BrandsForBands

Wild arctic nature. Big city pulse. Fearless synthesizers, miles and miles of reverb, and delicate rhythms. Delicious swedish indietronica from Stockholm by way of San Francisco and the cold northern regions of Sweden. Long nights of dancing and long hikes in the mountains. Single "UR Road" feels like a long fun summer distilled into four minutes of sweet electropop with bouncy hooks and lush vocals. There's even some whistling in there as well. Sameblod is one of Swedens most promising and exciting new acts - Frederick and Mikael in Sameblod have received lots of blog-attention, even more plays on Soundcloud and hopefully this is just the beginning.

Hailing from Deathlehem, producer/DJ duo GRVRBBRS have been remixing since 2008. The two met in high school and have since been drawing inspiration from skateboarding, classical music and metal.

Believe it or not, Indie rock's best kept secret is the small close knit community of bands and artists from Oklahoma. In the wake of bands like The Flaming Lips, Other Lives, Starlight Mints, and Colourmusic, ADMIRALS is emerging as one of the premiere bands in this region of the country. Hailing from Stillwater Oklahoma, home of Big XII's Oklahoma State University. 

Drawing comparisons from Radiohead, The Verve, and Arcade Fire, ADMIRALS bring elements of new wave, folk, blues, jazz and industrial, as well as classic influences in to their repertoire. With melodic guitar and keyboard lines paired with sweeping synths and driving drums and bass, ADMIRALS create an ethereal performance both sonically and visually in a live setting. 

Produced by Trent Bell (Flaming Lips, Chemical Brothers, Dressy Bessy, Starlight Mints, Chainsaw Kittens)

Emanating from the barrier dunes of Virginia, Freedom Hawk’s heavy riffs, rolling groove, and soulful guitar melodies to produce a sound that is distinctly their own. The trio’s brand of heavy rock capitalizes on the best of the heavy ‘70s, but presents a fuzzy take that’s modern and based around quality songwriting rather than style-over-substance retro posturing.

Guitarist / vocalist T.R. Morton, bassist Mark Cave and drummer Lenny Hines made their debut on Small Stone with 2011’s Holding On. The follow-up, and their fourth album overall, is Into Your Mind, which brings a new dynamic to their buttery fuzz with all the stomp and swagger one could ask for after Holding On, but with a more pointed delivery, assured and farther ranging than their last time out, grown more into their style than ever before.

Songs like “Journey Home”, “Lost in Space” and “The Line” push the boundaries of what Freedom Hawk have previously accomplished sonically, bringing in elements of laid back psychedelia and space rock to the band’s otherwise terrestrial song-craft. Veterans already of Roadburn in the Netherlands, Freedom Hawk return to Europe in support of Into Your Mind, playing Germany’s Freak Valley Festival prior to the release with more live dates to follow as they continue to expand their reach both in terms of music and fan-base around the world.

For fans of: Clutch, Fu Manchu, Crobot, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk, Greenleaf, Lord Fowl, Gozu, Lo-Pan, ASG, and all things that Rawk

Hollywood, Florida is not your typical beach town. The buildings, diners, and of course the beach appear frozen in the 1950's. Probably a result of the town's population boom happening in that era, a current drive down the streets feels like your moving through an R. Crumb drawing. Things seem exaggerated and a bit odd. The now mature population seems a caricature of their former selves.

It is this strange place, lovingly dubbed Hollyweird, Florida, that the trio Beach Day calls home. Their sound is heavily influenced by their surroundings. They make new music, but it is definitely old at heart. And it's definitely sunny, but not without some murkiness.

Kimmy, Natalie and Skyler met at a local show and quickly bonded over their love of 60's Girl Groups, their dissatisfaction with their current musical endeavors and a common desire to be in a band that was purely about fun and making music without pretense.

Skyler was living in Asheville but missing the beach culture, so he moved back. Natalie was planning a move to the west coast but already had song ideas, so she decided to stay. The two moved into a house with Kimmy and all acquired jobs at the local Smoothie Shack. Somewhat of a big commitment for a band that just wants to have fun, but the first song they wrote together came easy. It is called Beach Day, and it is their first release out July 17th on Kanine Records (limited edition white vinyl 7" & digital download).

An embodiment of their surroundings and love of 60's girl groups, Beach Day sounds as you might expect. Think of a female fronted Beach Boys, throw in some The Shangri-La's, The Ventures, The Sonics, Phil Spector, The Ronettes, add in contemporaries Cults, Jacuzzi Boys, Dum Dum Girls and the Black Lips and you have a soundtrack for your perfect Beach Day.

"Singer Kimmy Drake has the true voice of a girl-group leading lady, something like a young, white Ronnie Spector raised on punk" Orlando Weekly

Highasakite make songs unlike most things yet to come out of Norway. Pop music with a twist. Let's start in Brooklyn. Via Monrovia to Piraeus and Norwegian mountaintops on to Stockholm. Irresistible soundscapes full of tasty hooks and mysterious stories, musicians from some of Norways best young bands and then some – Highasakite is undoubtably one of the most original and exciting indiebands you've come across in a while.? Keyboards, zither, pounding drums and the occasional noise guitar together with Ingrid Helene's distinctive voice makes a delicious blend of exciting indie pop inspired by artists such as Lykke Li and the movie Where The Wild Things Are. ? Highasakite's debut album "All That Floats Will Rain" has received rave reviews throughout the Norwegian press, some even calling it album of the year (Dagbladet) and saying that "No song on this album is redundant, it's all brilliantly brought to life. This, ladies and gentlemen, is pop music!" ?Highasakite is playing many of Norways biggest and most important festivals this summer, amongst them Øya and Hove, in support of their debut album 'All That Floats Will Rain'.

"FIDLAR channel elements of classic acts like the White Stripes and Pixies, while practically begging for a co-headlining tour with contemporaries like Bass Drum of Death and JEFF the Brotherhood" - SPIN

"The tune can be summed up in a handful of image descriptions; sandboarding, grim reaper, suicidal flip-up hat, skull mask, and shred." - Filter Magazine "We all have a major music crush on FIDLAR here at VICE" - Vice.com

"They remind me of Pixies a lot (an obvious link, given the singer's Frank Black style screeeeeeam), but there's also some really, really nice'n'fuzzy guitars in there that sound like they've been nicked from the blueprint Death In Vegas followed on 'Aiesha'." - NME

"FIDLAR has an agressive, straightforward, but melodic conception of punk." - LA Times

"But one wouldn't mistake the band for one of its slacker subjects, not when they play this fast. The tracks sizzle with the aggression and bargain-price fidelity of the SoCal punk tradition, though FIDLAR's catchy hooks have more in common with Social Distortion and Wavves than Black Flag. " - MTV Buzz

Cut City formed in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2002 around the local Deleted Art label, sort of the Swedish counter-part to U.S. art-punk imprints like Three One G and Tapes Records. In May 2005 they issued a 4-song EP on the California-based Gold Standard Labs label, home to such acts as The Locust, Year Future, GoGoGo Airheart and many more. Drawing comparisons to groups such as Echo & The Bunnnymen and Joy Division as well as newer bands like Interpol and Editors they at the same time echo the past as much as the future. (Photo:  Robert Samsonowitz / RBRT CREATIVE)

Band Name: Coo Coo Birds
Hometown: San Francisco
Born Date: Jan 2012
Sounds Like: Boiler Pot Rock n' Roll at its best. The 1950's got a new skate board, then fell off when 1967 tripped him. Then 1977 came along and beat them both up for it, and all three were arrested by Officer 2012.
Fun Fact: The band lives in an ex-Convent turned artist community, and derives much of their inspiration from this unique SF scene.
Most Memorable Show: "Memory," among other things, is one of the entities most often lost at Coo Coo Bird shows; along with innocence and boyfriends. The band is unable to comment at this time.
When not making music, find them at: The club they just played at, trying to re-locate their equipment from the night before.