Tuesday, September 30, 2008

How Do You Say That?


Based in Copenhagen, Slaraffenland was an idea created in 2002 by Christian Taagehøj, Mike Taagehøj, Bjørn Heebøll, Niklas Antonsson, and Jeppe Skjold. They expertly expanded on the guitar-bass-drums standard with brass and woodwind instruments, various racket-makers, and transfixing gang vocals. Many of them childhood friends (and Mike and Christian near-identical twins), they've spent years developing a sound that conjures everything from free jazz to noise to melodious addictive rock.

Slaraffenland joined the Hometapes label family in 2006 and have, since then, taken the US by storm: tours (bookended by festival appearances), special projects (they were featured on Stereogum’s tribute to Radiohead’s “OK Computer” last year), sneaky appearances (they played with Akron/Family at SXSW back in March), and, of course, their records have all combined to create an amazing entity whose name, which means "the land of milk and honey." With all that stuff happening over the last year, they would like you to believe that everyone now is surely learning to pronounce Slaraffenland! That's probably not the case and I wish you good luck with just trying to pronounce that name. Einstezende Neubauten is easier.

Anyway, the band's new Sunshine EP will be released October 7! First incarnated as a sold-out limited edition tour-only EP from their recent Spring 2008 US tour with Efterklang, Sunshine is a five-track masterpiece that captures Slaraffenland’s evolving sound and provides a true preview of their upcoming 2009 album. It features two covers: Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” and Scandinavian forefathers A-Ha’s “Take on Me” along with three brand new tracks that shook stages across the country just weeks ago. The EP is packaged in a custom wallet featuring luscious spot color printing.

And no...it doesn't come with a pronunciation guide.

Download: I'm A Machine

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