Terrorbird

Scandinavia has an impressive track record of bands treading a clever line between dance and pop. Danish four-piece When Saints Go Machine — Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild (vocals), Jonas Kenton (keyboards), Simon Muschinsky (keyboards) and Silas Moldenhawer (drums) — are the latest. Their new mini album is an avant-garde pop gem that sounds like Fever Ray meets ‘Missing’ by Everything But The Girl. Lead track ‘Fail Forever’ pitches lyrics that ache with existential angst against a gorgeous backdrop of electronics and mournful cellos. It sounds like a cooler Empire Of The Sun. Frontman Nikolaj has a falsetto to die for - see ‘Pinned’, where it soars over arhythmic drums and swelling strings. ‘Pick Up Your Tears And Run’, meanwhile, is an ethereal soundscape of intertwined voices and keys. All told, it’s stunning stuff.

The four members were childhood friends who met through their parents, who all lived in the same neighbourhood in Copenhagen. They formed the band in 2007. Nikolaj explains: “Our initial goal was to make something that would work in a club environment, but we kind of got tired of the whole four-on-the-floor thing. We wanted to make music that would transcend the borders of Denmark. I guess what we do now is pop with a lot of electronics.”

They may have global ambitions, but their first break came at the end of 2007 when a Danish radio station started playing their songs. “We’d uploaded a couple of tracks to MySpace and they picked up on them and started talking about us,” says Nikolaj. “We heard they were trying to get hold of us, but we were just happy that they were playing our records and we didn’t really care about anything else at the time, so we kept them waiting for a bit. It was fun being in the shower and listening to these DJs saying, Who are these guys and where do they come from?” Playing the anonymity card is an old trick, but an effective one. The band stoked the mystery when they did a photo shoot with their faces obscured. The real reason may have been that they weren’t that keen on the pictures, but it worked nonetheless.

At the beginning of 2008, still more or less unknown, they ended up playing their first ever gig at Vega, one of Copenhagen’s leading venues. In 2009 they went on to win the Danish National Radio Talent Of The Year Award. Fast-forward to this year and When Saints Go Machine opened the Roskilde festival, playing to 45,000 people. “That felt fantastic,” says Nikolaj. “It’s hard to describe. I felt they could see through me, like I couldn’t hide anywhere. But the reaction was amazing, hearing that roar when we walked on, and then I felt like I didn’t want to leave.” Having honed their live chops, they are set to tour extensively over the next 12 months.

When it comes to the songwriting, Nikolaj pens the lyrics and the melody, then the band, in various combinations, work on turning them into finished tracks. “There’s actually not really a method to how we do things other than it’s a democracy,” says Nikolaj. The subject matter, meanwhile, has real depth. For example, ‘Fail Forever’ is about how people never say what they think. “When you meet someone and they say, How are you doing?, you always say, I’m fine. It’s never OK to say, I’m depressed. But the most human thing is failure. Everyone pretends to be superhuman, but they’re not.” ‘Pick Up Your Tears And Run’ was written as a lullaby, something that you can fall asleep to. “I guess it didn’t turn out as originally intended, like a lot of other things,” says Nikolaj, ruefully. Perhaps the most poignant track is ‘Pinned’. “I try to hide stuff that’s happened to me in songs, not that I really want to, but things just sneak in there somehow,” explains Nikolaj. “They aren’t biographies, but that song in particular is kind of about my dad. It’s about lying in a hospital with tubes coming out of your body, like you’re pinned there.” It’s heart-wrenching, yet beautiful too.

Looking to the future, Nikolaj says the aim is to release an album next year. “It’s not finished yet, but we’re nearly done. We’ve used more classical instruments this time, although some of them don’t sound classical, because we mess with them because of our electronic background. The arrangements are bigger and better. It’s more evolved all round.”

Bigger and better: it sounds irresistible. When Saints Go Machine are poised for great things.

CD TRACKLIST:

1. Fail Forever
2. Pick Up Your Tears And Run
3. Pinned
4. You Or The Gang
5. Greys And Blues

If Oh No Ono was the Danish New Hope in 2010 then the Danes Strike Back this year with a new mini album from When Saints Go Machine. Fail Forever is your first taste of one of the most promising European musical exports in recent memory and it's just the beginning as the four piece will be hitting SXSW this March and following up with an LP this spring. Channeling an incredibly rhythmic soundscape coupled by Arthur Russell induced vocals you might want to turn this one up a little bit during a late night drive home. We definitely recommend listening to every track while we recommend 'Fail Forever' & 'Pinned.' But hey, we've been obsessing over WSGM for a little while now. FCC clean.