And so it begins. Every year, we listen to mp3’s of every band scheduled to appear at SXSW. We then present you with an A to Z preview of the bands that we think should earn your attention. Whether you’re coming down to SXSW (recommended!) or just looking for new music, there’s no better time of year. There’s a variety of music here, so buckle up for some different sounds. We’ll be previewing two letters per day, which’ll take us right up to SXSW Music Week. Then we’ll give you our picks for the “Ten bands you must see at SXSW!”. In the meantime, let’s dig right in with a healthy helping of delicious music.
Shimmering guitars, white noise attacks, furious MBV-esque drumming, epic Mellotrons, trembling bass notes… Oh! Sorry, we were just dreaming about the characteristics of our favorite bands. Well hello, Bolywool! Coming from Sweden (If this was a drinking game and you had to take a drink for every Swedish band we’ve loved, you’d be in rehab by now), they bring our collectives dreams to life. Since 1998, cousins Calle Thoor (vocals, guitars, echoes, drums, etc) and Oskar Erlandsson (bass, keyboards, backing vocals, noises, samples, etc) have been making music to swoon by. Super-cool writer Ravin got them to discuss the beauty of Swedish music and the genius of their music.
TDOA: Recently there’s been an explosion of Swedish psychedelic rock bands that are truly mind-blowing, such as Dungen and Mono Stereo, and now, Bolywool. Is there a particular reason why psychedelia is alive and well in Sweden? Is it a popular movement or simply a fringe element of Swedish music culture?
Calle: I guess that progressive or psychedelic music, and, perhaps, guitar based music in general is getting more and more accepted again after a decade dominated by electro and whatnot, but at the moment it is probably best to refer it as a fringe element, and the same goes for, say, shoegaze or post-rock. These scenes are very much alive and sound but they are sort of on the cusp of the pop radar. Frankly, it hasn’t exactly been hip to play in a band with a classic setting for quite some time, but there something in the air telling me that there’s a revival going on. I reckon that Gothenburg has always been at the frontier when it comes to psychedelic music in general historically, so having our HQ there might have affected us on some level.
Oskar: Indeed.
TDOA: You hail from Gothenburg, Sweden. How would you describe the difference between Gothenburg and Stockholm, both in terms of their cultural identity and their respective music scenes? Which do you prefer?
Oskar: I haven’t got a clue about what’s going on in Stockholm, so I can’t really compare the two…
Calle: We actually hail from Svarteberga on Öland on the east coast, but are based in Gothenburg since the majority of members live there nowadays. It’s practical since Jonas [Odhner, keyboards and guitars] has got his studio there, which we also use for rehearsals, recreation and leisure. But Svarteberga will always be our spiritual home. It might sound a bit arrogant, but I don’t really know if there is a scene per se in Stockholm to be honest. I do know that there are some great bands around, but there is certainly no sense of belonging or comradery as far as I’m concerned. Gothenburg is in bloom with acts like The Greencoats, Ikons, Afraid of Stairs, September Malevolence, Hunt, Sonores, and so forth. I’d rather be associated with that “scene” and thus Gothenburg for obvious reasons. Don’t get me wrong, Stockholm is a lovely place.
TDOA: How and when did Bolywool began? How has the band evolved in the years since its inception?
Oskar: It’s quite hard to actually to say when the band began since we (me and Calle) started playing together as soon as we started playing instruments around 1998. But, we usually say that the Bolywool saga began when we started recording songs on a four-track tape recorded in my room in 2001. That session resulted in our first official record, Modulation Underground EP, which we released on our own label a year later.
Calle: Me and Oskar started out with just bass and drums. So, when I picked up the guitar and started to write stuff that sort of resembled proper songs, things have evolved ever since. We’ve grown in terms of man power, so we’re like a proper band nowadays, which obviously has its ups and downs. And obvious advantage is that we can play live now. We waited for eight odd years to take the stage, and when we finally did it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Our songs are meant to be played live… with warts and all. Musically, we are in a constant flux – simple versus pretentious, clean versus distorted…
TDOA: “Through a Century” is an extraordinary album. How did it come about? Were the songs written in advance or were they written during the recording sessions?
Calle: All songs were more or less written in advance, although some things were improvised whilst recording. Sleep Today Away and So Low Down date back to 2004, whereas Traa-Dy-Liooar was written just a couple of days before we went into the studio.
Oskar: The album was recorded during two different sessions 6 months a part. We had rehearsed more prior to the first session and probably had a clearer view on how we wanted things to be as opposed to the second session when we mainly winged it. But in the end, the songs fit together nicely in perfect harmony.
TDOA: “Through a Century” has a real sense of space and atmosphere, yet it feels completely intimate and organic, with a wide dynamic range. From a production standpoint, was this something you were aiming for specifically, or was it a happy accident achieved through trial and error?
Oskar: We were certainly aiming for a specific sound. One thing that made things much easier from a production standpoint was that the collaboration with Jonas the producer. He’s really into recording with analogue gear, using tape echoes and “real” instruments rather than plugs and software synthesizers.
Calle: … recording on tape certainly affected the whole project on many different levels. You really try to bring your A-game because you can’t re-record as easily compared to digital recording. It’s back to the basics, pure craftsmanship if you will. There’s also the vintage and retro aspect which I find quite attractive, ’cause I love old tape echoes. I think we all do.
Oskar: Even though the collaboration and the technical aspects behind the record was great, we had a clear vision of how we wanted the record to sound. We recorded several demos and did pre-production, and it really paid off.
TDOA: The album also balances elegantly between sounding “retro” and sounding timeless, both in terms of the overall sound and textures, as well as the songwriting. Again, was this your intent? It seems like a lot of bands these days do one or the other, but fail to combine the two gracefully.
Calle: Personally, I don’t really aspire to write timeless songs, but it’s really flattering that you think that they are.
Oskar: The sound on Through a Century isn’t really that different from our earlier works. It’s lots of echo, delay, reverb and noises. Since the means of productions were better this time around, things might have panned out better than before.
Calle: I mean, of course we’re influenced by retro bands and a certain sounds and soundscapes, no doubt about it. But I think during the songwriting process, these influences are more subconscious than conscious. We are, not literally, guided by voices.
TDOA: The song craft on “Through a Century” is masterful. It seems like all the instruments have a distinct place in the mix, yet work seamlessly together to form a greater cohesive whole. Did this come instinctively from layering tracks and experimenting with mixes, or was the whole design thought through in advance.
Calle: The mixing process was very different this time around. Oskar and Jonas mixed the whole thing and sent us the mixes and we all had our say. A rather frustrating method from my point of view, but it all worked out in the end.
Oskar: The basic idea from start was to get a good, decent sound from the start so that mixing would mainly be about setting levels and doing some panning. Time consuming, but, again, it paid off in the end. We recorded all basic tracks live, so perhaps that contributed to the organic feel to it.
TDOA: Are there any lyrical themes to the record? From what I could gather, love and despair seem to be a common thread.
Calle: Love and despair are themes that pop up pretty frequently. Space and time are also themes that I seem to return to rather often, and a yet another is a mixture of the above. I’ve always struggled to be content living in the present, enjoying being here and now. I used to have this odd urge or need to have something to look forward to be, or the other way around – being ridiculously nostalgic, longing for things in the past. So, a lot of songs allude to yearning and restlessness too. Currently, I’m really into islands and penisulas. That’s basically how Dreams of the Hebrides got its title. And all instrumental tracks on the next album are named after isles and islands. It is, however, NOT a rock opera nor a concept album about islands. Maybe it should be though…
TDOA: Based on the extended album liner notes, everyone in Bolywool appears to be a multi-instrumentalist. Does this help or hurt the writing process? I can imagine songs moving quickly when everyone’s on the same page and getting bogged down when there are differing opinions…
Calle: I think it helps because it brings versatility and endless possibilities of arranging and whatnot . When there are differing opinions things can get pretty ugly. We’re not afraid of arguing, that’s for sure.
Oskar: In a way, things were much easier before when it was just me and Calle sharing the entire workload. Five egos to nourish is three more than two… Still,more people equals more perspective which is a good thing.
TDOA: What are your plans for 2010? You recently posted some video from rehearsal sessions for your next record. How are they coming along? Any tour plans for 2010? Is the US on your radar?
Calle: We are going to start recording album number two in early March. We’ve written 26 new songs, so it ought to be a blast. Don’t know how many songs that will make the final cut, but I’m really excited about the prospects. We’ve been listening to a lot of post-rock recently and I think people will notice that for sure. Apart from that, we are just trying to get gigs. Seemingly, it’s harder to get gigs than it is to release a record on your own. So if there’s anyone in the US who want us to gig, let us know…
Oskar: Mmm, exactly. We got so many new songs we actually had to stop writing new songs, ’cause they just kept on coming. So we are really looking forward to start recording. What else? We might do some shows on Iceland. We’re looking into the matter at the moment. We’re also designing some new merchandise. We’ve got lots of aces up our sleeves at the moment.
If you were to make a list of the twenty bands that influenced our musical taste, Bedhead would certainly be an integral part of that list. At a time when the feedback of My Bloody Valentine was segueing into the grunge of Nirvana, Bedhead taught us that nothing is more important that a perfectly crafted melody. Rather than hiding behind effects pedals and a wall of noise, Matt and Bubba Kadane wrote songs with so many layers of intertwining melodies, that they challenged the premise that “mellow” music was “simple”. In fact, the emotional intensity of their music was far more satsifying than anything else of that era. Transitioning from Bedhead to The New Year, the brothers Kadane continued to create music that was still as fragile, yet complex. While listening to a Bedhead/The New Year song, you can focus on a single instrument and hear more melody and beauty than in the most orchestrated music of our time. To listen to all of these parts in combination, creates a beautiful sense of vertigo.
Obviously, we were more than a little excited to get an opportunity to talk to the Kadane brothers about the history of Bedhead and The New Year, while discussing what the future will bring.
First, a song by Bedhead and then a video from The New Year, to whet your appetite.
Bedhead- Bedside Table
TDOA: Bedhead was signed to Trance Syndicate, which was run by King Coffey from The Butthole Surfers. How did you meet and did you have any trepidation in signing, given that your music was so different than his music?
Bubba: King came to a show of ours in Austin around the time that our shows started to catch on there. He offered a deal right away. We liked him and liked the fact that they went through Touch and Go for production and distribution. It was a long time ago, so I can’t remember everything, but I’m sure we thought about the pros and cons of being on a label where you are pretty different from what people associate with it. It’s nice to stick out from the pack.
TDOA: Trance ended up with a lot of great bands and it appeared that you were given a great deal of artistic freedom. In retrospect are you glad that you were on Trance or do you wish that you had signed to a major or larger indie label like Matador?
Bubba: We kind of signed to Trance right away before there were any other offers, so that is a hard question to answer. I have always been glad that we never signed to a major.
Yes, we did all of the recordings with complete freedom (w/Touch and Go too) and no one at the label ever even heard the albums until they were done.
TDOA: I always enthralled with your cover of Disorder, because I thought your songwriting style shared the density and complexity of Joy Division and early New Order. At the time did you recognize the similarities or was it just a song that you liked?
Matt: We had always liked the song and felt like we could try to make it our own, to some degree. In fact Bubba and I had started to record a cover of it as far back as 1986. I had put everything but the guitar on tape and was waiting for Bubba to do that on a weekend he was supposed to come home from college. He ended up getting in a bad car crash on the way home and had his arm in a cast for months. The version of the song we put out in the mid-90s was altogether different, but I guess you could say we worked on the song for something like a decade.
Bedhead- Disorder
TDOA: I’ve read that you bristled at the term “slo-core”. Why? Did you think it implied a lack of passion or complexity that betrayed what Bedhead really was?
Bubba: …or lack of variety
TDOA: Can you talk about the experience of recording with Steve Albini and perhaps share what you think was good and what was bad about the experience?
Matt: Working with Steve has always been unqualified fun. He’s incredibly perceptive and almost always knows what we’re going for, so whenever we ask for his advice, which he typically doesn’t freely offer, he has shrewd and useful things to say. And when we don’t agree I still find the arguments stimulating.
TDOA: I envision the songwriting process for Bedhead and The New Year as being fascinating to watch. First, how has your approach to songwriting changed over the years?
Matt: Very little. We still send demos back and forth, but now we use email and computers instead of regular mail and tape.
TDOA: Some bands have a solitary member who comes into rehearsals with fully written songs. I can’t imagine that being the case with either of your bands. Did songs generally start with a single guitar part and then build from there?
Matt: Every song is different, and some can be close to fully formed before Bubba and I start the process of fine tuning by correspondence. But the two of us always present fully formed demos to the rest of the band. There’s also not a single way that songs start out. Some do begin with single guitar lines. Others with piano. Others with drums or guitar chords or pieces of the lyrics.
TDOA: You’ve done some great videos for The End’s Not Near and Seven Days and Seven Nights. Can you talk about those videos and your feelings about music videos as an artform?
Matt: Our friend Keven McAlester decided on his own to work up the initial version of the video for “The End’s Not Near” using some footage shot by a cinematographer, Lee Daniel, who along with Keven also made the video for “Disease.” ”Seven Days” came from some footage I had shot while stuck, on various occasions, in airports and that Bubba and I later edited. Until recently I had been indifferent to videos, but I like them more now. In part that’s because MTV is no longer hegemonic, and one of the many consequences of that is that the video is no longer really the main medium for a song. For reasons I haven’t really examined enough to be able to explain I also like trying to find affinities between visual images and certain songs. I think Keven did that with The End’s Not Near.
TDOA: Are you still writing music and will there be a new The New Year record soon? Any chance of there ever being a Bedhead reunion show?
Bubba: We are working on music and hope to play some new songs soon. We may play some shows in June where we could do that.
To purchase the music of Bedhead, visit iTunes:
To purchase the music of The New Year, click here:
More deliciousness from the TDOA offices. These are the best songs that crossed our path in the past week. Bon Appetit!
Who are they: Standard Fare
Where are they from: Sheffield, UK
Who do they sound like: Ida Maria before the Perez Hilton tour….
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/standardfare
The Song: Fifteen
Who are they: Plants & Animals
Where are they from: Montreal
Who do they sound like: If Vampire Weekend cared more about hurting you with their guitars than with their sense of fashion.
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/plantsandanimals
The Song: Tom Cruz
Who are they: Good Shoes
Where are they from: London
Who do they sound like: If The Pixies grew up in England…. and still loved us.
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/goodshoes
The Song: The Way My Heart Beats
Who are they: The Sunshine Underground
Where are they from: Leeds
Who do they sound like: Ya know that ‘alternative-disco’ crap that Stereogum keeps trying to get you to like. Imagine that, if it was actually good….
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/thesunshineunderground
The Song: We’ve Always Been Your Friends
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Harkening back to two of our favorite bands, Sub Pop’s Love Battery and Creation’s Swervedriver, Australia’s Grand Atlantic make pure unabashed rock. Hooks, fuzz and the ability to shift between rawk and subtlety in a way that seems unnaturally natural (ED NOTE: whaaa?!). These are the characteristics you’d expect from a band that’s on the road to become massive. With U.S. radio stations picking up their new single and an appearance at SXSW next month, we suggest you buckle up now and jump on this train before it becomes bandwagonesque.
TDOA: First thing’s first, let’s meet the band. Please state your name and instrument, followed by your respective superpower.
Sometimes the hunt for new bands is difficult, taking us to unusual places. Other times, bands jump in our faces and slap us with their brilliance. While watching the Super Bowl last week, we loved the snippet of music we heard during a Kia commercial. A quick hunt revealed a band who’d played on Letterman a week earlier, where they blew away everyone. The Heavy is a soul-influenced indie rock band which formed in the village of Noid, England in 2007. The band consists of Kelvin Swaby (vocals), Dan Taylor (guitar), Spencer Page (bass) and Chris Ellul (drums). From our television set to your computer, we introduce you to the next big thing.
TDOA: When you were approached with the opportunity to have you music used in the Kia ad, did you see it as an opportunity to make a bit of money or did you think that people would go on the wild goose chase to find out who made that great song on the commercial?
More deliciousness from the TDOA offices. These are the best songs that crossed our path in the past week. Bon Appetit!
Who are they: Boat
Where are they from: Seattle
Who do they sound like: guitars, a bass, two drumsets, a Wurlitzer, several keyboards, some soft tacos, a piece of pizza, and several Diet Cokes.
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/boatmusic
The Song: We Want It, We Want It
Who are they: Scout Niblett
Where are they from: Portland
Who do they sound like: If Kim Deal released a solo album on Drag City
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/scoutniblett
The Song: The Calcination of Scout Niblett
Who are they: Women’s Basketball
Where are they from: New Haven, CT
Who do they sound like: Guitars, bass, a $7 keyboard run through a transistor amp, a drum machine from the late ’80s and a dude complaining about things, all run into a four-track.
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/womensbasketballband
The Song: Calling People I Used To Date
Who are they: Swimteam
Where are they from: Pasadena, CA
Who do they sound like: Morrissey sounding more twee than usual…. which is a good thing.
Where can I find out more about them: http://www.myspace.com/jointheswimteam
The Song: See What I Made
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Here’s some insight into the wonderful world that we live. While perusing the internet, we came across some great music by a band called Boatlina. While we would have been content to find that this band was a solitary entity, we discovered that it was a collaboration between two bands. Last year, we interviewed the wonderful Boat Beam, who selflessly told us that we need to know more about their partners on the Boatlina project. They told us to expect Havalina to have a huge following in Spain and an amazing sound to their music. Little did we realize the epic sound that Havalina was crafting. America, we’re behind the curve on this one. Our newest writer Ravin did his homework, so that you could learn to share the love with…. Havalina.
TDOA: Generally, when Americans think of Spain, it’s things like siesta, flamenco dancing, bull-fighting, tomato throwing and Ibiza that come to mind– Essentially, scenes of celebration. With the exception of perhaps “Sueños de Esquimal” [Dreams of Eskimos], your new album feels decidedly non-celebratory. It’s gritty, it’s angst-y, it’s edgy, but most of all, it feels introspective and personal. Is there a darker side to life in Spain that elicits these types of emotions?
After completing a tour with the Cocteau Twins, seminal band Galaxie 500 spilt into two entities. One of those entities became Damon & Naomi and since their formation in 1991 they have continued to make brilliant music that charms the soul. From ‘More Sad Hit’ to their work with The Magic Hour, their sense of “the art” of making music sets them apart from their peers. The duo took some time off from writing music for a new record to discuss the past and the future.
TDOA: As we grow older, people’s musical taste changes and generally narrows as people take less chances and stick with the music they already know. As musicians who are still creating challenging and entertaining music, how do you keep evolving musically?
