SPOT

Crossover jazz, Hvidovre world music, Middle Eastern folk pop, forest reggae, avantgarde pop, and an introduction to cutting edge art music. As usual SPOT breaks new ground and presents a multitude of genres, hybrids and fascinating experiments.

As is probably well known to most of you, SPOT is a lot more than rock music, and like the previous years, SPOT 2011 will present an amazing variety of musical genres and styles, something that is reflected by the diversity of the six acts below.

Forest reggae
As deep into the Swedish woods and as close to the Caribbean sun as you can get – that’s where you find Fastpoholmen with their unique mix of the Swedish ballad tradition, reggae and calypso. The cousins Adam and Dawn Fastholm are Danish but have a strong bond to Sweden. The Nordic tone of melancholy is unmistakable, but at the same time there are a lightness and groovy feel-good atmosphere.   

Crossover jazz and avantgarde pop
In 2008 Hess Is More aka Mikkel Hess was on everybody’s favourite playlist with the catchy pop hit “Ssshhhh”, whose irresistible whistle tune caught the attention of a large audience. That Michael Hess can make an instrumental pop song that ends up in radio rotation tells you something about his gift as a tunesmith. At the same time, however, he also challenges the convention of pop music and incorporates jazzy elements and avant-garde elements and brings it all together in ingenious ways.

With Girls in Airports we are dealing with crossover jazz from the top shelf. Two saxophones make up the epicentre of the music, and from this a both askew and charming mix of jazz, burning Afro beat and Nordic melancholy spreads into tunes with touches of the Middle East.

Egyptian super star and world music from Hvidovrevej
Crossover is also a most apt label for Danish Kynnes Kabale. The Band contains four nationalities and countless musical traditions and cultural points of departure. The music sounds like a fusion of Istanbul, Casablanca, Balkan and Hvidovrevej (major road in Copenhagen suburb Hvidovre, ed.), and the lyrics deal with Danish everyday life!

The Egyptian singer Fatma Zidan, who is a resident in Denmark and a super star in her native country, also mixes and transgresses Middle Eastern genres. Her hybrid of dance, pop, original folk music from the Middle East and her own compositions is quite an eye opener to those inclined to prejudice about Arabic/Turkish music being neither tuneful nor dance-friendly.

Art music
At this year’s SPOT there will be completely unique event. It is a surprise event, and not even the press group knows what is going to happen when SNYK presents a Wundergrund performance which is created by one of the rising stars on the Danish experimental scene Rasmus Zwicki, who looks forward to presenting a classical date for several very diverse music genres at SPOT. Anything can happen.

* Hess Is More and Girls In Airports are presented in collaboration with JazzDanmark, Kynnes Kabale and Fatma Zidan in collaboration with World Music Denmark and Rasmus Zwicki in collaboration with SNYK.