DUO THE
CONTENT BAG RAIDERS BREATHE CAROLINA HURTS ROYKSOPP
BAG RAIDERS
BREATHE CAROLINA
HURTS
ROYKSOPP
6
1.
PERSONEL
Sydney dancefloor princes Chris Stracey and Jack Glass
have already built up a Bag Raiders hype storm.
Here’s why.
“Fun Punch”, the lead single from the Bag Raiders EP, was
resolutely flogged by all those in the know and landed the duo on “best of 2007” lists and compilations galore. The Power Rangers inspired film clip received over 700,000 views on YouTube!
Jack Glass
The Raiders then forward-rolled into 2008 with the release
of a second EP on the Bang Gang label, “Turbo Love”. The giddy, synthesizer heroics of the title track saw it become one of the year’s most played songs on Triple J, Australia’s foremost national radio station.
The Australian “Turbo Love” tour was followed by shows in
Brazil, New York and, later, Japan, which propelled the Bag Raiders into the international arena. In between these whirlwind tours the boys debuted their live show “Bag To The Future” - re-workings of original tracks and remixes replete with live guitar, keyboards, percussion, bells and whistles - as part of the Fuzzy Parklife tour.
Chris Stracey
BIOGRAPHY
The shows received such an overwhelming crowd
response that the Raiders were invited back to do it all again for tens of thousands of screaming party kids at the legendary Shore Thing and Field Day parties to bring in the new year.
Soon after that they played the opening night of the
2009 Sydney Festival alongside A-Trak, Santogold, DJ Mehdi and Busy P.
And all this on the back of only two singles!
Looking forward, the Bag Raiders 2009 diary is already
jam-packed with a record due on A-Trak and Catchdubs’ “Fool’s Gold” label in America and a “Turbo Love Remixes” release soon after.
What’s more, the boys will also begin work on a full-
length album to be released in the second half of the year (some interesting collaborations are already in the works) and have shows locked in for Brazil, Mexico, the US and, later, a tour of Europe.
COMPIL ATION
Bag Raiders have done a slew of remixes. From Sneaky
Sound System to Kid Sister, Headman, the Midnight Juggernauts and K.I.M. (featured in the infamous Grand Theft Auto IV video game), Muscles, ZZZ, the Lost Valentinos and more.
Most recently their re-working of Cut Copy’s “Far Away”
(which the band called one of the best remixes they’d ever had done) was released as part of the Bang Gang deejay’s “D is for Disco, E is for Dancing” compilation.
The Baggies have already proved themselves as consum-
mate mixtape pros handling the duties on FBI Radio’s “It’s the Beat” compilation and have garnered a rep for notoriously balling DJ sets alongside the likes of Boys Noize, Radioclit, Sinden, Surkin, Guns ‘n’ Bombs and Tittsworth, to name a few.
Only into their third full year as an outfit and they’ve already
accomplished all this! But really they’ve just begun.
ALBUM
SELF TITLED (2010)
SUNLIGHT (2010)
NOT OVER REMIXES (2011)
SHOOTING STARS (2009)
BAG RAIDERS
B R E A T H E
C A R O L I N A
PERSONEL
Breathe Carolina is an electronic duo from Denver, Colo-
rado. When members, Kyle Even and David Schmitt started the project in 2007, they didn’t anticipate that their “just for fun” intent would explode into an internationally sought-after duo within just a couple of years. The story of Breathe Carolina is a modern day music fairytale, about two friends who recorded tracks on Mac program GarageBand at home in Denver, Colorado, put them on to MySpace and rapidly gained a huge online
David Schmitt
following.
The duo’s self-released debut EP Gossip hit iTunes in 2007,
and after a phenomenal response, they released their debut album “It’s Classy, Not Classic” in 2008. The album entered the Billboard Top 200 at #186. Their genre-clashing blend of crowd-pleasing pop, rock and electronica was a hit, and no longer confined to the bedroom – Breathe Carolina were a global force ready to be heard.
After signing with Fearless Records in 2009, their album
Hello Fascination took their music to a bigger, brighter and more blistering
Kyle Even
BIOGRAPHY dimension. Recorded with the stellar production team of Mike Green (Paramore, The Higher, Set Your Goals) and Matt Squire (Taking Back Sunday, 3OH!3, Panic At The Disco), their sound became re-defined with the addition of live instruments and hooky pop choruses.
The album debuted at #43 on the Billboard Top 200, at
#5 on the Independent Chart and #2 on the Electronic Chart. The title track “Hello Fascination” was featured on MTV’s The City and received placement on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. It even became the featured track on NBC’s The Jay Leno Show promos.
The duo followed up their second UK headline tour of the
year with a whole summer on Vans Warped Tour 2010, followed by a direct support slot to Mayday Parade on the Fearless Friends Tour in Fall 2010.
2011 has been quite the year for the band, as “Blackout“‘s
steady ascension up the Top 40 single chart, embraced by fans across the nation as their new party anthem, has made them one of the only independent acts taking on the pop goliaths at Top 40. ‘Hell Is What You Make It’ debuted at #2 on the Billboard Electronic Chart, with The NY Times calling the album “one of the best pure pop albums of the year”.
COMPIL ATION
A performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, main playlist rota-
tion across all MTV networks for video “Blackout” and an Artist Of The Week slot on MTV’s PUSH program fueled the genre-blending duo’s success story.
Starting out in a bedroom in the suburbs of the Mile High
City, Breathe Carolina was one of the first bands to start making waves via social networks. They truly came into their own on Fearless Records-released sophomore full-length Hello Fascination.
A step to a brave next level, the album entered the Bill-
board Top 200 at #43, and went on to sell over 60,000 copies in the U.S. alone.
Their juxtaposition of hardcore guts and pop glory found
a happy niche between both rock and pop fans, the album’s title track landing placements on the promos for NBC’s Jay Leno Show, 30 Rock and Monday Night Football, MTV’s The Hills and The City.
ALBUM
HELL IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT (2011)
IT’S CLASSY NOT CLASSY (2009)
HELLO FASCINATION (2010)
BREATHE CAROLINA
PERSONEL
Musical beginnings: Bureau and Daggers (2005–2008)
Theo Hutchcraft, Adam Anderson and Scott Foster met
outside the 42nd Street nightclub in Manchester in November 2005, whilst their friends got involved in a fight. Too drunk to join in, the trio got talking about music instead, and realising they had similar
Theo Hutchcraft
tastes, decided to start a hi-NRG electropop band. Over the next few months they exchanged music and lyrics via e-mail, before forming Bureau in March 2006 with Jamie Alsop and Flick Ward.
They performed their first gig as a quintet in May at The
Music Box in Manchester, and were shortly afterwards signed to independent record label High Voltage Sounds. They released their first double A-side single “After Midnight” / “Dollhouse” in November, which was made Single of the Week on Xfm.
In 2007, Bureau changed their name to Daggers, following
Flick Ward being replaced by Sarah Beecroft. They signed to Label Fandango and in October released another double A-side single “Money” / “Magazine”, which despite failing to chart, was nominated for the Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize.
Adam Anderson
BIOGRAPHY
Throughout 2008, Daggers continued to build a following,
and began working with successful producers Biff Stannard and Richard X, but after a disastrous A&R showcase in London in September, Theo and Adam returned to Manchester to reflect on the band’s future. They recorded a mournful ballad called “Unspoken” together, and they immediately realised that this was the sound that they wanted to develop as a duo.
After informing the rest of the band that it was finished,
they went on a short break to Verona in Italy, where they claim they discovered the genre Disco Lento. In an interview with CityLife, Theo said: “A DJ asked us ‘What does your music sound like?’, so I said that it sounds like Alphaville. Then he explained how in the wake of Italo-disco, all those artists started to make ballads and I was like, ‘that’s what we’ve just done’”.
Daggers announced on their Myspace page on January
30, 2009 that they had split up, with a simple blog saying “It’s over. Thank you for everything. You will never know what it means. Sorry. Goodbye.”
COMPIL ATION
Birth of Hurts (2009)
Now called Hurts, the duo recorded an amateur
music video for a song called “Wonderful Life”, with a female dancer who had responded to an advert in a shop window and was paid £20 for her time. After uploading the video to their YouTube channel on April 21, 2009, it quickly went viral, and in July, they were signed to RCA imprint Major Label, run by their old friend Biff Stannard. The video has since had over 21 million views on YouTube, putting it in the Top 200 Most Watched Videos in the history of the website.
Although Theo and Adam had decided to not to do
any gigs until they had enough songs, they began to steadily build a fanbase throughout 2009 by uploading demos to their Myspace page, and on July 27, they were named Band of the Day by The Guardian. This helped to grow a buzz around the new band, and on December 7, it was announced that they had made the longlist of the Sound Of 2010, an annual poll of music critics and industry figures conducted by the BBC.
Following spot plays on BBC Radio 1 of “Wonderful
Life”, Hurts were invited to record at London’s Maida Vale Studios on December 9 for Huw Stephens’ radio show, where they performed “Illuminated” and “Silver Lining”.
ALBUM
HAPPINESS (2010)
WONDERFUL LIFE (2010)
STAY (2010)
HURTS
PERSONEL
Röyksopp (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɾøʏksɔp]) is a
Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø, formed in 1998. Since their inception, the band’s line-up has included Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland.
Berge and Brundtland were introduced to each
other through a mutual friend in Tromsø, Norway. They both enjoyed the same films, music and both shared an interest in electronics. The two experimented with various forms of electronic music, and bought a drum machine together during the Tromsø techno scene before going their separate ways. Svein Berge
Several years later, the two met up again and formed
Röyksopp during the Bergen Wave. After experimenting with different genres of electronic music, the band solidified their place in the electronica scene with their 2001 debut album, Melody A.M., released on the Wall of Sound record label.
Torbjørn Brundtland
Röyksopp has
Since their 1998
consistently experimented
debut, the duo has gained
with various genres
critical acclaim and popular
pertaining to electronica.
success around the world.
Stylistically, the band makes
To date, Röyksopp has been
use of various genres,
nominated for one Grammy
including ambient, house
Award, won seven Spelleman-
music, synthpop and
nprisen awards, performed
African-American sounds.
worldwide tours, and pro-
The band is also known
duced albums which have
for its elaborate concert
topped the charts in several
performances, which often
countries, including four con-
feature eccentric outfits.
secutive number-one albums in their native Norway.
BIOGRAPHY
Origins (1990–1997)
Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland were introduced at
a friends house in Tromsø, Norway, and began experimenting with electronic instruments in the early 1990s as a part of the Tromsø techno scene. The two met when Berge was 12 years old and Brundtland was 13, and the two began playing music together due to a shared interest in electronica.
Their childhood in Tromsø and the natural scenery of
Northern Norway have often been mentioned as some of their most important inspirations. The pair separated before obtaining any popular success with their music, but reunited with each other in 1998 in Bergen, Norway.
Bergen, a city of 212,944 people in 1990, had overtaken
Tromsø’s position as the most vital scene for underground electronic music in Norway, and Röyksopp worked with other Norwegian musicians like Frost, Those Norwegians, Drum Island, and Kings of Convenience’s guitarist and singer Erlend Øye in what was called the Bergen Wave.
During this time, the duo befriended Geir Jenssen. Under
the tutelage of Jenssen, the duo started a band called Aedena Cycle with Gaute Barlindhaug and Kolbjørn Lyslo. In 1994 Aedena Cycle recorded a vinyl EP called Traveler’s Dreams. The EP was released under the R&S Records sublabel Apollo. Following the release of the EP, Jenssen almost convinced the band to sign a full record deal with Apollo Records.
COMPIL ATION
Early years (1998–2000)
After recording as part of Aedena Cycle, Berge and Brundt-
land left the group to form their own band, Röyksopp. The word röyksopp is a stylized version of the Norwegian word for the puffball mushroom, “røyksopp”. The band has stated that the word could also evoke the mushroom cloud resulting from an atomic blast.
Röyksopp’s debut single was released by local Bergen
Wave-era independent label Tellé. Röyksopp’s first single “So Easy”, which was later re-released on their first album, was the second record released by Tellé. After being used in a UK T-Mobile advertisement, “So Easy” became popular in the UK market and was later rereleased, combined with their later hit single “Remind Me”. Melody A.M. and early success (2001–2004) “Eple”
30 second sample of “Eple” from Röyksopp’s 2001 album
Melody A.M.. Problems listening to this file? See media help. After leaving Tellé, the band signed with British label Wall of Sound and released Melody A.M., which became certified platinum in the band’s native Norway and sold over a million copies worldwide.
ALBUM
MELODY A.M (2001)
THE UNDERSTANDING (2005)
JUNIOR (2009)
SENIOR (2010)
••
ROYKSOPP
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