The Danish indie rock band The Kissaway Trail is ready for SPOT. Tracks from the band’s new album “Sleep Mountain” are likely to feature prominently in the set list. The album was released in March and has received impressive reviews both in Denmark and abroad.  Furthermore, the band should be in shape for SPOT: They return home after having first played at the South By SouthWest Festival in Austin, Texas and subsequently toured  extensively in the US and Canada.

Young Nick Eriksen, who uses EIm Ick as his nom de guerre when he creates his minimalist techno, has also been confirmed for SPOT, and thus he joins the long list of SPOT newcomers, to which The River Phoenix has also been added. The latter belongs in the alternative rock department.   

Nordic Acts
As usual SPOT has many acts from the other Nordic countries. From Norway there is Susanne Sundfør, whose latest gig at SPOT was back in 2007. The Norwegian singer has recently released the album “The Brothel”, which went straight to the number one spot on the Norwegian sales chart after just one week. 

There are other Nordic women at SPOT – for instance First Aid Kit which consists of the two Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg. The music is folk and the sisters are still teenagers! They have been making music since Klara got a guitar when she was thirteen. Their debut album was released in January and the duo has been on a European tour and in March they played at South By SouthWest.

Finnish music is worth keeping an eye on as the following three acts make abundantly clear. Shogun Kunitoki is an instrumental quartet that mixes post rock and electronica. I Was a Teenage Satan Worshipper plays electro pop, while Underwater Sleeping Society is likely to blow you away with their unique, psychedelic indie rock. 

Nordic Co-writers
The Nordic dimension is also prominent at the Nordic Co-writers workshop.  For the last many years this workshop has brought together Nordic songwriters at Engelsholm Castle in the week leading up to the SPOT Festival. This year the participants will be joined by four American songwriters, who together with eight Nordic talents are going to work on new songs for a concert at SPOT on Friday 21st May. The ambition is 20 new songs!

The 12 songwriters at Nordic Cowriters 2010 are:
Troy Campbell (US), Matt The Electrician (US), Scrappy Jud Newcomb (US), Danny Malone (US), Anna Bell (DK), Therese Aune (NO), Johann Kristinsson (IS), Lara Runars (IS), Brandur Enni (FO), Elin Ruth Sigvardsson (S), Ida Wenøe Bach (DK) and Vibeke Falden (DK).

Middle-Eastern Tones
In collaboration with the venue Musikcaféen [REAL] SPOT also presents a number of artists whose music has ethnic roots: for instance Li Dinê with their Kurdish background. The group has created its own genre, which they call Hemereng, which roughly translated means “all colors in one”. They mix Kurdish scales and rhythms with equal shares of r&b, rap, pop, house and rock.   

Furthermore, there is Turkish party music with GRUP2000 as well as Middle-Eastern music – both pop and traditional music from Houssam Zamzam and Simona Abdallah. The latter is one of very few women with Arabic backgrounds who play the darbuka, because that drum is normally reserved for men.

Indieband Murder here seen playing at SPOT On Denmark in Bruxelles last year

International showcase collaboration
Finally three record companies have joined forces to present a special showcase. Danish Good Tape Records, English Brainlove Records and Icelandic Kimi Records will each present one act for the 90-minute showcase – including the biggest band at the festival, Benni Hemm Hemm, when it comes to members of the band: 300 at the most extreme gigs. In Aarhus the number will be between 3 and 40! As for the genre it is indie and on the coming EP “Retaliate” there are songs about knives, gold and bloodthirsty vampires.
The other acts at the showcase are Murder, whose sound is predominantly acoustic, and English Mat Riviere with his alternative pop.