail, Toulouse (FRA) w/Greg MacPherson, Zann
10/11 - Montpellier (FRA)
10/12 - Zoo Bar, Rome (ITA)
10/13 - Mono Spazio Bar, Pescara (ITA)
10/14 - Bunker, Bolzano (ITA) w/Bridge To Solace
10/15 - Blois (FRA)
10/16 - Le Brooklyn Cafe, Rouen (FRA) w/Amanda Woodward
10/17 - Le Mondo Bizarro, Rennes (FRA) w/Amanda Woodward
10/18 - Le Cluricaume Café, Poitiers (FRA) w/Chris Leo
10/19 - Le Vauban, Brest (FRA) w/22 Pistepirkko
10/20 - Le Wheely Bar, Clermont Ferrand (FRA)
10/21 - Kts, Freiburg (GER) w/Inside Me, September Malevolence
10/22 - Steffi, Karlsruhe (GER) w/September Malevolence
10/25 - UKA-05 festival, Trondheim (NOR)
11/10-19 - Lack/Barra Head Dobbeldate-tour