Und neue Bands:
ALEXIS MARSHALL
Each year there are hotly debated discussions about who was the band of the festival at Roadburn, and in 2019 Daughters was most definitely pushing their way to the top of most people’s lists. Thanks in no small part to Alexis Marshall’s captivating showmanship, Daughters were undoubtedly a highlight of the festival – and beyond, as they lit up year end lists in 2018 and annihilated live shows throughout 2019.
Alexis will be returning to Roadburn 2020 as a solo performer -and we can’t wait to see what he has in store for us. To our unrestrained delight, we’re also thrilled to announce that he will team up with Lingua Ignota on her covers set on Friday. Prepare yourselves for an performance; neither of these artists go light on the gut punches.
DARKHER
The first time we heard Darkher, we knew something special was a-brewing in the Hebden Bridge hinterlands and we immediately invited Jayn Maiven to bring her haunted doom-drenched riffs to Roadburn. With the release of her debut full-length, Realms, she conjured up an emotive and atmospheric record steeped in ethereal magic. The follow up album is due in 2020 via Prophecy Productions, and whilst we anxiously anticipate a new delivery from Darkher, we’re thrilled to announce that they’ll be playing Roadburn 2020. If even a fraction of the bewitching power or the necromancy vibes we experienced the first time around are present, then we can assure you that we’re all in for quite the treat.
FORNDOM
Appearing out of a shadowy mist in 2015, H.L.H. Swärd, the sole member of Swedish entity Forndom, almost instantly captured our collective imagination with a brilliant evocation of Nordic culture and history. After the success of Forndom‘s debut album Dauðra Dura, 2020 will finally see the release of its successor, Faþir, of which we already expect to hear something at Roadburn. However the setlist looks, we are eager to revisit a culture that means so much to all of us once again, now through the unique sonic lens of Forndom.
THE DEVIL’S TRADE
Dávid Makó is a known singer in Hungary‘s metal scene, having fronted Stereochrist and currently holding that post for HAW, but his better known endeavour might well end up being his initially unassuming acoustic solo project, The Devil’s Trade. That he put out an EP last year called Happy Music Is Shit, a phrase also used on some The Devil’s Trade t-shirts that will certainly sell like hot cakes at Roadburn, more or less defines the mood you can expect from Dávid‘s songwriting approach.
LSD AND THE SEARCH FOR GOD
Hypnotic, tripped-out shoegaze with a distinctly West Coast flavor, San Francisco’s LSD and the Search for God gathered a cult-like following within the psychedelic underground by dosing audiences with lysergic performances. They’ve taken a dreamy noise delightfully reminiscent of Creation Records in its heyday (think My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Ride), or even Spacemen 3, and made it all their own.
ULVEBLOD
Trailblazing Dutch black metal band, Nihill effectively ended when singer and founding member M passed away last year, and while the heartbreak over the loss of our friend will never quite fade away, at least musically there are further chapters to look forward to. Main Nihill guitarist Vitriol has now created a new entity that naturally shares some strands of DNA with Nihill, not only in the musician’s perfectly unique style of writing and playing, but also in the use of some of the same session players. However, the swirling, hateful, mesmerising chaos of Ulveblod is a vertigo-inducing nightmare all of its own, as it will become apparent both when their debut album is released and when the band performs live for the first time.
DOODSWENS
Perhaps you caught Doodswens at Roadburn last year; the Dutch duo made quite the impact on our 2019 attendees for a band so underground. Few in number but mighty in their mission, Doodswens cultivate true cult black metal vibes, lo-fi production and visceral energy in abundance. It’s why we invited them back for a second year – to give them a bigger stage and a bigger audience, one they already richly deserve.
KODIAN TRIO
Five years might not seem like a long time for a band to exist, but Kodian Trio have packed more wildness and sheer boundless creativity into those five years than many others do in their whole lifetimes. Consisting of Colin Webster on alto sax, Dirk Serries on electric guitar (both of whom have played Roadburn before with Fear Falls Burning) and Andrew Lisle on drums, they’ve been one of the most active bands of their kind, touring their unpredictable free improvisation all over the place and releasing both studio and live albums at a frightening pace.
At Roadburn, the special guest for the show that will celebrate their fifth anniversary shall be none other than bass player Jasper Stadhouders (Cactus Truck, Spinifex, Made To Break), who will add his own brand of low end to the proceedings and help bridge the apparently wide gap between free improvisation and post-punk.
JONAH PARZEN-JOHNSON
There’s a one-of-a-kind compositional style to the solo saxophone projects of New York‘s Jonah Parzen-Johnson. Along with playing on his own, he is a co-leader of Brooklyn Afrobeat outfit Zongo Junction, and an active part of Brooklyn’s independent and experimental music communities. However, Parzen-Johnson’s circular breathing, multiphonics and inclusive experimentalism owe a debt to Chicago‘s storied jazz history as well. Paired with a quirky – almost vocal – approach and experiments with analog synth, hardware samplers and sequencers, Jonah continues to redefine his instrument and share his unique musical world by melding the emotionally evocative nature of folk music with the chilling power of ambient textures.
THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH
Rotterdam, as an international port, has always been a breeding point for the Dutch underground, and the city’s own The Sweet Release of Death are no exception, as this angular no wave trio ranks among the most exciting noise bands to come out of The Netherlands right now. Astounding crowds all across our native country and reaping accolades abroad, we felt the urge to present The Sweet Release of Death to our multi-national Roadburn community as well on Friday, 17 April.
MOTOR!K
Stepping out of their comfort zone, Belgium’s Dirk Ivens (known for his industrial/minimalist work with The Klinik and Dive) together with guitarist/synthesist Joeri Dobbeleir (The Whereabouts Of J. Albert) and drummer Dries D’Hollander (ex – Suburb Songs), forges a new path artistically and musically with Motor!k. Together they celebrate the roots of electronica in krautrock – highlighting a glorious and underexplored kosmische tradition.
OF BLOOD AND MERCURY
The figures on stage as Of Blood and Mercury may not be entirely unfamiliar to you, as Olivier J.LW and Michelle Nocon have both performed at Roadburn under different guises (they appeared separately in their other bands Emptiness and Bathsheba in 2017). The divergence from the heaviness of their other projects may come as a surprise to some, but any hesitance will be washed away with their majestic dark dream pop. The album they’ll be presented is titled Strangers; a collection of ten missives expressing a longing for a time and place that one remembers but never experienced. They describe it as making a connection between two separate worlds: “the material one and the work of ghosts.”
VONNIS
When you’re a band as young as Vonnis are, both in age of the band and its respective members, and you’ve already built the kind of live reputation they have, it means you’re doing something special. Reflecting the chaos of the world we currently live in, ever since the Belgian city of Ghent coughed them up in 2015 they have been tearing shit down everywhere they go, evoking the destructive ghosts of bands like Catharsis, Death Grips, Converge or Trash Talk in the way they build something out of destruction, how they mix love and hate, hope and despair, darkness and light into something inspiring.