Festival report: SPOT Festival, Århus, day one (Thursday)
Yesterday the 16th SPOT festival opened for business and it remains the single most important showcase for Danish bands hoping to break out globally.
The two most internationally established acts on the bill are big hitters (in this context, anyway) Efterklang and The Kissaway Trail. The former's new album "Magic chairs" is seeing them garner more British buzz than ever (from the BBC, NME, Mojo, et al); while The Kissaway Trail are also on a roll and have just returned from tour dates in the States with new disc "Sleep Mountain" in tow, the band's first American release.
Last night's opening night concert was a unique collaboration between the bands Efterklang and Slaraffenland at the main concert hall (Musikhuset).
Naming themselves Slaraffenklang for the evening, the two acts merged as one and performed each others' songs as well as 'mash-ups' that combined two tracks simultaneously.
So Slaraffenland performed Efterklang's "Cutting ice to snow", and Efterklang responded with their take on Slaraffenland's track "Postcard". A highlight, from where I was standing at least, was a beautifully successful inter-mingling of "Mirror mirror" from Efterklang's "Magic chairs" with their comrades' track "Falling out".
Band uniforms of skeleton t-shirts (Slaraffenland) and coloured button-downs (Efterklang) were the only device that marked out which tribe was which.
Oh, and we were especially impressed when Efterklang's Casper Clausen accidentally spilled his drink across the stage of the concert hall, disappeared during an instrumental interlude, and reappeared with a towel he'd fetched to mop up the stage. The Danes! They really are civically-minded!
Other folks playing over the nest few days include Chimes and Bells and the truly spooky singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør (check out her album "The brothel" if you haven't yet experienced her). Both acts were among the most buzzed-about at the By:Larm festival in Oslo earlier this year. It'll be interesting to see whether the first full length album from Chimes and Bells, due in 2011, will get the act the wider attention they deserve.
I'm here along with some other British journalists and will continue to blog with a few updates and interviews before things wind down on Sunday.
- Sophy Grimshaw