Newsround :: Featuring Efterklang, Jóhann Jóhannsson, The Sword & Ether Festival

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Last year Efterklang toured the US road testing songs for their Magic Chairs album. Their good friend and Danish music journalist Ralf Christensen followed the band around for the last week of the tour and managed to capture them performing the song, The Soft Beating, in a about a 100 different ways. As with the power of modern technology, you can see them all amazingly edited together below:

The wonderful and evocative Jóhann Jóhannsson has announced a handful of UK dates in May. The Icelandic composer / multi-instrumentalist brings with him a string quartet for the shows and will be touring in support of his new record And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sounds of Bees which is released on Type Records in April.

MAY
26 – BRIGHTON – The Prince Albert
27 – LONDON – St Giles in the Fields
28 – COVENTRY – St John’s Church
29 – LEEDS – Howard Assembly Room

On a more RAWK note, The Sword have announced that they’re back in the studio. Having spent much of last year supporting Metallica on their World Magnetic Tour, they recently had this to say about the recording process for their, as yet, untitled Third LP:

“Sword fans everywhere, since you wouldn’t stop asking for a new album, we figured we’d write some songs and give you what you deserve. Last week we started recording our as yet untitled third full length with producer and engineer Matt Bayles here in Austin. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves and of course you’ll be the judge, but let’s say we have a strong intuition that this will be our best release to date.”

Awesome.

The Ether festival have added a number of new acts to their already impressive line-up:

- A second Gil Scott-Heron date added due to overwhelming demand (24 April)

- Ether talks programme to include Gil Scott-Heron (19 April), Steve Goodman (16 April), Will Montgomery & Owen Hatherley (21 April) and Anna Minton (22 April)

- DJ Tom Middleton added to Stereo MCs’ bill (16 April) & Tom Jenkinson DJ set confirmed post-Chris Cunningham show (23 April)

- Ether film programme to include screening of 1921 classic Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde with new score by Scanner (17 April)

- To Rococo Rot to present material from new album Speculation (20 April)

- Superstar DJ Andrew Weatherall & Zun Zun Egui added to HEALTH & Chrome Hoof bill (22 April)

- Experimental Girls night featuring Tanya Tagaq, Bishi and Sisters of Transistors added to Ether line-up (24 April)

- An installation of music-making machines – including a new piece by Felix Thorn, aka Felix’s Machines – as the main venue to host an extensive free events programme