Newsletter #05

SOPA Newsletter # 05 - March 7, 2007: Reviews + shopping + gigs in Barcelona, Udine & Berlin!

::::::::::::::: SOUND OF PERPETUAL ASTONISHMENT :::::::::::::::

Hi!

Welcome to the fifth SOPA Newsletter.

People have started ordering cds via the website, some were reviewed and MARZIPAN MARZIPAN has got shows going on all over the place. Yeah, feeling good!

Denmark's best radio show, P2 Radium on Danish national radio, played a couple of MARZIPAN MARZIPAN tunes and had these nice things to say:

"In reality you don't really need more than an Italian 60s guitar, a loop-pedal and a toy keyboard. Definitely not if you have Zelda Panda's musicality. (...) She calls herself Marzipan Marzipan. And is also the title of her new outstanding album. It's an album that seems inspired by Berlin's chilly sensuous and cool lyrical do-it-yourself songwriter style of artists such as Masha Qrella and Barbara Morgenstern. But as Marzipan Marzipan Zelda Panda has her very own personal and quite sensual twist."

Denmark's biggest music magazine Gaffa - which is quite oriented towards the mainstream - even reviewed the two SOPA cds. All things concidered these are actually great words to get from them...

On MARZIPAN MARZIPAN:
"Italian multiartist Zelda Panda (what a fantastic name!) throws herself headlong out in deep waters only equipped with a out-of-tune guitar, toykeyboard and the amateur musician's inresistable drive. (...) There is definitely potential in her sensual voice, naive rhythm box and guitarbased melodies, which in the records best moments leads the thoughts towards the clattering indietronica of Casiotone For Painfully Alone. This is especially caused by her fine lyrics about life's, and especially love's, ups and downs. Tracks like the duet Ecke, where she gets help from fellow Italian Marco Brosolo's Cohen-ish voice, deserves a wider audience."

On NILS GRÖNDAHL:
“With saw, violin and effect-pedals he is an important part of that which makes Under Byen special. In the orchestra Gröndahl is like a pendulum between courting and grating your ears, and so it also goes on his solo effort - which earlier served as the soundtrack for an art exhibition. And it definitely demands more than an FM-radio listener's ear to get something out of the 26 minutes, which mostly consists of monotone grumbling and icebursts of glacial high pitch tones. We are as far from the median strip of the highway of music as it is possible.”

We'll will hopefully be able to quote some more reviews in the next newsletter.

Right, on we go...

MARZIPAN MARZIPAN just played two gigs in Italy and there is one more left there. That's at No Fun in Udine this Friday, March 9th. Next month she plays her first gig in Spain - or more precisely in Catalonia. In lovely Barcelona no less! That's at Heliogàbal on April 26th. Before going she'll do at gig in Berlin at Wallowoods on April 19th.

CAPT. DAYDREAM is doing another DJ set in Næstved, Denmark, this week. That's Saturday, March 10th, supporting Danish-Irish punk/mathrock band Imagine I Had Hands.

NILS GRÖNDAHL is touring the United States and Canada right now with his amazing band Under Byen. Lots of shows at great venues. If you live somewhere in North America be sure to check their tour schedule:
www.underbyen.dk/concerts.htm

If you live in Berlin or Copenhagen wanting to get your hands on the two first SOPA cds go to these shops:
- Dense, Danziger Str. 16, 10435 Berlin (www.dense-shop.de).
- Irma Victoria, Borups Allé 33, Copenhagen.

A live video of MARZIPAN MARZIPAN performing "The Happy Blues" at the Frem & Forstærket II festival in Aarhus has been put online. You can see it at www.myspace.com/marzipanmarzipan and www.sopa.dk/menu/media.htm.

In the next few months SOPA hopes to get releases out by A.K. HANSN and GIRLS LOVE RALLIE. Let's see what happens. Also a compilation of sorts is in the works, but let's keep the lit on that one for now, he-he.

And then a few less SOPA-related bursts about friends from around the world...

Morningside Records has got the new album out by magnificent rock band Speaker Bite Me on vinyl this week. The cd comes two weeks later. Be sure to check it out. Have a listen at www.morningsiderecords.dk and www.myspace.com/speakerbiteme.

Endemik Music has the new album by Bleubird out. It's called "RIP U$A" and it's superb. Inventive hip-hop as it should be. If you're in Scandinavia get it through www.dotshop.se. Elsewhere in Europe you might wanna try www.normanrecords.com. Otherwise go directly to the source: www.endemikmusic.com. Vinyl version is out on www.hecticrecs.com. Listen to the "rip snippets" at www.myspace.com/bleubird and check out the videos there.

Kirsten Ketsjer The Rock Band of the lovely Yoyooyoy collective has just released their new album "Ffffoo K Tsscch" which is just the right fix for the coming spring. For some extra fun also check out the other Yoyooyoy releases "Mads Vestrup's sang i munden på hinanden" by Kalle Del Hey and "Guldtrompeten" by Frisk Frugt. Satisfy your curiousity at www.yoyooyoy.dk and put a smile on your lips.

Yeah, y'know, gotta spread the word, right? Hope you don't mind. These folks are the most lovely people too. Go dig! ;-)

SOPA LIVE CALENDAR

Mar 9

Marzipan Marzipan
No Fun
Udine
Italy

Mar 10
Capt. Daydream (DJ set supporting Imagine I Had Hands)
Studenternes Hus
Næstved
Denmark

Apr 19
Marzipan Marzipan
Wallywoods
Berlin
Germany

Apr 26
Marzipan Marzipan
Heliogàbal
Barcelona
Spain/Catalonia

Take care, folks!

Spring(s) eternal,

Capt. Daydream