"A Friend In London" won the Song Contest

It was the Danish pop rock group A Friend In London and the song "New Tomorrow", won the Danish part of Eurovision Song Contest 2011 here  Saturday night in Copenhagen. 

A Friend In London will present Denmark at Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf in May 2011. 
"New Tomorrow" written by Lise Cabble and Jacob Glæsner. The former was also co-wrote Aud Wilkens winning song from 1995, "From Mols To Skagen", and has a background as a singer in the defunct Miss B. Haven. Jacob Glæsner are daily bass player in another famous Danish band "Johnny Delux". 

A Friend In London is Aske Damm Brampton (bass), Esben Swan (drums), 
Tim Schou (vocals / guitar) and Sebastian Vinther (guitar / vocals).

Video interview with the american producer Gordon Raphael (the Strokes, Fake Chemical Brothers)

DANISH SONGWRITER RECORDS WITH BOWIE MUSICIAN

A Girl In A Rat Suit records with David Bowie people in New York

The Danish songwriter Line Maria Grunert aka A Girl In A Rat Suit is right now in New York to record with the producer Mario J. McNulty and pianist Mike Garson, who among others has played with David Bowie.

A Girl In A Rat Suit has been the ‘Demo of the month’ in Danish music magazine GAFFA. At that time reviewed by Hansen who gave her 5 stars and wrote:

"[...] the songs are great and performed with close attention to detail. At some points the songwriting is similar to Lush, but that seems to be a coincidence. There is a raw and naked sound in the 4 tracks with the vocals dominating the mix. A great voice both solo and when co-producer Kristian Baek is backing up”.

The songwriter will record two songs with McNulty to begin with, who has worked on records for Philip Glass, Dean & Britta, Rufus Wainwright and even fellow countrymen Raveonettes. Besides that he has worked on several re-releases of David Bowie records and the album "Reality", where pianist Mike Garson also contributes.

Garson has been Bowie’s piano player since 1972, where he was hired to play for the Ziggy Stardust tour and plays on the albums "Aladdin Sane", "Diamond Dogs", "Outside" and "Heathen". Garson will be playing on one of the two songs that McNulty is producing for A Girl In A Rat Suit in New York.

Line Maria Grunert documents the recordings on her website:

Danish composer in Hollywood

(The danish newspaper B.T.) two and a half years ago moved the Danish Anthony Lledo from Copenhagen to Los Angeles, and it may have been one of the wisest decisions in his life. For since then he has worked as a composer of some of the really big blockbuster movies in Hollywood. 

- We've made 'Wolverine,' 'Shrek' and 'The Prince Of Persia' and so we have created the music for Ben Affleck's 'The Town', says Anthony Lledo. 

At first name with Affleck 

When Anthony Lledo says 'we', so he thinks beyond themselves film composer Harry Gregson-Wiliams, one of the biggest names in the industry. He is on first name terms with directors like Tony Scott and Ben Affleck, and the two often visited the building on Venice Beach, where the studio is housed. 

Together, Anthony Lledo and Harry Gregson-Williams out how music should sound when Shrek is back on the adventure or Jake Gyllenhaal to move around in the ancient Persia. In Anthony Lledo study is a sitar and a fade-drum, two of the instruments that were used when they recorded 'The Prince Of Persia'. 

New movie on the way - In the last Shrek, we did, there would have already built up a great musical universe, so it was just set in advance, how the music should sound. But for 'The Prince Of Persia' 

we'd find some tools that could give the feeling that we were there, where the movie takes place, "says Anthony Lledo. Right now he is working on music for a new film about the Civil War, and he does not regret a moment that he has made the leap to Los Angeles.

INTERVIEW: A Friend In London

(ESCDaily.com) A Friend In London are a four piece band hailing from Denmark, and will perform the song New Tomorrowin this weekend’s Eurovision Song Contest. Three members of the band, Tim, Esben and Sebastian joined ESCdaily.com last week to talk about their band, their new found fame across the Atlantic, and a bit about Eurovision and the Eurovision Song Contest as well.


ED: Thanks for joining us guys. Your band name is rather unusual – can you tell us how you came up with it?
Esben: We came up with it out of a brainstorm actually. We wanted a name that could be a metaphor for a lot of the things we do, the thoughts we have about the band, and all of our fans and friends around the globe.
Tim: With me staying at a friend’s place in London, we thought about A Friend In London, and it sounded really good. Everybody knows and has an opinion about the city London. The name has really come together for us, and it’s become this thing about interaction with our fans, which we prefer to call Friends. That’s kind of what the name is about, and how we came up with it.


ED: Tell us a bit about yourselves as a band and how you met…
Sebastian: We met at a Danish school of theatre and music in 2003. After our stay at the school, Tim won a single recording of one of his sounds, and then he called me and the other guys and asked if we’d like to record the song with him.
E: We’re four guys with a very strong friendship, and we’ve spent all out time on this band which is now our baby. Sebastian, Ash and I lived together for almost two years now, and before that, all four of us lived together in a house by ourselves with a rehearsal room in the basement.

ED: As a band, you have had quite some success in Canada, can you tell us how this came about?
T: In 2008, we won the European final of Bodog Million Dollar Battle of the Bands, with more than 40.000 bands from around the world participating. This event ignited a spark for us in Canada and since 2009, we have had 3 really good tours in Canada in the state of Ontario, including shows at North by NorthEast (NXNE) and Canadian Music Week as well as a performance at Breakfast TV, the number one morning show in Toronto. And right after the Eurovision Song Contest we will be going on a new tour in Canada, playing at CMW for the second time in a row, and will also be performing at Breakfast TV again. Exciting!

ED: Tell us about how you came to be in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest…..
S: We were contacted by the two songwriters who wrote the song. They were looking for a band to perform their song and they’d heard some good things about us so they asked us to perform it. At first we weren’t quite convinced about the idea, but when we heard the song we could see that it had a lot of potential and that it also fitted in very well with some of our own songs. So from that point on there wasn’t really much left for us to consider.
E: We had to rearrange the song when we took it up, and then again with the producer, but the product which came out of this process is superb.


ED: Given that the songs will only be released shortly before the contest, are you able to give our readers a bit of an idea about your song in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011?
T: Yeah for sure – well the song is first of all a very universal song and so is the message in it. It’s called a New Tomorrow and is about changing the world in the big picture, but what is so great about is that the message can be escalated down to all kinds of things in life. It’s kind of like Michael Jackson once perfectly said, “If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change”.
We’re in the need of that message, even if it comes down to just yourself, you’re the only one who can make that new tomorrow, for you and for the world. So it’s a big message, but very clear to understand and handle. The sound of the song is very big too, like John Farnham’s song “You’re The Voice”…. Isn’t that the song he sings? I think it is… yeah well…. you get the picture 


ED: You are performing as song number 10 in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which has the honour of producing half of the winners in the last ten years – do you feel lucky, or a bit pressured by this statistic?
T: Yeah we just heard that if you believe in statistics we will run off as this year’s winner …! We are so excited and nervous, because we would love to win, but there are a lot of qualified singers and artists in it this year, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. We’d like to be the underdog you know, but now as song number ten I guess we have to step it up and make the statistics count!


ED: Your music style is a bit different to what we have seen in the contest in the past. How do you think the Danish public will respond to your music in the contest?
S: Hopefully it will be very well received. The contest is open for all genres and we hope that people will find it to be a breath of fresh air seeing and hearing for guys play and sing their hearts out.
E: I believe that we have the right appeal to the Danish audience, to make it to Eurovision. Our style of music is different yes, but our style as an artist is different, and our style as people are different too, but we have a solid image, and the song will speak for itself.


E: Would you consider yourselves fans of the Eurovision Song Contest? Do you have a favourite Eurovision song or Eurovision moment?
E: A: I’m not really a fan-kind of guy. The only thing I’m a fan of is The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Radiohead. But my favourite Eurovision song is no doubt ‘My Star’ by the Latvian band ‘Brainstorm’. They participated in 2000 when Danish ‘Olsen Brothers’ won, and I actually think ‘My Star’ was a better song.
T: I’ve always watched the show since I was a kid, but then as I got older it kind of like slipped away and wasn’t important to me… BUT… then the Olsen Brothers came and changed that in 2001 I think it was with “Fly on the wings of love” – That was an amazing year and brought the whole country together as well as whole Europe, because it was again such a great song and message.
S: It was a very big moment for me when Denmark won the Eurovision back in 2000 with “Fly on the Wings of Love”. It really united the nation for a while, like when your national football team takes a trophy home.


A Friend In London will perform the song New Tomorrow in this Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest 2011, at 20.30 CET on Danish Radio 1.  of luck!

Agnes Obel and Efterklang nominated to european music award

Two Danish artists are nominated for best independent album of 2010 trade association Impala

Association of European independent record labels, Impala, awards for albums there are  released in 2010 on an independent European record label - whetherthe artist is European or not. Danish Agnes Obel and reverberation are in contention and is nominated for 'Philharmonic "and" Magic Chair ".

Award "Independent Album of the Year ", awarded for the first time, celebrates european independent releases musical talent and diversity, and the winner will be chosen independently of sales and publicity. A jury of Impala-board chooses the winner based on musical merit alone.

Impala, which has existed since 2000, marks the 10 anniversary by awarding the prize, which besides Agnes Obel and Reverberation has a list of 19 nominees. click here

Vinnie Who release the debut album outside Denmark

(Gaffa) The popular Danish musician is on tour and release his debut "Then I Met You" in 12 countries

Niels Bagge Hansen, aka Vinnie Who, released this month his debut from 2010 "Then I Met You" outside Denmark. The record is released in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria,Japan, Greece and Taiwan, and on this occasion he takes on a tour that bothaffects part of those countries and a variety of places in Denmark.

Besides album success is Vinnie Who nominated for two awards to Tv2 Zulu Awards in March. It is not the first time he has been nominated for prices. In 2010, Vinnie Whonominated for both a GAFFA Award of the Year New Danish Name and throughout the two Radio P3 Gold awards: Listening The hit and the Radio P3 Award.

Danish Oh Land working with Neptune's producer Pharrell Williams

Oh Land — born Nanna Øland Fabricius was training to be a ballet dancer until a back injury at age 18 forced her to quit. When she couldn’t dance anymore, she began creating music. “The reason I started to dance in the first place was because of the music,” she tells us. “I started writing again and recording, set up a little home studio at my home in Denmark… I started recording anything that would make a sound in my apartment.”

She even wrote a song about her tragic experience, called “Break The Chain”: “He said sorry but you’re never gonna dance again / But my feet just keep me moving, trying to break the chain.”

BIG BREAK: In early 2008, she was asked by her cousin, also a singer, to be an opening act. “It was a small, tiny bar, and she thought I would just show up with a piano. But I locked us into a rehearsal space for a month and found a band, we did choreography and costumes… this whole crazy thing with weird paint, it was a whole installation… she was just like, ‘Nanna, you’re a support band!’ I just completely took over the whole thing.”

BIGGER BREAK: Ambition clearly worked — she was soon signed by a Danish record label, and released her debut EP Fauna in Denmark. And her incredible set at 2009’s South By Southwest got her signed by Epic.

 Oh Land has written two songs with Pharrell, including a track called “Standing On Trains”. “He’s very childlike in his approach as well,” she says of working with the producer/N.E.R.D. frontman. “That’s what’s fun for me, to work with people who are fearless.”