The wonderful Beach House will be appearing live on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 2 show this evening to play songs from TEEN DREAM. Alex and Victoria have been on a pretty mammoth European and UK Tour and slay live, so if you have yet to experience this then tune in to the show at 8.00pm and witness this for yourself.

Beach House play with Grizzly Bear on these dates…

The Kissaway Trail will be appearing on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 Music show this morning to play songs from their new record ‘SLEEP MOUNTAIN’ - Lauren is on the air NOW so tune in and bliss out.

In other news, The Kissaway Trail will be playing at The Hoxton Bar & Grill this evening - Wednesday 10th March.

SLEEP MOUNTAIN is the new album by The Kissaway Trail, a beautiful and epic piece of work that explores the urgent ebb-and-flow dynamic of bands as diverse as Sonic Youth and The Flaming Lips with bona fide singer-songwriters, from Neil Young’s plangency to the dreaminess of Another Green World-era Eno and the frailty of Daniel Johnson.

SLEEP MOUNTAIN is released on Monday 8th March. Welcome this record into your hearts and homes…

With the clanging of church bells leading the tumultuous charge into the panoramic sensation of their new album “SLEEP MOUNTAIN”, The Kissaway Trail have returned with a renewed sense of purpose. “Sleep Mountain” is less a reinvention for the Danish quintet than a fabulous progression in the wake of its predecessor, 2007’s already grandstanding self-titled debut.

“Sleep Mountain” simply refines, improves and enriches that fusion. “Our previous album had a lot of different flavours to it, clearly showing that we were a band in the process of discovering ourselves,” declares co-singer/guitarist Thomas Fagerlund, “whereas the new album has a greater sense of direction and style, and shows that we had grown as musicians and people as well.” Add in dabs of electronica to the breadth of guitars and you have a contemporary, timeless, vulnerable rock classic.

The band’s origins are in Fagerlund, singer/guitarist Søren B. Corneliussen and Rune Pedersen (bass, backing vocals), who originally recorded together as Hostmom and then Isles – the latter released one album “We Have Decided Not To Die” in 2005 before they were joined by Daniel Skjoldmose (guitars, keyboards, backing vocals), and Hase Mydtskov (drums, backing vocals) while Thomas joined Søren as
co-frontman. As for Isles’ album title, well, this is one emotionally charged band, fronted by two quite different songwriters – Søren’s more observational tack against Thomas’ more personal approach. But both are united by a melancholy you can cut with a knife. This extends to Sleep Mountain’s one cover version. ‘Philadelphia’ - the theme tune to Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking AIDS movie - is simply one of the most stunning, revealing Neil Young covers you’ll ever hear.

Thomas heard the song when he was 10, and saw the film many years later. “I discovered not many people knew this song, not even fans of Neil Young. So it was something we just had to record and it works well within our album.”  He continues, “The film is very sad in its own way, while the song makes me think of my own adolescence and all that I went through.” Yet as Søren adds, “the song is about the love of friends and family.” The positive outweighs the sadness.

It’s that combination that makes The Kissaway Trail special. On the first album, there were some bleak titles like “Smother + Evil = Hurt”. But then there was “61”, with its backdrop of tragedy but a defiant chorus of “We can! We’re strong! We’ll beat it.” The titles on Sleep Mountain are less obviously revealing – and Thomas and Søren follow the party line of not revealing song origins:“I like the idea of people generating their own story from the words they hear and the emotions they feel,” says Søren.

The overall theme of Sleep Mountain, says Thomas, is “about being a dreamer and sticking to your dreams regardless of the efforts of people trying to wake us up… Sleep Mountain symbolises staying true to your opinions and beliefs.” The first album’s theme of, “love between boys and girls,” he says, has broadened out to, “a love of mankind and our generation – those who have the same passion for art, and the love we feel towards our family and friends.”

In turn, Søren pinpoints his predilection for, “grief, loss and love, but written from a bystander’s point of view… My new lyrics are about sentiments and pictures in my mind that seems to linger on indefinitely. They’re more of a collage than a story but they’re still thoughts and images from the real life.”

The 12 songs that make up Sleep Mountain came together at the second attempt. They started writing and recording in early 2008; “the only rule was to write as many songs as possible.” Thus armed, they rehearsed in a desolate rented farm close to their home in Odense (Denmark’s third largest city, situated on the island of Funen) before shifting to the French mountains to narrow down their material. In late 2008, they began recording in Sweden and Denmark but two months later, “we discovered it did not sound the way we had intended and we were afraid that it never would!” So they started again, from scratch, at Odense’s Lydkraft Studio where they’d recorded the first album. They had just two weeks to nail this one, “but as we laid down the first drum track, we knew we had made the right decision.”

Likewise, hiring American producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National, The Twilight Sad). He couldn’t work with them at the first attempt due to having a child on the way but he was free for the Lydkraft sessions. “We told him we simply could not imagine our record being the way we wanted it to without him on board. Fortunately he accepted.”

Sleep Mountain has that satisfyingly deep, rounded Katis sound, and none more so than that bell-clanging six-minute intro ‘SDP’ (no, they won’t reveal what that stands for). As Thomas says, it’s the perfect opener, “because it sounds like us, but still shows we have evolved.” Evidence of evolution can also be found in the acute hooks of ‘New Year’ and the brilliant, euphoric ‘Beat Your Heartbeat’. Alongside ‘Philadelphia’, ‘Painter’, ‘Friendly Fire’ and ‘Whirr Of Wings’ show a more restrained Kissaway Trail, while ‘Three Million Hours’ is a very poignant end to a tour de force 55 minutes. In the end, it’s a positive outcome. As the words of ‘Philadelphia’ has it, “Sometimes I think that I know / What love’s all about / And when I see the light / I know I’ll be all right.”

Bella Union records are excited to reveal the ingenious video for Lone Wolf’s debut single: “Keep Your Eyes On The Road”… Directed by the hugely-talented Ashley Dean, the video is a dazzling and loving homage to Peter Gabriel’s ground-breaking “Sledgehammer” promo from the 80s, and has the seal of approval from the great man himself… So down tools at once folks and endulge in this…

Ashley Dean:

“This was a project that had been brewing in my head for some time. I have been a huge fan of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” video since seeing it as a boy on the ITV Chart Show in 1986. It is a whirlwind experience, with a constant barrage of new ideas hitting the screen every single second. It wasn’t a surprise to learn in later years that the studio responsible for it was the legendary Aardman Animations.

I have been animating music videos for about 8 years now, learning established techniques and innovating some of my own. It dawned on me one day (whilst shooting a scene for Fossil Collective involving a husband and wife dressed as a stag and a wolf ballroom dancing) that I should challenge myself to recreate the Sledgehammer video. It would be a test of my animation skills and would work well as a video for a solo artist. A few days later I discovered that an acquaintance from my days in iLiKETRAiNS had recently been signed to Bella Union; Paul Marshall had become Lone Wolf. I dusted off my copy of ‘Vultures’, acquainted myself with his new MySpace offerings, then got on the Twitter and the rest is history.

The project was hard, with so many elements to bring together and with only a small team and a few weeks to work with. We built a coffin, a puppet sized Paul, a full sized plasticine Paul, we made an approximation of the set used 24 years ago by Aardman, gathered a room full of extras (including many luminaries from the Leeds Music Scene), animated a (free range) chicken and a face made from petals, referenced ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ and almost blinded Paul with an errant blob of Latex.

I am pleased with how the project turned out. There were times when I thought things couldn’t be done, but determination, innovation and a lot of 15 hour working days saw us through. It was a pleasure to work with Lone Wolf, he has an amazing talent for sitting still hours at a time and has contributed ideas and effort beyond the call of duty, even when his fingers turned blue and his legs had stopped working.
I hope this film is a fitting tribute to the original video, and a complimentary visual accompaniment to Lone Wolf’s excellent first single.”

Visit Ashley Dean’s website at http://www.brokenpixel.co.uk 

Lone Wolf:

“I have been keeping one eye on Ash’s work ever since I saw his amazing videos for iLiKETRAiNS.  He was always one of those people who I thought that I if I was lucky enough to get to work with him, he would really be able to capture the essence of my song-writing and make a great film to accompany it. So when completely unprompted I received a personal e-mail from Ash saying he was interested in working with me that was one thing, but when I read his goal was to create an homage/remake of the Peter Gabriel’s seminal video for Sledgehammer I literally spat my tea out. We met over a real ale and began working out how we could recreate some scenes, and adapt others to fit my dark lyrics whilst always trying to maintain the true spirit of the original as to make sure we were showing that in no way were we trying to tread on it’s toes, but in fact showing just what an inspiration that video was.

I had never been animated/pixelated before, and to say I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount on work to come is an understatement. I personally ended up on set for a grand total of 45 hours. Long hours. Hours of stillness. Hours of having to mouth the individual syllables of the lyrics to my song like a child trying to learn to talk again whilst having make up put on one strip at a time. I had to lie in a coffin made especially for me. At one point it looked like I was even going to have to shave all my hair off due to it getting caked in liquid latex. But after this gruelling process, I can safely say it was all worth it. Ash has created the best possible film to accompany my single and has captured the true spirit of the song perfectly.”

David Sproxton (Executive Chairman of Aardman):

“it’s extraordinary to see the effort that has gone into this homage to one of the all time great pop videos, Sledgehammer.  The original was a tremendous tour de force, made by a great team and led by an extraordinary musician. Ashley’s work is clearly a work of love and I hope it generates as much interest for Lone Wolf as the Sledgehammer video did for Peter.”

LONE WOLF has been a silent film, a book, a song, a TV series and a Native American chief, but never the alter ego of a singer, until Paul Marshall chose it to house his subtly sombre, gorgeously haunting songs.

Having used his own name for 2007’s acoustic-based debut Vultures, Lone Wolf signals a much expanded sound. His new album, “The Devil and I”, dovetails perfectly with Bella Union’s stable of supreme melodicists and outstanding vocalists such as Fleet Foxes and John Grant. But “The Devil & I” stands alone, as lone wolves do. The melodies may be persuasively dreamy and the vocal delivery tender and restrained, but the mood is troubled.

Vultures had its dark parts but little compares to these new songs, which grip like a vice, from murder ballad ‘15 Letters’ to the more oblique threat of ‘We Could Use Your Blood’ and ‘Buried Beneath The Tiles’, or strung across the triple whammy of ‘Russian Winter’, ‘Soldier’ and ‘Dead River’. And then there’s the two-part title track, from doomy-grey instrumental to the band version that closes the album on a beautifully haunted high.

Lone Wolf has momentarily abandoned his solitary alienation to play live with a backing band of Leeds peers - Lins Wilson (Grammatics), James Mabbett (Napoleon IIIrd) and James Kenosha. Following WILD BEASTS singer Tom Fleming singling out

Lone Wolf as one of his tips for 2010, they invited him to support them on their UK tour this March… dates below…

Lone Wolf – on tour with Wild Beasts:

Thursday 11 March - WARWICK - Warwick University (supporting Wild Beasts)
Friday 12 March - BOURNEMOUTH - Sixty Million Postcards (supporting Wild Beasts)
Saturday 13 March - LEICESTER - Queens Hall (supporting Wild Beasts)
Monday 15 March - NORWICH – Waterfront (supporting Wild Beasts)
Tuesday 16 March - EXETER – Phoenix (supporting Wild Beasts)
Thursday 18 March - LIVERPOOL – Academy (supporting Wild Beasts)
Friday 19 March - NEWCASTLE – Cluny (supporting Wild Beasts)
Saturday 20 March - MANCHESTER - Academy 2 (supporting Wild Beasts)
Thursday 25 March - GALWAY - Roisin Dubh (supporting Wild Beasts)
Friday 26 March - CORK - Cyprus Avenue (supporting Wild Beasts)
Saturday 27 March - DUBLIN – Academy (supporting Wild Beasts)

Lone Wolf’s debut – “The Devil and I” – is released 17th May on Bella Union records…