The Gods by Scandinavia - a review by A Mean Salmon

Dear Scandinavia,

I have listened to your new album 'The Gods' a number of times now. I have also been reading a book about Don Simpson, the legendary and vice-addled Hollywood producer who is responsible for inventing the 'high-concept' movie (think Top Gun through to Con Air). He pulled no punches, and my comments are inspired by his philosophy.

The Original Don, Simpson

First of all. The title. Excellent. You gotta think big to be big.

In terms of the material, I was immediately taken by a number of real choice cuts. Real powerhouse summer blockbuster soundtrack tunes. Songs you could hear the babysitter next-door singing, songs that could make you a lot of money, songs that could make you a real someone…

At the same, though, there was also a lot of flab, a lot of weak creative shit. In particular, 'Popular Little Street' struck me as a lazy and rambling exercise in sub-Albarn world music holiday guff. I suggest that it be kept back for the true fans to find in horror at a later date, perhaps buried deep in a 'warts and all' retrospective. That shit won’t sell.

The real problem is a bigger one. YOU HAVE NO STORY! This is the worst mistake you can make…

People want something to follow, guys. They want to hear about a boy who grew up without a father, and then had his life turned around by some tough love from a male authority figure, like a cop or something. What are you selling these people? How are you gonna take them away from their day to day bullshit? There is just such a diversity of themes and styles on the album, and this makes finding a clear narrative arc quite difficult.

Tough love

In order to make this happen, I stayed up all last night taking cocaine and talking into dictaphone. This morning, I threw the dictaphone at my secretary. She has typed up the following memo, which focuses on how the tracks should be sequenced.

I hope you appreciate my feedback. In the meantime, I'll invoice you for my efforts.

Sincerely,

A Mean Salmon

A Mean Salmon

Scandinavia, The Gods

1. TRENDING

A smooth and lively song with a contemporary edge, and this makes it a perfect opener. The DIY vocal effect in the chorus is gonna make you famous.

2. I DON’T DO DRUGS (I JUST HAVE FUN)

A party classic whose upbeat tempo and funky keys continue the vibe of 'Trending' but ratchet things up a notch or two. This will be a hit at all drug parties.

I don't do drugs, I just make cheese

3. THE QUEEN ENTRANCED BY ANCIENT PRAYER BOOK

This is one of the standout tracks on the album, combining a classic 'Good Living' sound with an even sharper use of arrangement. It is the song I'd give the girl who's got it all. I think it follows 'Drugs' well with its fruity backups, but it also introduces a new sombre note, which might serve as an effective bridge into the less overtly happy material to follow.

That said, the outro is too long. It is expertly paced on its own terms, but its length does risk relegating the track to late on in the album, which would be a real pity given how strong the actual songwriting component of the track is. If you wanna do yourself a favour, you’re gonna want to shorten it so that it can be brought forward without disrupting the pace of the album.

4. WHAT CAN YOU GIVE A GIRL WHO'S GOT IT ALL?

With a shorter outro 'The Queen' would flow smoothly into ‘The Girl Who’s Got It All'. The guest vocals immediately help signify a change a gear, and the steady 1980s sound and melody carry the listener through to a plateau that has been prepared for in the preceding tracks. This is where things start to get real.

5. SAN PELLEGRINO

The immediate use of piano and drums here lull the listener into thinking that everything is back to normal, but the first signs of dissonance on the guitar set the scene for the eventual reversal in both lyrical and musical content. You like your holiday and your pesto pasta, but you're coming home...

San Pellegrino

6. BODIES

This is one of the more sensitive songs on the album, and I think it follows well from the admission about holidays and good living that emerges in 'San Pellegrino'.

7. FRACTIONS

My first impression was that this was a stodgy and ugly piece of shit. I also wondered why the vocals were so bellowy. Was it a conceptual experiment? Kill the artist. Anyway, I eventually found myself humming the chorus, so the songwriting is actually good. I have positioned it here because the harmonica gives us a way into the harder material.

8. SHED A FEW LAYERS

A real winner, combining speed, snarl, and smart take on the ritualistic release of rock club revelry. A million bucks. A day.

9. HOW WE USE OUR BRAND

I don't understand this song. The melodies are really good in parts (such as the choruses, where 'it's all a waste of time'), but it doesn't really hang together. It is just too disjointed in every possible way. Again, maybe it is meant to be a high concept thing, but I wouldn't turn this into a movie.

How we use our family brand

10. CROATIAN T-SHIRTS

A weird but good one ... I see splashes of melody and harmony periodically blinding an uneasy and threatening donkey.

11. POPULAR LITTLE STREET

This street will never be popular.

12. SAN PELLEGRINO (REPRISE)

A good movie ends with an image that remains like a splinter in the mind of viewer. You have to stab them in the ear.

Scandinavia DJs Mark Damian arrested in lover's tiff

Pioneering - white rasta

Hotly tipped DJ duo, Mark Damian - pioneers of the 'white rasta' sound - have been arrested at the beat laboratory they share in Brixton, south London, after neighbours reported hearing 'disturbing sounds'. It's been long-rumoured that Mark Damian's macho swagger is a carefully crafted image that hides a tempestuous love affair, and insiders claim that the most recent disturbance is simply the latest in a recurring drama. 'They're passionate - about their music and each other' claims a local Brixton grime artist who asked to remain anonymous. 'Unfortunately, I think the stress they're both under has put a serious strain on their professional and personal relationships'. 

Officers first at the scene described a 'terrific racket', and called back-up before entering. 'They couldn't hear us knocking' said Constable Don Dante, 'so we had to break the door down. It was heavy wood and it took us around 20 minutes, and the whole time we had to put up with this awful sound'. However, Sergeant John Humphries dismisses the notion that the police struggled to control the situation. 'Some of the younger lads were a bit tense, but it was just a bit of Peter Gabriel'. He chuckles, 'personally, I don't mind listening to 'So' over and over again, but for the guys who were expecting to hear old Bob Marley Peel sessions bursting from the stereo it was bewildering'. 

Upon entering, officers found the place in disarray. A semi-nude Mark screamed 'I'm the workhorse in this partnership!' when he caught sight of the police, while a 'very stoned' Damian giggled and changed the record to Chris De Burgh's 'The Getaway' before he was disarmed and handcuffed by starstruck young beat cops. Mark was harder to pin down, though he reportedly enjoyed the tussle with the well-trained officers.

'Semi nude' - Mark

PR guru Max Clifford issued a brief, baffling statement on behalf of his clients. 'Mark Damian battle it out on Jah's spiritual plane, old versus new, young versus old, Junior vs Jr Junior. Think Yoda and Luke. Old wisdom love up-to-date dancehall; young gun represent old school roots and reggae. Who wins? Jah will decide'.

'Very stoned' - Damian

In search of a new Zion

Intense competition has always been at the heart of hip hop, a musical genre dominated by quick-thinking lyrical 'MCs' and DJs who create sonic soundscapes using a more scientific approach. Mark Damian's genius, commentators claim, is that they're polar opposites. Mark, 31 - real name Jardine McCafferty - is the trendspotter who saw an opportunity for a white, greying rasta to bring on-trend ragga and bashment to new audiences. He famously discovered Damian, 30 - real name Alexander Harniess - in a ramshackle rasta club and partnered with the irascible and volatile disc jockey, whose eclectic taste in blazed-up Kingston dub provides historical substance to Mark's cutting edge ridims. 

A new Zion

There was instant chemistry - and attraction. 'They're soulmates', record label boss Dillon James posits. Always the more religious of the two, Mark was motivated by a higher power. 'Mark wanted to be a kind of evangelical Tim Westwood for the next generation' says James. 'It was all about the search for a "new Zion". Damian's a lot more hedonistic. His Zion has always been the hydroponic skunk'. For awhile, the ying yang worked. Hip Hop historian Miss Belle Bondurant has written extensively on the dualities of homophobia and homoeroticism in UK hip hop. 'We've seen, time after time, this initial sparring that produces remarkable artistry, but results in mixed emotions and ends with recriminations. At first, it's a simple flirtation, and the men involved are protected by codes of ritual homophobia on which they can rely to dispel rumours of anything their culture would construe as taboo. Paradoxically, their work is a totem. Others worship it, but there's now this hard evidence of a burgeoning relationship. The rumours start. The artistic creation is taken as a symbol of a relationship that has been consummated improperly'. 

A blaze of justice

Indeed, recriminations abound. Taking to twitter, Mark's accused Damian of having 'all the gear, and no idea'. In response to questions about their relationship in the wake of their arrest, Mark said simply 'urgh, Damian's so tiresome'. Damian, for his part, has been uncharacteristically philosophical. 'I'm the better DJ. We all know that' he said in a recent interview, that took place in his cat-shit infested garden in Kingston (south west London). 'Mark's rhymes are grammatically weak but amusing. We have our differences, but we're so solid'. He rejected claims that his drug usage had led to a breakdown in their relationship. 'These daze, I don't blaze. I prefer high-end Cuban cigars' he says.

Scandinavia show will go ahead

In the immediate aftermath of the arrest, the blogosphere was buzzing with rumours that Mark Damian wouldn't be able to perform at the Scandinavia Summer Ball. Scandinavia's charismatic lead singer, Nadim Samman, 29, laughs it off. 'They'll be there, no worries. [Mark Damian's] partnership is, like the chemistry in Scandinavia, a fraught one. But that is why we believe they are the right choice to compere our Summer Ball, and we are very, very excited about the tunes they'll be spinning'.

Catch Mark Damian's exclusive DJ set at the Scandinavia Summer Ball 2012 on Saturday 16 June. 

QWicked! Scandinavia unveil new web phenomenon

Scandinavia announced their first foray into social networking today, with their Qwicked site set to go live in early September.


'Obvious choice'

'We wanted to create a streamlined solution for today's world', Warrick enthuses. 'People have been frustrated for a while now by twitter's verbosity. There just isn't time to read tweets, let alone write them, so Qwicked's one-word posting system is truly emancipatory.' Qwicked users will be given 12 characters to play with per 'Qwix' update, though there are no limits to the number of updates permitted in a 24-hour period.


'Streamlined solution'

'It's very lean', said Tom thoughtfully. 'You can say a hell of a lot with a single word - we're removing that temptation to use unnecessary bumph.'

'Removing unnecessary bumph'

Commenting on the cheekily iconic appropriation of the logo from the musical 'Wicked', Chief Brand Architect Tibor claims it was an obvious choice. 'The Wizard of Oz is a classic tale, a simple allegory with a moral depth and emotional resonance that just wows you. Winnie Holzman took all of that and just went...' He pauses, letting the weight of the unspoken word sink in. 'The letter Q is so unique, and adding it to the front of 'Wicked' was a no-brainer for me'. With typical modesty, the former drummer blushes and quietly chuckles that 'Coming up with the term 'Qwicked' got me my promotion'.


Promoted

The band say they have most of the functionality pegged, and a number of high profile celebrities including Scarlett Johannson, Kanye West and hipster grandee Tim Burgess of The Charlatans are currently taking part in a trial run. 'It's so easy to Qwix!' enthused Burgess on Saturday. 'Twitter is toast. It was a real bind having to think up 140 characters every time I needed some attention. With Qwicked I don't even have to think up any! I've got through the first week using only the drop-down menu. I'd go as far as to say I'm a natural Qwixter.'


Channelling Spector - Burgess

'What I'm really excited about is the AutoQwixt app' said West, referring to the predictive algorithm that will update a user's page every two hours based on aggregate Qwixes from the previous month. 'My life is basically about parties, so to that extent it's fairly patterned. It's great to have a solution that can take the responsibility of communicating with my fans from my shoulders. I'm behind this site 100% and I think the guys from The Scandinavia (sic) have done really well.'


AutoQwixt works

Charismatic Scandinavia frontman Nadim Samman has also been testing the waters, Qwixing five times a day. 'It gets straight to the heart of the matter. For example, yesterday morning I was eating Breakfast and it took me all of three seconds to post 'Breakfast' to my Qwicked profile. 'Who cares what I was eating? Fandinavians want the essentials'. Asked whether exploring entrepreneurial avenues was a distraction from music-making, Samman was expansive. 'I know people see me as a singer, but I look at it differently. I'm CEO of a burgeoning multinational. We need to diversify with the times and remain at the heart of efforts to make sense of the world we live in.'

Breakfast for Samman

'Quiet while I Qwix'

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. 

Arrogant Samman insists 'it's my band'

Scandinavia are at breaking point a source reveals.

'Easily manipulated' - Samman is under Neville's spell

Filmmaker Ted Byron Baybutt, 32, has lifted the lid on the infighting that is tearing Scandinavia apart. Just days into a recording session in Lamberhurst, Kent, relationships are at breaking point – with guitarist Warrick Harniess, 32, increasingly isolated. Baybutt suggests that the recent presence of guest musician Tim Neville, 29, is acting as a destabilizing force, with a new power alliance emerging between him and charismatic frontman Nadim Samman, 29. ‘It’s been brewing for a couple of days’ said Baybutt, who is filming for a forthcoming documentary of the band.

Love Nest

After a night out at the Brown Trout, a gastro pub favoured by fellow guitar innovator Jeff Beck, Harniess decamped to a love nest in a neighbouring village with a paramour, much to the dismay of his fellow Scandinavians. ‘It was like he didn’t care, really shocking’ said Baybutt. Neville, a recent addition to Scandinavia’s bloated entourage, cajoled the rest of the band into returning to the studio for a late night jam session.  ‘They sounded incredible together’, said Baybutt. ‘It was stripped right back to the essentials, nothing laboured at all’. Some reports have put Harniess’ increasing eccentric contributions at the heart of discord, with Samman impatient with the subtleties of 'world' music. Baybutt also reports that Neville has been pitching a brace of songs in the Scandinavia mold to Samman and erstwhile keyboardist Thomas Parkinson, 31. ‘I don’t know if they’ll make the album this time round, but the guys seemed impressed. There’s no denying his talent.’

Loggerheads

The two adversaries were on the verge of blows on Sunday morning when Harniess returned to the studio to find Neville rerecording his guitar parts at Samman’s behest.

'Eccentric'

Baybutt self-portrait

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.

New Scandinavia album

On Thursday we're decamping to a barn in Kent to record eleven new Scandinavia songs, almost a year to the day since we recorded 'Good Living'.

We've spent the past year travelling around the globe, listening to talented world musicians, trying to find some inspiration. Nadim went to Morocco for an art show. Tom went to Turkey and got a job. Tibor went to his native Hungary and bought some percussion. I went to Croatia and discovered my inner European.

Yep, we're going Ry Cooder with this one; whether it works or not is another thing altogether - indeed, it's all part of the fun.

Album launch - save the date!

We're putting on a show at the Wilmington Arms on Saturday 16 June. It'll be similar to last year - Scandinavian aperitifs and hors d'oeuvres, and a copy of the album via download. We'll post more details about that soon.

Artwork

That's the proposed front cover above. Nadim is working on a watercolour that might prove a last minute challenger. I'd like to get this cow picture in there somewhere. If you've seen any choice photos we could steal from instagram or pinterest, send them through.


Album title

The jury's still out on this one. We briefly considered Chandler Bing, but everyone we told about that recoiled in horror, so we've scrapped it (although we're hoping to write a tribute to our favourite Friend in the near future). 'The Gods' is the current frontrunner.



Songs

In no particular order the song titles are:

1. Croatian t-shirts
2. What can you give a girl who's got it all?
3. Trending
4. I don't do drugs (I just have fun)
5. Shed a few layers
6. San Pelligrino
7. San Pelligrino (reprise)
8. Bodies
9. Fractions
10. The Queen entranced by ancient prayer book
11. How we use our brand
12. Popular little street

Finally, Scandinavia is an enlightened democracy - what do you think of the artwork, album titles, song titles etc??