Scandinavia music videos and album #3

Nadim

There are few ways of connecting the sense of giddy freedom inspired by scenes of wild horses running free on the beach, Italian models cavorting on a yacht, free diving into waterfalls, seafood, dolphins, parrots, planes and Greenwich Observatory, but Scandinavia have managed to do so in the course of two quick n dirty, cut n paste music videos.

The first, by Nadim Samman, makes hay with a series of glossy advertising clips to emboss the title track from our debut record 'Good Living' with a sense of refinement, purpose and hedonistic entitlement. Part pastiche, part mission statement, it's a vivid insight into the mind of Scandinavia's maddening and remarkable frontman.

Watch the 'Good Living' video

Ted

The second, by Ted Byron-Baybutt, juxtaposes the peace and quiet of nature with the silent majesty of aeroplanes in flight, spliced between outtakes of film cut in the pastoral idyll of Scandinavia's week-long sojourn to the Granary Studios in Kent to record 'The Gods'. Ted uses a raw, unfinished version of the track 'The Queen Entranced By Ancient Prayer Book' to temper the serenity with a healthy dose of grit.

Watch the 'Queen Entranced By Ancient Prayer Book' video

Finally, we've started demoing for our as-yet-untitled album number 3. We have a handful of songs, whose titles include:

I Like Dumb Tunes
HMV Is Dead!
Adventureland
What Can You Give A Girl Who's Got It All?

This video, which unveils the code of life, tells you all you need to know about the enigma that currently is Scandinavia's album #3.

Watch 'Code of Life Now Revealed' video

Scandinavia abandons recording in fight for survival

'Fragile and easily manipulated' - Samman and Neville

The crisis in the Scandinavia camp escalated last night as the coterie of yes-men surrounding the band were expunged from the Granary Studio premises amid rumours of a pending showdown between feuding band members Nadim Samman and Warrick Harniess. In a bid to save the band, bassist Thomas Parkinson and drummer Tibor Beetles made the decision to ban anyone from the camp who is not officially a member of Scandinavia. 'They're not welcome here anymore', drummer Beetles stated plainly. 'In retrospect, we should've known something like this might happen. Warrick and Nadim are fragile, and easily manipulated. But they're integral to Scandinavia, and Tom and I feel a duty of care towards them'.

'We were high' - Parkinson

At the centre of the row are renegade filmmaker Ted Byron Baybutt and Tim Neville, a self-styled 'musical mercenary'. In a statement released last night, Scandinavia vowed to abandon the late-night jam session they'd recorded with Neville, 29, after Harniess, 32, fled to a love nest in a neighbouring village. It read 'Scandinavia have deleted the files recorded with Tim Neville and the band remain committed to completing their second record, as planned'. Contradicting filmmaker Baybutt's assertion that the recordings with Neville sounded 'incredible', bass player Parkinson, 31, today shrugs off the notion that there was ever a chance that the project would be derailed. 'We were drunkenly jamming on the Who and the Stones, for a bit of fun. We might've joked about releasing it when we were high, but in the cold light of day it was never going to happen'.

With characteristic nonchalance, the unflappable Parkinson repudiated all claims of their imminent breakup. Drawing a line under talk of vicious disputes, he emphasized their vitality, promising Fandinavians a worthy follow-up to their debut album, Good Living. ‘I can’t say it’s going to please everyone, but we’re very, very excited about this new record’.

Yesterday’s reports from documentarian Ted Byron Baybutt, 32, have been dismissed as manipulative muck-raking by the songsmiths. ‘He’s a charlatan’ says charismatic lead singer Samman, 29. ‘First he came across as a professional, he was really friendly but the whole time he was actually playing a sick game’. The unethical filmmaker has now been unmasked as a modern day Iago, bent on sewing discord within the Scandinavian ranks. ‘I’ll admit, we haven’t always had a cohesive vision, but it’s really come together. We’re friends, and the creative tension has always come from a good place. But we’re not too big to put our egos aside for the sake of a tune’, Parkinson now says.

Bodge job - Baybutt

Bodge job

Contracted to produce a film about the making of Scandinavia’s second album, the unsavoury filmmaker turned out to be more bungler than Bertolucci. ‘He was out of his depth’, Samman relates bluntly. ‘He showed up in his Heath Robinson getup without an adaptor for his camcorder battery or even a toothbrush. At one point he jimmy-rigged a tripod out of a packet of chewing gum. He was unprepared, totally inept and a major headache. The shoot was a bodge job from start to finish, but the major problem was that he was just weird’.

Sinister Baybutt was unceremoniously ejected from the Scandinavia camp at 5pm on Saturday together with Neville, whose hand-wringing attempts to ingratiate himself with the band had begun to cloy. 

Pledge of unity - Scandinavia

Streamlining

With Saturday’s streamlining of the Scandinavia entourage, confidence has returned now that the band have circled their wagons and applied themselves anew. ‘It was Ted’s doing’, said eccentric guitarist Harniess. ‘He was always putting Tim forward as a cure-all for difficult overdubs. I think he was trying to drive a rift between Nadim and I for the sake of his film. But we’re stronger together and I really, really respect Nadim’s work’. Harniess, whose recent ethno-eclectic stylings haven’t always pleased Samman, was philosophical – ‘creative differences are okay, when they’re not being exploited by a machiavellian outsider’.

Sinister - Baybutt

Creepy - Neville

Asked for a comment on his rift with the Scandinavia, Baybutt was sanguine. ‘My style’s abrasive’, he acknowledged, smiling a little while leaning on the bar of a well known Soho media haunt, ‘and I won’t apologise for that. I get between the cracks to tell the real story. It ruffled sensitive feathers but in the end I got what I wanted. They may have deleted the jam session recordings, but my videotapes have it all and time will expose the truth – in a cinema near you’. Neville could not be reached for comment but is thought to be hiding out in a London suburb.

Scandinavia’s second album, The Gods, is released on 16 June 2012 at www.scandinavia.bandcamp.com. 

Nadim quits Scandinavia

Nadim has repeatedly quit Scandinavia over the past two days, due to his frustrations at not being able to get on the mike and just 'rock the fuck out'. Tom has made repeated conciliatory gestures, asking Nadim for his opinion about piano parts, organ overdubs and various other instrumental flourishes, to no avail.

Nadim currently has his head buried in facebook, occasionally looking up to give me a furious, suspicious look. I suspect he may try to murder me in my sleep tonight, so I've hastily booked a B&B as a safety precaution.

Meanwhile, Tibor tidies up his drums, Tim reads the Guardian and Ted, who has caught much of the drama on film, looks like a slightly unhinged young inventor in his Holden Caulfield hat, wonky specs and blue knit jumper.

The final straw came when Guy enthused 'it's sounding like Elton John', at which Nadim leaned forward and screamed at the mixing desk 'it's not supposed to sound like fucking Elton John, it's a house song!'

We are hoping to persuade him to rejoin after a few beers at the BBQ tonight. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the bunker.