This month, we have new music that includes releases from two excellent Norwegian bands and an Anglo-German duet, among others, along with a look at some upcoming festivals in Continental Europe.
One of the things I like about many of the americana-influenced bands in continental Europe is their increasing willingness to try to do things differently. I think there’s just that bit more enthusiasm for stepping away from the americana template and imagining where a new approach might take them.
A good example of this is Norwegian band Himmelskip. The four members met at the Norwegian Academy of Music and decided it might be fun to combine americana, jazz, Nordic folk music, rock and dub influences to create cinematic music: soundtracks to imaginary movies that conjure up images of prairies, mountainous farmland, and transcontinental railroads. The band’s name translates as ‘Skyship’, and they certainly take your imagination on a journey with their new instrumental single, ‘Reven’. We have a clip of them playing this live, and it’s well worth waiting through the setup shots at the head of the clip to get to some amazing music and a very different take on americana.
Also taking a different approach is the new single from Tobias Panwitz and Jason McNiff, ‘Impossible to Love’. This came out at the beginning of the month and has already been mentioned by our esteemed editor and featured in his Something for the Weekend spot a couple of weeks ago. But what Mark didn’t mention is that this is a duet in two different languages, with Jason singing in English and Tobias in his native German. The song tells the story of two people who are emotionally close yet unable to truly understand each other, both linguistically and emotionally. With the song being sung in both English and German, the bilingual duet mirrors the protagonists’ communication problems and emotional disconnect. It’s a clever approach that works surprisingly well. Tobias, who has recorded several americana albums in English, recently released his first German-language americana album, and it’s interesting to hear how good these songs sound in Tobias’ native language. You can listen to ‘Impossible to Love‘ in Mark’s original post here.
Back to Norway for our next look at some new music, and we have news of an upcoming album release from Norwegian independent americana band, Licking The Moose. This band are quite well established on the home front, releasing their first album, “Broken Songs of Loneliness“, back in 2007, but they deserve to be heard by a wider audience, and perhaps their fifth album, “Songs From the Valley of the Nearly Dead“, due to drop in September, will be the one to attract a more international audience. Certainly, the first single from the album, ‘My Woman‘, has the ability to make audiences take notice. It starts with a really great bass line and a solid, muscular groove before launching into a fine slice of Southern rock with a little country soul for good measure. This track was released at the beginning of the month, and a second single will be released tomorrow (30th May), ‘No Son Of Abraham‘. There are a couple more single releases planned ahead of the album release in the Autumn. The band hails from the “cold, deep, dark woods of southeast Norway” around the town of Halden, and their music is a mix of country, rock, and rockabilly, with nods to gospel and country soul thrown in. They claim to be mainly influenced by country greats such as Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Kris Kristofferson, but there’s some real originality in the music they’re creating, and we look forward to the new album with some anticipation. They’ve been favourably reviewed here at AUK in the past, and this new album, the follow-up to 2023’s “Hangover Gospel“, promises good things. We’ll keep you posted on this one.
We have new music from Berlin-based Yonder Boys, a trio made up of musicians from Australia, Chile, and the USA. They’ve featured on Americana UK pages before, with David Jarman giving a favourable review to their debut album “Acid Folk” back in 2021, and now they’re back with not one, but two single releases. ‘Love to Come Home‘, which they describe as a “bluegrassy ode to Palestine”, was released on the 16th May, and, as a trailer to their next album, they’re releasing ‘Makeshift Family‘ on the 6th June. The new album, titled “A Makeshift Family” (we see what they did there), is another one currently scheduled for a September release; we hope to have more information about that nearer to the release date.
We also have news of an interesting posthumous release from the Swedish singer-songwriter and poet Thorstein Bergman. Bergman, who recorded his first album back in 1966 and released over twenty albums in a career that spanned six decades, died in Stockholm in 2022. Now, Sweden’s Comedia Records have released an EP of four Hank Williams tracks recorded by Bergman early in his career. The four tracks are ‘I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive’, ‘Lonesome Whistle’, ‘Honky Tonk Blues’ and ‘Long Gone Lonesome Blues’. Four classic Hank Williams songs and Bergman, whose voice seems particularly well suited to these songs, does a first-class job of delivering a simple, no-frills version of each, as you can hear in the example we have for you in our tracks below.
Finally, for this month’s article, if you’re going to be travelling around continental Europe this summer, you might want to check out some of these upcoming festivals.
First up, we have Roots in the Jar, taking place near Gent in Belgium (full details of how to get to the Farm where the festival is being held are on the website here.). This festival would appear to have connections with the Muddy Roots festival in the USA and the Rustic Stomp festival in the UK. Roots in the Jar started life as an online festival during the pandemic but has now established itself as a live event drawing artists from all over the world. This year’s roster includes Jenny Don’t and the Spurs and the Heathen Apostles from the USA, Dan German and Revolutionaires from the UK and a host of Dutch artists, including Moonshine Brigade, The Oldtime Stringband, Renegade Bandits and many more. There are also musicians from France, Spain, Brazil, Canada, even Argentina! The full lineup for each of the days can be seen on the website, along with site maps and all ticketing information. Roots in the Jar runs from June 6th through to the 9th.
Here in France, we see the return of the Mirande Country & Rock Festival, which will run from the 11th to the 14th of July in Mirande, in the Gers department of southwestern France. This festival used to be one of the largest country music festivals in Europe, but it was badly affected by the pandemic years, and this is its first year back after a period of absence. One of this column’s favourite artists, Martha Fields, will be playing on the Saturday, which also features American country singer Danni Leigh. Other artists include The Dusty Old Boys and Redneck Roots Band. The full lineup for all four days and all details of the festival can be found on the website.
Next up, we’re heading to Italy for the Chiari Music Festival, being held on the 12th & 13th of July. In keeping with Italy’s reputation as a centre for old-school alt-country, headliners are Nick Lowe and Danielle Nicole on the Saturday and Joachim Cooder and Taureg singer-songwriter Bombino on the Sunday. Our good friends Satellite Inn, with Stiv Cantarelli, are also appearing on the Sunday, which looks like being one of the picks of the festival days this summer. Full details are on the Facebook page for the event.
Finally, if you’d like something further north, how about Finland’s Haywater Country Music Festival, happening on the 25th & 26th of July. It takes place just outside Karvio, a beautiful location to the north of Helsinki. Uncle Lucius is the big name at this festival, with Cat Clyde and Clayton Nile Young also appearing, along with the cream of Finland’s home-grown country and roots artists, including Iron Country Sisters, who featured in our Continental Shift series. Details are, of course, on the website.
As ever, we’re Keeping it Continental. If you are an americana influenced artist operating out of mainland Europe and have new music or a tour to promote, let us know. This column goes out on the last Thursday of the month throughout the year.
