Harrys Gym Release New Album ‘What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours’ 7th February + Announce UK Tour
aaamusic | On 12, Jan 2011
“We really don’t have enough music that sounds like blowing dandelions into the wind or flying a kite on an empty beach.” – RCRD LBL“a bruising, sonic squall of an affair’ and that ‘dramatic dark pop is the order of the day, equal parts delicate and muscular.” – Drowned In Sound Norwegian dream pop four-piece Harrys Gym have announced details of their second album plus a full UK tour. ‘What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours’ will be released on the 7th February on new Oslo-based label Splendour in the UK and mainland Europe. This is preceded by new single ‘Old Man’, out on limited edition 7” and download on the 24th January through the venerable Sonic Cathedral. Full details of the UK and European dates are below, hear ‘Old Man’ streamed here. Blending beguiling pop with ethereal sounds, Harrys Gym create epic, glacial and distinctly Nordic soundscapes guided by vocalist/songwriter Anne Lise Frøkedal’s hauntingly beautiful vocals. On the back of their self-titled debut album (which was released in May 2010 on Norwegian label Hype City) the band earned a New Band Of The Day feature in Guardian and heaped praise from the likes of Drowned in Sound, Uncut and Music Week amongst others. It also saw Harrys Gym subsequently sign to major label Universal in Norway for their follow up – quite an achievement for a “difficult” pop band. Harrys Gym toured the album in the UK, including a performance at the tastemaker festival Standon Calling, where Clash wrote this review: “Harrys Gym… possess an elegance that betrays their… name and conjures the kind of hypnotic, billowing, electro-rock, it seems only Scandinavians can”. In addition Harrys Gym managed to captivate audiences at festivals such as Øya, Roskilde, Eurosonic, Great Escape, Iceland Airwaves and Culture Collide in Los Angeles. For their follow-up, they chose to work with up-and-coming British producer James Rutledge. Rutledge and Anne Lise Frøkedal bonded at once over the phone from Oslo to London, where they discussed Vashti Bunyan, folk music and the crossover between programming and running naked in the forest. Not to mention a shared fondness for salty licorice. Rutledge sent a Spotify playlist to the band to give an idea of where he thought the music was heading. This included names such as Brian Eno, Atlas Sound and MGMT, which was enough to convince Frøkedal and the other members that they definitely should book him a ticket to snowy Oslo to begin recording. Together they spent hours sending ideas back and forth from Oslo to London. Then James headed over to Harrys Gym´s own studio where they laid down the majority of the tracks before going to London to mix the material in the psychedelic atmosphere of Strongroom Studios, where the mixes were put down by Jimmy Robertson (Big Pink, Florence & The Machine, Klaxons). Frøkedal said this about the recording process: “It was nice and refreshing to have so many ideas in the room all of the time and to have James somewhat become a fifth member of the band”. http://harrys-gym.comwww.splendour.noHarrys Gym live dates: UK Europe |
