The (International) Noise Conspiracy

Juliette Lewis, Annie, Fiery Furnaces Bring The Heat To Iceland

24 Oct 2005 05:24:00 EDT

Iceland Airwaves festival also featured Zutons, Junior Senior this year.
By Alyssa Rashbaum

Annie performs at the Icelandic Airwaves Festival
Photo: MTV News

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland — For 360 days a year, Iceland is home to just 290,000 people, three massive glaciers and legions of Björk fans, but for five days each year, the capital city opens its indie-rock heart for the über-hip Iceland Airwaves music festival.

For its seventh-annual incarnation, which ended Sunday, Iceland Airwaves heated up the chilly city with a sultry new theme: the pursuit of sexiness. Most of the more than 140 bands that played this year — including Juliette and the Licks, Fiery Furnaces, Junior Senior, the (International) Noise Conspiracy and the Zutons — eagerly embraced that theme with electric live shows that packed around 4,000 people into six main venues and a series of smaller clubs.

For five days, bands mingled with fans and the press while watching underground acts, enjoying a drink and grabbing the late-night Icelandic "delicacy," pylsurs (a.k.a. hot dogs). Airwaves is beloved for its late-night shows (some bands don't take the stage until 2:30 a.m.) and an intimate atmosphere that allows fans to race past Björk on their way into a club, or chat up Juliette Lewis at the Saturday afternoon "hangover party."

Denmark's Junior Senior were fixtures at the festival, showing up at different venues every night. During their own set, the pair got the packed room moving with songs like their 2003 hit, "Move Your Feet." The previous evening, platinum-tressed Norwegian dance-club sensation Annie, known for her sugary hit "Chewing Gum," donned an '80s-inspired off-the-shoulder top and stretch pants to perform tracks off her 2004 debut, Anniemal.

Juliette and the Licks headlined on Friday evening, with Lewis — clad in a skin-tight white shirt and equally clingy white pants — piquing the crowd's excitement with her thrashing, Iggy Pop-inspired movements and crowd-surfing stints. The Zutons' diminutive saxophonist, Abi Harding, gave Lewis some stiff competition in the category of favorite female musician, though, captivating the audience at the Reykjavík Art Museum (formerly a prison).

Icelandic acts like the keyboard-happy Apparat Organ Quartet, rockers Singapore Sling, and Gus Gus (who played the very first Airwaves festival), shone. Brooklyn's underground success story Clap Your Hands Say Yeah drew one of the festival's biggest crowds with lines wrapping around the city's central square, while fellow Brooklynites New Radio, who've yet to appear on the radar Stateside, made a roomful of new fans with their alternately sweet and rocking cello-driven sound and singer Atarah Valentine's androgynous cabaret-inspired style.

An opportunity for Iceland to make its mark on the musical map, the Airwaves festival kicked off in 1999 at an airplane hangar, with acid jazz/ dance-music group Thievery Corporation as one of the featured performers. In its early years, the festival functioned as more of an industry showcase but has since become a way to introduce Icelandic bands to the world, and international bands to Icelanders.

The festival has drawn acts like the Bravery, the Hives, the Flaming Lips, Keane, the Shins, Sahara Hotnights, TV on the Radio, Fatboy Slim and Citizen Cope to the country's most densely populated city (about 170,000 people live there).

The main event that sets Iceland Airwaves apart from all other underground music festivals is its annual hangover party, which finds fans and artists leaving the confines of the city to lounge in the country's famous Blue Lagoon — a warm, milky-blue geothermal pool — and listen to a set by Icelandic DJ Hermigervill. Try finding that at New York's CMJ Music Marathon.

For more sights and stories from concerts around the country, check out MTV News Tour Reports.

Related Photos

Icelandic Airwaves Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland 10.19-23.05

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(International) Noise Conspiracy Prefer Armed Love To Hippie Love

30 Aug 2005 07:58:00 EDT

Rick Rubin-sponsored Swedes hoping to spark a revolution with new album.
By Corey Moss

The (International) Noise Conspiracy's Dennis Lyxzén
Photo: MTV News

SAN DIEGO — A few years ago Dennis Lyxzén, singer for the (International) Noise Conspiracy, received the e-mail most musicians dream about.

"Rick Rubin saw us on our first U.S. tour, and he liked it, and then he sent me an e-mail literally saying, 'Hi, this is Rick Rubin, can I do your next record?' " Lyxzén recalled. "I didn't even ask the other guys in the band. I was like, 'Yes, you can!' "

Lyxzén is a longtime Rubin admirer — "Slayer's Reign in Blood is one of the few metal records that I still listen to on a weekly basis," he said — which made the experience of collaborating with the veteran producer all the more overwhelming (see "Rick Rubin's 'To Do' List: Audioslave, Peppers, System, Cash").

"It was crazy because we're this little punk band from the north of Sweden, and we come in and he's just finishing up the Slipknot record and he's just about to start a new Weezer record, and I'm like, 'What am I doing here?' " Lyxzén said. "But it was a great experience, and I hope we get to do it again soon."

The (International) Noise Conspiracy actually recorded the album 18 months ago but ran into record label problems in the U.S. upon completion. Rubin intervened again, signing the band to his American Recordings. The album, titled Armed Love, is now due October 4 in the States.

"We started this band almost seven years ago. We come from working-class backgrounds, political backgrounds, and we want to talk about politics in a way that's inspiring and sexy and entertaining actually," Lyxzén said, expanding on the album title. "A lot of bands that talk about politics, they [have a] bleak, dysphoric vision of the future, and we want to kind of switch that around. I read a quote from Che Guevara saying, 'Every true revolution is driven by love.' And I think it's a great thing, 'cause it's easy to hate stuff and it's easy to be angry and upset; it's harder to know why you're fighting, what you're fighting for. So that's why we liked it, 'cause also, we're all revolutionaries. We're not some kind of hippie reformists that believe, 'Let's all hug and things will happen.' We believe that we need to radically change the economical culture of political structures that we live under ... so Armed Love."

The follow-up to 2001's A New Morning, Changing Weather (see "(International) Noise Conspiracy On Tour And Handing Out Homework") is as political as anything T(I)NC have put to tape, but in the wake of September 11, it's also quite emotional.

"When we wrote the last record, the whole anti-globalization movement was happening," Lyxzén said. "There was protests everywhere, we traveled the world, we played protests and you could kind of feel like something was happening and revolution was in the air. Then 9/11 happened, and it was like a huge backlash on all the political movements that we were a part of. It's hard to wake up one morning and be like, 'Yeah, the revolution didn't happen.' Like, what to do now? And that inspired a lot of the new record, kind of finding the strength to carry on, and this is what we need to do."

The first single from Armed Love has yet to be decided, and won't be by the band. "I leave that to people that are not in the band because anytime anyone in the band wants to choose the single, they get self-conscious and they're like, 'I wrote that part, so I think that song should be a single,' " Lyxzén said.

Once the song is selected, however, T(I)NC will get involved in the video-making process.

"All the videos we have done have been our ideas, our concepts," Lyxzén said. "We're a very conscious band of the way we present ourselves onstage and the artwork for the record and everything like that. So every time we do videos, it's the same thing. We sit down with the director and have him make our vision come true."

T(I)NC are currently scheduling a U.S. tour to promote Armed Love. "The fall, the spring, whenever people want us to come, we'll come," Lyxzén said.

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The (International) Noise Conspiracy

Rick Rubin's 'To Do' List: Audioslave, Peppers, System, Cash

30 Mar 2004 08:39:00 EST

Plus Slipknot, Weezer, NIN, (International) Noise Conspiracy and others.
By Corey Moss

System Of A Down (file)
Photo: Per Briehagan

The occasional Andrew Dice Clay album aside, Rick Rubin tends to have a hand in producing some of the most-anticipated releases each year. In 2003 alone, he contributed to Jay-Z's The Black Album, Limp Bizkit's comeback attempt Results May Vary, two Johnny Cash albums and Joe Strummer's swan song, among others.

As impressive as his résumé already is (it also includes the Beastie Boys, Tom Petty, Run-DMC, Slayer, LL Cool J, Rage Against the Machine and many others), the coming months look to be one of the producer's most prolific periods, with no less than eight albums in the pipeline.

These include two more comeback attempts, for Nine Inch Nails and Slipknot (see "Slipknot Ready To Unveil New Masks, Subliminal LP"), the fifth album from Weezer (see "Weezer's Rivers Cuomo A Wellspring Of Songs, Rick Rubin Says"), a compilation of peace songs (see "Audioslave, Chili Peppers Play For Peace On Rick Rubin Compilation"), and lots more. Here's a rundown of what else the producer has on his plate:

System of a Down

The band has been in writing mode for months and plans to go into the studio with more songs than ever before. Rubin has made frequent visits to System's rehearsal space and likes what he's heard. "It's hard to know where it's gonna end up, but I heard a lot of things that were really wild and exciting," he said.

System have been outspoken about the war in Iraq (see "New System Clip Features Cast Of Millions, Cartoon Saddam") and continue to support a movement for increased awareness of the Armenian genocide (see "System Of A Down Plan Benefit For Genocide Awareness"). Rubin expects to hear that passion in the music.

"You can't help but write about that stuff when you have such strong emotions," Rubin said. "I don't think it'll come out in an obvious way. System has a great way of taking the realities of their lives and things we see in the world and twisting them into these odd little puzzles. You don't know necessarily what they're talking about, 'cause they create this kind of surrealistic picture."

Audioslave

Chris Cornell and the former members of Rage Against the Machine are also still in the writing phase (see "Audioslave 'Surprised' By Adventurous New Songs, Morello Says"), and although Rubin hasn't heard much, he has high expectations for the band's second album.

"I get [two-way] pages from the guys on a pretty regular basis after rehearsal and they're like, 'We were good at work today, you're gonna be so excited,' so that's nice," Rubin said. "What's exciting to me about this album is, they weren't really a band when we made the last album. They had never done one show. And now they've done a lot of touring and they've really become a band. They're so much more comfortable with each other now; they got along fine before, but it was so new. The potential is off the map. I think the last album is good, but I think we could do better than that."

The Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Peppers have done some writing for their new LP but plan to buckle down after a European tour in June.

"We did some recording to get the new songs for their greatest-hits album, and that was fun," Rubin said (see "Red Hot Chili Peppers Record 15 New Tracks With Rick Rubin"). "We recorded a bunch of stuff and got our feet wet again. I don't know what the time frame's gonna be, but I look forward to making another good one with them."

Johnny Cash

Rubin plans to finish the legendary country singer's acclaimed American series with the posthumously released American V.

"Since the last album we put out, we recorded about 60 songs, and I think about 25 of them are in a state that his performance is together enough to be on an album," Rubin said. "I'll be working on those songs over the next few months and it'll probably come out at the end of the year, and that'll be his final studio album."

(International) Noise Conspiracy

Rubin has taken an executive-producer role with the Swedish rock band's major-label debut, Armed Love, due June 29 on Island Records via Rubin's American Recordings.

"It's very punk-rock, Rolling Stones-y, with a political vibe," Rubin said. "They have an incredible live show. You've gotta see it."

Dan Wilson

The latest signing to American Recordings is none other than Semisonic singer Dan Wilson. "I've never heard Semisonic, but I have a feeling this is radically different," Rubin said. "I don't think of him as the guy in Semisonic; I think of him as really a new artist."

Rubin was turned on to Wilson by Sheryl Crow and has been recording him off and on in recent months.

"I heard his music and loved it," Rubin said. "He had a lot of the album done before we met, and we've just been kind of brainstorming and finishing it off together. It's beautiful, emotional singer/songwriting. It has a real kind of timelessness and sophistication in the writing. I like every song on the album. It sounds like songs you could've heard on the radio while you were growing up, but at the same time not in any way derivative."

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Swede Devotion: Life After The Hives

15 Oct 2002 10:48:52 EDT

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For The Record: Quick News On The Strokes, Bono, Eminem, (International) Noise Conspiracy, Napster, Enya & More

3 Oct 2002 03:57:00 EDT

The Strokes
Photo: RCA

The Strokes performed a new song, tentatively titled "I Can't Win," for the first time Wednesday at the FleetBoston Pavilion, where they played with Sloan and the Realistics. The tune is among the handful of new songs that the band has been test-driving at recent gigs that are expected to appear on the follow-up to last year's Is This It. ... Swedish rockers the (International) Noise Conspiracy have been forced to pull out of the Plea for Peace Tour due to a back problem developed by drummer Ludwig, according to the group's Web site. Ludwig or "Ludde" has visited a chiropractor, an ER and an acupuncturist since developing intense muscle spasms following the band's show in Minneapolis last week. ...

The controversial saga of Shawn Fanning and his creation, the revolutionary file-sharing program Napster, will be made into a movie by MTV. Fanning, who may star as himself, is collaborating on the screenplay for the film, which is set to hit screens in 2003 or 2004. ... U2 frontman and political activist Bono has been ranked the most powerful man in music, according to a poll of music executives which will be featured in the British music magazine Q. Also featured on the list are Eminem (#3), Dr. Dre (#11), Kylie Minogue (#29), Moby (#30) and Madonna (#31). ...

New age songtress Enya is prepping an enhanced four-CD box set, Only Time - The Collection, featuring tracks from throughout her career. The set will feature "May It Be," which was recorded for the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack, hits such as "Only Time" and "Book of Days" and rare tracks such as "Isobella", "Eclipse" and "Oiche Chiun (Silent Night)," to name a few. ... The Grace EPs, a Jeff Buckley box set featuring the previously released Live From the Bataclan, the Australian promo The Grace EP, the Japanese release Last Goodbye, the Dutch promo So Real and the U.S. promo Peyote Radio Theatre, will be released November 26. The collection features 14 new tracks. ...

10.02.02

Blink-182's Mark Hoppus will appear on an episode of UPN's new supernatural series "Haunted" which is scheduled to air in November. Hoppus will guest star opposite Matthew Fox ("Party of Five") as "Tim Martin" in an episode entitled "A Three Hour Tour." ... Tweet is filming an episode of the UPN sitcom "The Parkers" this week in Los Angeles. The Southern Hummingbird will perform two songs, including the new single "Smoking Cigarettes," on the show, which will air in November. ... If you've ever wished to have Christina Aguilera on your cell phone, your prayers have been answered — LetsTalk.com is selling X-tina faceplates in a color she conjured herself called Cherry on Top. The company also gives customers the option of receiving periodic Aguilera updates. ...

Additional dates have been added to Beck's tour supporting his latest album, Sea Change. The new dates, which feature the Flaming Lips as Beck's opening act and backup band, will begin November 12 in Austin, Texas, and end November 27 in Oakland, California. ... Glassjaw were forced to postpone eight European dates due to singer Daryl Palumbo's relapse of the intestinal disorder Crohn's disease. Palumbo checked in to a hospital in France on Tuesday evening, where he will remain for a few days, and is expected to make a full recovery. Shows from October 2-12 in Germany and the U.K. are expected to be made up in December, and the band plans to continue unobstructed with its U.S. dates, scheduled for October 16 to November 29. ...

"Bands on the Run" winners Flickerstick returned to their roots in Dallas to record a live album featuring performances of songs from their debut, Welcoming Home the Astronauts, as well as new songs. The November 5 release of the album, titled Causing a Catastrophe - Live in Deep Ellum, is timed to coincide with a tour that kicks off November 1 in Fort Worth, Texas. ... Winners of Miller Genuine Draft's Blind Date contest were treated to a surprise show by Incubus in Paradise Island in the Bahamas on Tuesday. The contest, which has thus far staged 24 secret shows by the likes of Metallica, Foo Fighters and Beck, among others, since its inception in 1997, sends winners of legal drinking age to various locations for surprise shows. ... Creed will be the first band to perform on Alcatraz Island when they play for 500 contest winners at the infamous prison on October 10. VH1 will air the concert in November. ...

Dashboard Confessional have set a December 3 release date for the Unplugged album recorded for MTV2 earlier this year. Singer Chris Carraba has also posted an acoustic and a full-band version of the new song "Tonight I'll Take What I Can Get" for download on his Web site. ... At a loss for what to put in your favorite Ramones fan's stocking? We're a Happy Family, the tribute album featuring covers by Rob Zombie, Eddie Vedder and Metallica, has been pushed from its previous release date of November 12 to Christmas Eve (December 24). ... Saliva are preparing to get back into your system with the first leg of a tour that begins October 16 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and runs through November 23 in Detroit. The band will be on the road with Theory of a Deadman and Audiovent to promote its new album Back into Your System, which comes out November 12.

Andrew WK has booked a 20-city tour with Los Angeles' Flogging Molly, Chicago's Allister and Sweden's Sahara Hotnights. Boston's Lost City Angels, who include former members of Spring Heeled Jack and the Pilfers, are also on the trek, which begins October 19 in Denver and ends November 10 in Los Angeles. ... Philadelphia rappers NAAM Brigade will join Cam'ron, N.O.R.E. and Foxy Brown on the Survival of the Illest Tour, which kicks off October 10 in Atlanta. The group is promoting their just-released debut, Early in the Game.

For complete digital music coverage, check out the Digital Music Reports.

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(International) Noise Conspiracy On Tour And Handing Out Homework

8 Nov 2001 07:54:00 EST

Swedish political punks hit the road with guitars and books.
By Joe D'Angelo

The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Photo: Elin Berje/Burning Heart

In preparation for their third tour of the U.S., Sweden's (International) Noise Conspiracy have packed up the required equipment — guitars, drums, microphones, cords — as well as a few items that aren't usually among a touring band's traditional gear.

"Usually we have political and philosophical books with us for sale," explained singer Dennis Lyxzén. "There's going to be a bus following us the whole tour, with political literature of all kinds."

Unlike bands that simply encourage fans to leave a show with armfuls of T-shirts, CDs and other merchandise, the politically conscience punks want concertgoers to walk away with something more, like an alternative worldview, for one thing.

"We just try to inspire people," Lyxzén said. "Just inspire people to do something and realize that there are different ways of perceiving the world."

The anti-capitalist quintet — Lyxzén, guitarist Lars Strömberg, guitarist/organist Sara Almgren, bassist Inge Johansson and drummer Ludwig Dahlberg — will kick off their monthlong U.S. jaunt Thursday in Chicago in support of their second album, last month's A New Morning, Changing Weather, and its first single, "Capitalism Stole My Virginity."

Much like the essays, theories and other "information that might be important for the consumption of this record" found in the liner notes of its predecessor, last year's Survival Sickness, the fold-out booklet that accompanies the new album is peppered with quotations from authors and philosophers (Simone de Beauvoir, Karl Marx and riot grrrls Bikini Kill among them), as well as Web links and suggested text to complement each of the LP's 11 tracks.

"We want to show people that there is a different way of thinking of things by leaving all these traces behind," Lyxzén said. "So if people are interested in the ideas we talk about, they can follow up on the traces we leave behind. It's sort of a call for self-education, a call for people to be inspired. So the whole plan of the band is to inspire people in one way or another."

Just as the (International) Noise Conspiracy are attempting to expand the minds of their fans with each album, they're also building on their own musicianship. Where Survival Sickness was all unbridled punk passion, typified by its fittingly titled single "Smash It Up," the band is showing off some restraint — not to mention melody — on A New Morning, Changing Weather.

"When you love music as much as we do, it comes to a point where it doesn't really matter — you just want to play good music," Lyxzén said of the shift in form. "The last record I like a lot, but you could tell what we'd been listening to when we recorded it — a lot of Rolling Stones records. On the new album, we wanted to record a record that sounded like it was recorded today."

If Stones classics like Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet were in heavy rotation while making Survival Sickness, what was cued up during the recording A New Morning?

"Everything, that's the whole thing," Lyxzén replied. "The last record sounds very '60s, punky, while on the new album there are bits and pieces of a lot of '60s soul and rock, but there's also '70s punk rock and '80s new wave. There's some '90s pop music, and then there's some year 2000 R&B stuff. So it's just a mix of everything that we're into."

Horns, piano, synthesizers ... not the typical instrumentation for a band thematically earnest to punk rock ideals.

"Well, we aren't typically punk rock," Lyxzén snapped. "We just try everything. We don't like to define ourselves by some youth culture or anything. We just want to play music. When it comes to the fact that there are two kinds of music, good music and bad music, you should just go for it, you know."

(International) Noise Conspiracy tour dates, according to Epitaph Records: