NORDLAND ART FESTIVAL 2011

Nordland Art Festival is an idea of showcase music festival. By this festival we want to build a music round table of Nordic, Scandinavian and Baltic countries area. In next few years, festival will be involved in promotion activities regarding young bands and musicians which will represent Norway, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland . By the invitation of music professionals from record labels, music managements, music agents, music media, we will also aim in building a music platform which will be very helpful with contacting music professionals from nordic, scandinavian and baltic countries. Nordland Art Festival is also good occasion for cultural exchange , place where creative young people from Scandinavia And Baltics can show their works in music and film area.

NAF Is also the best place on the map of polish festivals, where you can find music promoters, music agents from music managements, delegates from music labels, film directors, all from scandinavian, nordic and baltic countries, who can share their impressions and experience. During festival we are planning concerts , music showcases, presentation of music promoters, and some film presentation.

NORDLAND ART FESTIVAL 2011

• ORGANIZER: Michał Zając

  

• DATES: 6,7,8 October 

  

• PLACE: 

 Country: POLAND, city: ŁÓDŹ 

• EXPECTED NUMBER OF GUESTS: 3-5 thousand

• PROMOTION: Materials sent to the press (3 thousands journalists from all over
  Poland), press conferences in Lodz and Warsaw, concerts and shows announcing the festival, media patronage, social media.  

Nordland Art Festival is based on two complementary pillars - the festival and music industry meetings.

1. THE FESTIVAL

This year the festival will be more developed and will include:

1. Concerts
 We will present concerts of Scandinavian music - electronic, rock, independent, and jazz. Concerts will take place mainly in the Wytwórnia Club and the Philharmonic of Łódź.

2. Screenings
We will screen Swedish, Norwegian and Danish films, these iconic and new ones as well. This event will take place in one of cinemas in Łódź.

3. Club music scene
This is the new part of Nordland Art Festival events. There will be a second music scene - in the clubs, where young Polish artists (including 40% of bands from Łódź) will perform also for music industry delegates from Scandinavian and Baltic countries. The idea is to promote interesting local music projects on the international scene.

4. Photography exhibition
It will be one of planned cultural events, which aims at promoting Scandinavian culture.

5. Other cultural events (as Scandinavian design exhibition)


2. MUSIC INDUSTRY MEETINGS

This part of Nordland Art Festival is all about meetings mainly among music industry delegates from Poland and other European countries. This year NAF invited above 20 delegates. Foreign delegates will conduct seminars about creative music business. Nordland Art Festival is about to become first serious forum of music industry meetings in Poland. The main aim is to promote Polish and Nordic music on the international scene. To fulfill this goal NAF has already built strong international web of connections, which will grow bigger.

This year's line up:

Sleep Party People (DK)

www.myspace.com/sleeppartypeople

Jaga Jazzist (NO)

www.myspace.com/jagajazzist 

Hakon Kornstad (NO)

www.myspace.com/kornstad

French Films (FI)

www.myspace.com/frenchfilmsofficial

 
Blisko Pola (PL)

www.myspace.com/bliskopola

 
Dash (PL)

www.myspace.com/dashchannel 

 
Jesse (FI)

www.myspace.com/haistakaa

 
Bottled in England (DK)

www.myspace.com/bottledinengland

BMX (NO)

www.myspace.com/bmxsykkel

The Raw Men Empire (IS)

www.myspace.com/therawmenempire

Back to the Ocean (PL)

www.reverbnation.com/backtotheocean

 

Kind Off (PL)

www.kindoff.pl

 FYIAR (EE)

www.fuckyuoiamarobot.com

COLLABORATION:
 (Click logo to visit website)


Tallinn Music Week

NattJazz Festival

Popkomm 

JazzNorway in a Nutshell

SPOT Festival 

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BLOODGROUP - ICELAND (Reykjavík)

This four-piece band is known for sensational live shows, their captivating melodies and powerfully crafted brand of electronic music. Having released one of the very best albums of 2009 in Iceland according to critics and others alike, Bloodgroup have risen from making simple electro pop in run-down houses in East-Iceland to something much bigger. [1]
Their music can be described as a mix of electro, pop and dance music, sometimes compared to The Knife and CSS. Their songs can be as nostalgic as Iceland, as energetic as the best rock and roll and as beautiful as the vocalist Sunna. All this is accompanied by a dance rhythm which will drag on the dancefloor even worst stiff. The word has been spread from Iceland to the rest of the world, that it is definitely worth to attend their concert, because very few bands give such great live shows. [2]
They proved it also in my country - Poland - and received lots of positive reviews after this year's show. Now Poland is eager for more of their music!
I think this short introduction should be followed by song, which has been hypnotizing me for a veeery long time - "My Arms", in which Janus Rasmussen took up the reins of lead singer and it was spot on!
Just find out for yourself...
 

"My Arms" 

 

 

 CONTENTS:

1. BAND NAME  (etymology)
2. FORMATION YEAR
3. GENRE 
4. HOMETOWN  
5. RECORD LABEL 
6. MEMBERS 
7. HISTORY
8. DISCOGRAPHY
9. OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEOS
10. LIVE PERFORMANCES

I was lucky enough to get this firsthand information about Bloodgroup name etyomology - from Raggi, who came up with the idea for bandname very spontaneously:

"the story behind the name is a bit lame. We were doing a live interview just before our very first show, and the reporter asked us what our band name was. I opened my mouth and blurted out 'Bloodgroup'. Weird hah?"

I think the story isn't lame at all, it confirms that first thought is best thought, maybe better than long and complicated thought process in a search for commercially catchy name with assigned deep, deep meaning...

2006
 

Alternative electro pop

 Reykjavík, Egilsstadir

Record Records

SUNNA 
Margrét
(vocals) 

JANUS 
Rasmussen
(vocals, electronic percussion, synths) 

RAGGI 

Ragnar Láki Jónsson
 (synths and samplers)

HALLUR

Kristján Jónsson
(synths and samplers) 

FORMER MEMBER:

Lilja Kristín Jónsdóttir

(vocals) 

 

Three of the members are siblings, Raggi, Lilja and Hallur. So making music together was an easy choice. 
Bloodgroup was formed in 2006 by Hallur, Lilja, Raggi and Janus during some chilly winter days on the east coast of Iceland. After a few months of writing noticeable and catchy electronic dance pop, the group played at Iceland Airwaves festival. They received praise for a great live show, along with their terrific melodies and beats that seemed to get even the harshest metal heads to do the dance. The group evolved and got even better each time the went on stage, and are now considered one of the best live acts in Icelandic music.
[1]
Bloodgroup released their debut album, Sticky Situation, in November 2007. The album was very well received, and Bloodgroup were considered as one of the most interesting bands in Iceland following its release. The next two years were spent mostly on touring, playing festivals like SXSW in Austin, Texas, NXNE in Toronto, Canada, Roskilde festival in Denmark, CMJ in New York, Eurosonic in the Netherlands and Iceland Airwaves.
Bloodgroup's second album, Dry Land, was released in Iceland on December 2nd 2009. It has been one of the most successful albums in Iceland since its release, praised by critics and the first single, My Arms, has done extremely well on Icelandic radio. Dry Land received the Icelandic independent "Kraumur" Album awards and has been called "the best album of the year" by most critics in Iceland, and has been described as a big step forward for the band.
[2] 

Albums:


'Sticky situations' (5.11.2007)

1 Moving like a tiger
2 Ain't easy
3 Hips Again
4 What I mean
5 Red Egypt
6 Try on
7 The carpenter
8 Chuck
9 Human qualtities
10 Masterplan11 Rain








'Dry land' (2.12.2009)

1 My Arms
2 This Heart
3 Wars
4 How Do We Know
5 First To Go
6 Buried In Sand
7 Overload
8 Pro choice
9 Moonstone
10 Battered
11 Dry Land

Dry Land - Album sampler

"Overload"

"Hips Again"

(Bloodgoups first music video of their debut record Sticky Situation. Directed by Finnbogi Erlendsson)

"My Arms"  
(KEXP)

"Moving Like A Tiger"

(live on TV)

"How Do We Know" 

(Græni Hatturinn)

"This Heart" 

(AKC Medika)

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LEAP OVER LIGHT - DENMARK (Copenhagen)

I would like to resume this blog by introducing a very special Danish band called Leap Over Light. I couldn't imagine better motivation to restart blogging than receiving such a precious e-mail... Huge MANGE TAK to Julie, who helped me a lot in creating this post. It is definitely attention-worthy band, so I collected all the informations with great pleasure and excitement. Their music made me feel like I just melted into it and became a part of exultation. I'm only one of many people who is entranced with it, five star review in the Danish music magazine Gaffa and received title 'demo of the month' seems to confirm it. 
'Leap Over Light has worked hard on strengthening their material and taking their expression even further. The four songs that make out Wild Oak, are mastered by Greg Calbi in the Sterling Sound Studios in New York.
An airy female voice lingers above a foundation of crackling noise and metallic decay. A minimalistic guitar joins in with harmonies of dreams and longing. A coy clarinet interrupts the soundscape from time to time, while a sinister cello adds a mournful darkness. Thus, the music is never tempered or in between, but always attempting to conjoin the opposites – whether it being the forceful with the fragile, the earth bound with the ethereal or the ironical with the serious.'
Let yourself fall into those beautiful sounds...

  

 CONTENTS:

1. BAND NAME  (etymology)
2. FORMATION YEAR  
3. GENRE 
4. HOMETOWN  
5. RECORD LABEL 
6. MEMBERS 
7. HISTORY
8. DISCOGRAPHY
9. MEDIA REFERENCE  
10. LIVE PERFORMANCES

(Etymology)

Due to Julie's courtesy I can share with you interesting story behind their bandname
LEAP OVER LIGHT:

"[...]We wanted it to signal our creative process, which tends to be very playfull and maybe even childish (we toyed around with names of childrens games like leap frog, jumping hoops or hopscotch) But in our process we also often try to incorperate very dark and very light elements. These often clash and in the process of forcing the two together it sometimes seems impossible. Just as impossible as leaping over the light or below the darkness"  

2010

Alternative Pop

Copenhagen

FiniSh your PlaTe Records

Julie Aagaard

(vocals, keys)

Lennart Rasmussen

(guitars, loops)

"Lennart and I have excisted as a songwriting team for the last 6 years. But we have mostly been writing for other small acts and TV productions. So we have surfed around a lot in different genres and produced everything from mainstream pop to Bossa Nova. But last year we decided to write for our selves - and to write the music that we love, which I guess is a mix of folk, electronic and pop. We are touring right now, but we have also started to write a full album, which should be finished in the spring of next year, if all goes well :-)"

EP:

Wild Oak (June 2011)

1. Thousand Lies
2. We Hang A Lot
3. Howl At The Sun
4. Wild Oak

 ”Wash me down / I am dirty / I smell like a thousand lies”, is Julie Aagaards plea on the up tempo and energetic first track Thousand Lies. The next three tracks are less agressive. These contain stories of faith in the unfulfilled love (We Hang A Lot), of youthful decadence and self-indulgence (Howl at the Sun) and of the deterioration and dissolve of old age on the title track, Wild Oak.

"Thousand Lies"

"We Hang A Lot" 

"Howl At The Sun" 

About "WILD OAK" :

Underlyd

81%
”A fantastic overall sound, that makes sence”

Lydtapet

5/6
”Music that has several stardusty soundscapes, that give the music an authenticity and a liberating feel, which again shows originality in recognizable sound universes."

Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen

“seducingly beautiful ”

Musikmigblidt

” Dreamy grandeur and detail oriented playfulness”

Krydsfelt

”within a Danish context it has a depth, which has not been heard before”

 "Howl at the Sun" 

(Alternative Live version @ Radio XFM)

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