Six bountiful weeks in California
Animal Alpha is one of the most exiting and talked-of new bands presently at large on the Norwegian rock scene.
Their unusual combination of rococo aesthetics and ultra raw, frantically dynamic, femalely spearheaded music has proved a potent recipe, leaving few eyes and ears closed to the band and making them among the hottest live acts around.
Their web-vote determined victory in Norwegian national radio’s “Untouched” competition, where unsigned and unreleased bands can upload music on the radio web-site and thus join the competition, entails that The Animal Alpha track Bundy will feature in the upcoming car game ‘Burnout 4’ from electronic game giant EA. The company’s previous car game issue ‘Need for Speed II Underground’ has sold more than 8.5 million copies worldwide.
In terms of booking Animal Alpha have set a kind of record by being the first band to appear at all three major Norwegian rock festivals this summer without having released any material at the time of booking.
But they claim that that the prolonged build-up of a unique image and an out-of-the-ordinary reputation as live act, at the expense of recording, was all part of a plan; a strategy contrived to the end of securing increasingly better gigs, at which increasingly important people would witness them, finally resulting in finding the perfect partners.
At this year’s Norwegian music industry convention and showcase festival By:Larm, Animal Alpha was witnessed by producer Sylvia Massey Shivy; an accomplice of REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tool and Johnny Cash.
She proposed that they joined forces and the band subsequently met up with her in her California studio.
The six week session proved very bountiful, resulting in a “bait” EP (Animal Alpha EP) released now in June and an LP due to be released in September.
Revues of the EP have been in line with the rave reports of their live shows.
Regarding the album the band say they are confident they’ve made the best record they could have made, and that they fear not the transition from being a band famed for their live performance and their hatful of surprises, to recording artists soon up for real against the expectations thus created.
Headlines:
Himmelkvad
Celebrated vocal ensemble Nordic Voices is currently out on its promo tour for their new outing ‘Himmelkvad’, a critically acclaimed album presenting Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen’s unique vocal universe. MIC Norway takes a closer look at the cutting-edge vocal ensemble and ground-breaking composer.
I was the devil in my younger years
Late Feb sees Enslaved heading out on a month-long European tour. MIC Norway hooked up with Enslaved’s Ivar Peersen to talk about musical cross pollination, inspirational sources, humour and his fascination for singer-songwriter Stein Torleif Bjella.
