This Is Head is an indie rock band from Malmö, Sweden. The band – collectively Henric Claesson, Adam Jacobsson, Tom Malmros and Björn Wiking – released its second album last month on Adrian Recordings.
Entitled The Album ID, the quartet recorded it in their studio in an industrial building in Malmö and the Svenska Grammofon Studion in Gothenburg, working with producer Kalle Gustafsson-Jerneholm (of The Soundtrack of Our Lives).
This is an outfit that seems to (a) like numbers (the band’s first album ooo1 had no names for song titles, just numbers) and (b) like spending time getting wet (see the cover artwork for the latest album and video for track #06 ‘Time’s An Ocean’ on said album below; hopefully no fish were killed in the making of this video*). They also seem to like instrumentals, guitar solos, swooping synths, strange and sudden ‘whooping’ noises (I love these bits!), chugging beats, chanting choruses and emotional vocals – which all seamlessly merge together to create an album that is reminiscent of something magical. Post-rock, krautrock, psychedelic pop – it has got it all (think Yeasayer meets a young U2 in parts maybe, or maybe not**). Just listen and judge for yourselves with these videos for two of the tracks from the album, which is also available on Spotify and iTunes.
*And – phew – I can breath a sigh of relief, for we are reliably informed that, indeed, no fish were killed in the making of this second video, so the band told Ja Ja Ja Music anyway when talking about the release last month, ‘We wanted to do something that reminded of the cover art for our album. Something with water, colourful but still with a sense of danger and gloom. The video was recorded in Gula Studion in Malmö, Sweden. A wet session but nothing compared to the photoshoot for the cover, still lucky we didn’t drown.’
I was lucky enough to catch This Is Head playing in Copenhagen recently (on the same bill as Yast, the day after this session was filmed by Nordic Vibes at Spot festival) and here’s hoping the band gets to play in NL/BE soon also. Currently on tour in Germany, you can catch up with the guys’ antics in the daily tour diary on NBHAP here and catch a glimpse of some live action in this video from a gig at Studio Möllan earlier this year (recorded by Jesper Berg, the same person who brought us the very fine album artwork indeed):
This is Head – Live at Studio Möllan from Jesper Berg on Vimeo.
**Possibly rather randomly, one song reminds me of Elastica in parts – not telling you which one, but you get a prize if you can guess correctly (answers to me here).
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The Album ID – Released 8 April 2013:
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