Posts Tagged ‘apparatjik’

Videos from Roskilde and Flø

Magne at Roskilde, July 5th

A video clip with a selection of highlights from last week’s Apparatjik concert at Roskilde is now available at the festival’s website. It includes the following songs:

Do It Myself / Supersonic Sound / Deadbeat / DJ set (snippet) / Shake Him Off (feat. Lowell) / Tell The Babes / Cervux Sequential / Snow Crystals (snippet) / Do It Myself (reprise)

If the whole concert will be available at some point, is not known.

To view the mad spectacle, go to roskilde-festival.dk and click on “Orange Stage 2012: Apparatjik”.

 

There is also a new video clip of Magne’s “Go With The Flø” opening fanfare last month now up on vimeo.com, courtesy of Sven Voelker.

Mixed reviews for Roskilde concert

Magne Furuholmen and Martin Terefe at Roskilde, July 5th

Apparatjik entered the Orange Stage at Roskilde like this last night, wearing bodybuilder suits, with silver capes and Martin Terefe masks.

“Considering our experience with fame, this is interesting to explore. Martin is the least famous of us. Therefore we’ll all go on stage looking like him tonight”, Magne and Jonas told Dagsavisen in an interview before the concert.

Starting out in silhouette behind four large screens, before moving onto the stage, the band performed songs like “Time Police” and “Do It Myself” for the first half hour. Then DJ Aretïve appeared on top of a cube out amongst the audience, doing a 20-minute set accompanied by the alien fashion show that Magne mentioned in Wednesday’s interview. This was followed by a guest appearance by Lowell, a young Canadian singer who has been working in the studio with Apparatjik lately (more info on that collaboration here). By now, the guys had changed into their combat disco uniforms, and the concert ended with songs like “Tell The Babes” and “Blastlocket”.

Other songs played during the show apparently included “Combat Disco Music” and “That’s The Thing About Us”.

Magne on stage at Roskilde 
(Picture from gaffa.dk)

Apparatjik are getting mixed reviews in social media and in the press after last night’s unique performance.

Reactions on Twitter ranged from “who can review this bizarre concert without getting nightmares?” to “the most amazing thing the world has ever seen” to “mega fail”.

Here are some quotes from the various press reviews that have been posted so far:

“One of the most ambitious “concerts” you can imagine. Visually an amazing experience, musically more uneven, but when it worked it was actually really great.”rockfoto.nu

“Something was constantly happening on and around the stage. Furuholmen doesn’t spare any expenses when he invites the audience to party – and it was fun while it lasted. It was generous and playful, but unfortunately also easily forgotten.”adressa.no

“More circus and show than real content.”gaffa.com (3/6)

“Giving a summary of the events that took place Thursday night on the Orange Stage would take at least a few pages, but describing it as a concert would definitely be an understatement. It was more similar to performance theater or an art installation.”soundvenue.com (3/6)

“Apparatjik’s show was quite spectacular, but too often seemed like a Nintendo game out of control.”gaffa.dk (3/6)

“The spaced-out effects often appeared too messy and incoherent, and rarely contributed to creating the artistic total experience that had been prepared.”undertoner.dk (3/6)

“Apparatjik are known for their unique visual style and well-made music videos. But their music is less fascinating.”politiken.dk (2/6)

möllan.nu (3/5)

stpaulslifestyle.com (audio review)

metroxpress.dk (gallery)

philipbo.tumblr.com (gallery)

Apparatjik ready for Roskilde, planning “spectacular” Oslo performance

Rehearsing for Roskilde last week; Magne, Jonas and Martin (plus Tor Einar Jensen on the drums?) 
(Picture posted by Aretiive on Twitter)

Apparatjik are set to perform at Roskilde’s main stage tomorrow night. This will be the first time Magne performs at the festival, previously he’s only been there as a guest.

In an interview with Aftenposten today, Magne says that this will be an opportunity to present Apparatjik’s music to a broader audience than before:

“The Orange Stage at Roskilde is an iconic arena for everyone who’s into music. We see this as an opportunity to further expand on our format. The music has always been a natural part of Apparatjik, but has until now been integrated in an audiovisual language and hasn’t been allowed to play the leading role. This time it will get a more natural main focus.”

“It will be quite a multifaceted performance, in which we want to use the cube in new ways. I think I can say that we have a fair amount of madness planned.”

 

This will include guest-appearances by fans and new artists who are collaborating with the band.

“We have also entered into a collaboration with the renowned Danish visual artist Tal R, who will create a sort of absurd fashion show/costume parade for tomorrow night. It will be a lovely chaos.”

Magne feels that Apparatjik now are ready to reach a larger audience:

“The music we make isn’t particularly demanding. It has a typical pop-melodic structure and can even be quite catchy at times. The experimental part lies perhaps in the fact that we don’t adapt the material to any existing formats.”

But he admits that he doesn’t like all the music that Apparatjik have created:

“I don’t feel that I necessarily have to like all the music we’re performing. Why do I have to like everything we do? We all have to perform tasks that we are more or less comfortable with here in life.”

Still, they are in the process of opening up a bit more:

“It’s not like we’re going on a strike if someone decides to play our music on the radio, it’s just that we don’t promote our material through normal releases, so the chances of that happening are considerably smaller.”

There will be more Apparatjik concerts later this year, including a big event in Oslo:

“We have been invited to make an installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art [in Oslo] in the autumn, which will be accompanied by a slightly absurd choral work. We are also planning quite a spectacular outdoor performance in the middle of Oslo city at the end of September, which I can’t go into detail about yet”, Magne says.

Apparatjik are scheduled to go on stage at Roskilde late tomorrow night, at 1:00 am. Guy Berryman is on tour with Coldplay in the US at the moment, and won’t able to join the others this time.

Update: In an interview with VG, Magne provides more details about the Oslo concert – which will be free and take place by the Astrup Fearnley Museum at Tjuvholmen on September 29th.

Roskilde Festival update

The Roskilde Festival has now announced the date for the Apparatjik concert; Thursday July 5th at 01.00, on the Orange Stage.

“The international super group is currently working on a show that does not resemble anything you have experienced at Roskilde Festival.

With members from a-ha, Coldplay and Mew, the musical backbone is quite solid. A show filled with light-as-helium pop music – but just as much an experiment with the concert form and Orange Stage as a kind of temporary art installation.

The musical cosmonauts in Apparatjik are currently working on an innovative show filled with alluring falsetto vocals, synths and a Scandinavian feel. On a space journey filled with surprising features, Apparatjik will accelerate towards the Milky Way’s outer provinces and blur the distinction between art and concert”, the festival promises in an announcement on its website.

Teaser clip:

Apparatjik article

VG has an article about Apparatjik’s upcoming performance at the Roskilde Festival today.

“This will be the first Apparatjik performance on a regular stage, so that will be interesting. Most of us in Apparatjik have been on a stage in front of 30.000 people before, but I still think there may be a few people in the audience that we’re not familiar with”, Magne says.

He can also promise more Apparatjik shows later in the year:

“We’ll be doing some spectacular outdoor performances in the autumn, probably in Norway as well. These will be very different from normal concerts and more similar to the project we did at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin last year.”

Apparatjik to perform at Roskilde Festival

The Roskilde Festival in Denmark has announced that Apparatjik will be one of the acts performing at this year’s festival, which is held between 5 – 8 July.

The exact date and stage will be revealed later, but Magne has previously mentioned that they have been invited to perform on the Orange Stage.

More info at roskilde-festival.dk.

Square Peg… final draft now available as MP3, WAV and CD

The final draft of Apparatjik’s Square Peg in a Round Hole album was released on Tuesday, February 21st.

Featuring new mixes, some new songs and a new cover, the album is now available for purchase in three formats at
theoutland.com; MP3, WAV and CD. The digital formats can be downloaded right away, while the CD starts shipping on March 19th.

The tracklist:

1. timepoLice (feat. Auto Goon)
2. cervux seQuential (feat. Lisa A)
3. tell the bAbes
4. signs of waking uP
5. do IT myself (feat. Auto Goon)
6. BlastLOCKet (feat. Ceto A and L Gortex A)
7. pakt
8. COmbat disco music
9. your voice needS SUBtitles
10. (don’t Eat The whole) banana
11. gzMO
12. superpositions
13. control Park

There will also be an Apparatjik “Augmented Reality” app available for iPhone and iPad on March 19th, which will apparently provide you with a special experience when used together with the CD cover.

 

Apparatjik have now also set up a page on NRK P3’s Urørt community, which is a sort of Norwegian MySpace for young, unsigned musicians.

“Urørt is the place in Norway where those most interested in music get together, and therefore the most exciting community for us to turn our attention to”, Magne says in an article on NRK.no.

The article also mentions that Apparatjik have been invited to perform on the Orange Stage at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark this summer. But this is yet to be officially confirmed.

Apparatjik release 24-bit studio-quality download

Square Peg recording session in Norway. 
(Picture from bowers-wilkins.com)

This week, Apparatjik are offering a 24-bit studio-quality version of their second album Square Peg in a Round Hole as a free download on their Facebook page (as “Draft 7”).

This is a high-quality FLAC version (472 MB) of the original 12-track album, which first appeared in lower MP3 quality as part of the “Apparatjik World” iPad app back in November and later as “Draft 1” in the ongoing fan collaboration project on Facebook.

Apparatjik are releasing this version of the album in collaboration with British loudspeaker company Bowers and Wilkins and their online community Society Of Sound.

“we go to quite an extent to make our music sound the way we want it to and it’s great to be able to offer a 24 bit version of the first draft of the album through society of sound. this exclusive release ‘square peg in a round hole – draft 7’ is mastered at abbey road studios by geoff pesche straight from our studio masters so what we listened to in studio is what you will hear”, the band says in a new blog post on the Society Of Sound website.

The whole blog post, where the band talk about the recording process and the fan collaboration project can be found here.

Apparatjik invite fans to collaborate on new album

The new Apparatjik album Square Peg in a Round Hole, which was released exclusively for iPads last month, is now available for everyone to stream and download on Apparatjik’s Facebook.

It features Magne on lead vocals at the beginning of “Combat Disco Music” and at the end of “Control Park”.

However, this is only the “first draft” of the album. Apparatjik now invite fans to submit ideas and even remix the songs, resulting in a new “draft” being released each week until the final version of the album is released on 21 February 2012.

Full album stems in WAV-format can now be downloaded from Apparatjik.com, where you can find further instructions on how to proceed.

UK music site thefourohfive.com quotes a new press release about the album project:

“Apparatjik is chiefly a conduit for creative trip-wiring: first you find out how a thing works, then you break it. all children learn this way. all adults too. on the new album we have collaborated with other artists and now we want to invite our fans and other musicians to contribute by commenting, voting for ideas or taking raw elements from the album and work with, embellish and submit back to us. we have collaborated with our fans in this way for visual projects like ‘everybody is a pixel’ at the Neue Nationgalerie in Berlin and our new iPad magazine ‘apparatjik world’. this time we’ll try with music.”

Thefourohfive.com also reveals ambitious concert plans for next year:

“The group are also set to bring ‘Apparatjik World’ (iPad Magazine/new album/live performances) to 11 cities starting mid 2012 including London, Oslo and Copenhagen and their first dates in the US. More on that soon.”

New Apparatjik album

Apparatjik released the first issue of their Apparatjik World magazine yesterday, 11.11.11.

It’s a free app for iPads (size: 683 MB) containing videos, pictures, the Mike Perkins comic and lots of random stuff.

The magazine also includes a new 12-track Apparatjik album.

Here is the tracklist:

1. Time Police (3:20) – same as this one
2. Sequential (3:15)
3. Your Voice Needs Subtitles (4:03)
4. Signs of Waking (3:34)
5. Pakt (1:25)
6. Combat Disco (3:41) – same as this one
7. Do It Myself (3:07)
8. .,,. (Dot Comma Comma Dot) (5:13)
9. (Don’t Eat The Whole) Banana (3:22) – same as this one
10. Gzmo (4:14) – same as this one
11. Super-positions (1:30) – same as this one
12. Control Park (3:51) – same as this one

For those of you without an iPad, the album will be made available in other formats at a later date.

The next issue of Apparatjik World is released on 21 February 2012.

 

Update: The name of the new album is apparently Square Peg in a Round Hole.

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