New Music /

Figurines

Hailing from Denmark, Figurines first formed in the mid-1990s. But it wasn’t until the release of 2003’s Shake A Mountain that the group came to the attention of those outside of Denmark’s tightly cloistered music scene. We spoke to frontman Christian Hjelm: It’s hard to believe you guys have been around for over a decade now. How have you maintained the energy and the fun? ‘Well, we started up over a decade ago, but at that time the three of us were just kids fooling around with guitars. We didn’t really consider ourselves being in a band at that point. That didn’t really happen before 2001 or something like that, when we included our drummer, Kristian. From then on it went rather smooth with getting label and a manager, and so on. Being in a band has its ups and downs as does everything else in life. But the fact that we’re still together and enjoy writing material must mean that we have more ups than downs’. [New album] When the Deer Wore Blue is a beautiful and powerful recording. Is it your favorite Figurines recorded work to date and what makes it so different in your mind from [2005’s] Skeleton? ‘Thank you! Whether it’s our favorite work to date is hard to tell. It’s different from the two others that’s for sure. So I guess we’ll have to be boring and say that we love them all equally. Although we definitely feel that we have grown as a band in the way we play together and the way we compose. Since Skeleton, we’ve included Jens Ramon in the band, who’s playing keys. That did a great deal to the way we sound and write. There are some passages on WTDWB that are connected to Skeleton, but in general there is less guitar on this one and the pace has slowed down a bit. It’s more challenging to the listeners, I guess. And these days that doesn’t necessarily sell albums’. You’re all pretty well connected to the creative scene in Denmark. Any talented local artists, illustrators, designers, and photographers we should know more about? ‘Plenty! Julie Nord is a great illustrator; Miriam Dalsgaard and Simon Birk are great photographers. Good Boy Creative makes splendid music videos and I like the new clothing brand Won Hundred. The Danish music scene is very strong at the moment, I feel, with bands like Speaker Bite Me, Oh No Ono, Mew, Under Byen, Spleen United, and The Blue Van. No one sounds the same, but there’s plenty of good rock music to dig if you MySpace these acts’.

Listen to Figurines’, Hey Girl.

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