We are very happy to present The Figment Notebook.
A new animated shortfilm by author and filmmaker Karim Ghahwagi with music by Mads Brauer & Casper Clausen of Efterklang and narration by Sara Davis.

The film was commissioned by c.sides for their project Audible Approaches for a Better Place and will only be online in December before it will make its debuts at film festivals in 2012.

Karim Ghahwagi and Efterklang used to work closely together in the years 2003 to 2005 where Karim directed several Efterklang music videos and also took an important role in the live concerts with his incredible video collages. Karim moved on to work with artists like Trentemøller and has recently also had his first book published.

The Figment Notebook brings Karim and Efterklang back together!

Enjoy!

THE FIGMENT NOTEBOOK

Running time: 10mins. 30s
Col / Sound
Production year: 2011

A Film by Karim Ghahwagi
Music by Mads Brauer and Casper Clausen (of Efterklang)
Narration by Sara Davis
Produced by Rasmus Stolberg and Karim Ghahwagi
Made for Audible Approaches for a Better Place
Curated by Ronni Shendar and Till Rohmann

Efterklang appears courtesy of 4AD
Music Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing Scandinavia

www.audible-approaches.csides.net
www.karimghahwagi.com
www.efterklang.net
www.csides.net

Description

Adopting elements of hagiography, ghost story, fairy tale and fin de siècle animated picture book blurring histories both real and imagined, the Figment Notebook tells the story of a prodigal child raised amongst a secluded coven of witches.

Old Mate is perhaps the loveliest coffee bar in Copenhagen and on Saturday afternoon we will be there with our good friends Jody Barton and Hvass&Hannibal. Together we will host the tiniest and nicest Julemarked ever – full of art and music related stuff that you can give to someone special as a christmas present.

Please stop by if you are in town. We will be selling a ton of things, among them the new An Island DVD at a favorable price and we are also selling Magic Chairs on vinyl for the ridiculous sum of 50 kr!

There will lots of other special offers on T-shirts and the entire Rumraket catalogue. We will also be selling (cheap) vinyl records from great Danish bands like Iceage, I Got You On Tape, Messy Shelters, The Late Great Fitzcarraldos, Michael Møller, When Saints Go Machine, Turboweekend and many more.

JULEMARKED at Old Mate by Hvass&Hannibal, Jody Barton & Efterklang
Art, Music & Espresso – Bring Cash!
address: Nansensgade 26, KBH K
Time: 13:00 to 17:00

Happy 1st December Everyone!

If you are planning on purchasing the An Island DVD for you or someone special for christmas, then please take note of these dates below.

LAST POSTAL DATES TO RECEIVE AN ISLAND IN TIME FOR XMAS:

Thursday 1st December:
South & Central America,
Caribbean, Africa, Middle East,
Far East, Asia, New Zealand
and Australia

Wednesday 7th December:
Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe

Thursday 8th December:
Western Europe

Friday 16th December:
UK

An Island can be ordered via this website at www.anisland.cc/home

When ordering the DVD you also get the bonus Efterklang EP: Live at Roskilde Festival 2010. Here is a song from that EP.

Efterklang – The Soft Beating (Live at Roskilde Festival 2010) by Efterklang

Today AN ISLAND – a film by Vincent Moon & Efterklang is released on DVD!

The DVD comes with almost an hour of extra material and in a very very special cover! The packaging is designed by Hvass&Hannibal and features photography by Antje Taiga Jandrig and a custom-made cover printed on recycled paper using vegetable based inks by Stumptown Printers in Portland, Oregon.

The DVD release is limited to 5000 copies and they are all individually numbered. The only place to purchase this DVD is at WWW.ANISLAND.CC/HOME .

When ordering the DVD you get the new EFTERKLANG EP ‘Live at Roskilde Festival 2010′ as a bonus!. An Island is also available digitally after the Pay-What-You-Want model. This is also via www.anisland.cc/home

To celebrate the DVD release Vincent Moon & Efterklang has made this outtake from the film available online.

EFTERKLANG (ft: Nils Frahm, Peter Broderick, Heather Woods Broderick, Frederik Teige & Niklas Antonson (Slaraffenland): MODERN DRIFT (An Island outtake):

Get more info & see more photos of the DVD at: WWW.ANISLAND.CC/HOME

As you might know we are lucky to be signed to British label 4AD, who has a roster full of artists that we admire, and who also runs the 4AD Sessions. They have now compiled a collection of the best 4AD Sessions recordings and released it as a free digital download and a very limited vinyl edition under the name: 4AD Sessions 2008-2011.

We have 10 copies of the limited vinyl edition which we will be giving away this week via our Twitter and Facebook pages, but also via this post and the comment field below.

To have the chance to win a copy of the vinyl edition just post a comment below and answer this question: Where was the Efterklang 4AD session recorded?

This contest ends on Thursday September 29th at lunchtime Danish time. We will draw lots between the correct answers. Please don’t forget to sign up with a functioning email address when you comment.

We will give away two copies via this site and then the remaining eight via our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Below you can see the track-list of this compilation and you can stream/download the digital version:

4AD Sessions 2008-2011
A1. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti ‘Menopause Man’
A2. Blonde Redhead ‘Here Sometimes’
A3. Twin Shadow ‘Forget’
A4. Gang Gang Dance ‘Chinese High’
A5. Deerhunter ‘Never Stops’

B1. tUnE-yArDs ‘Powa’
B2. Efterklang ‘I Was Playing Drums’
B3. Broken Records ‘Home’
B4. Stornoway ‘Here Comes The Blackout’
B5. Iron & Wine ‘Big Burned Hand’

This is I Was Playing Drums from Efterklang’s 4AD Session:

A little over a month ago we initiated a little artwork project together with fellow Dane and artist Trentemøller. The project was based around a remix swop – Trentemøller has remixed our song Raincoats and we have remixed his song Tide.

Back then, a month ago, we invited anyone to suggest the artwork for this joint release and to our joy a stream of submissions followed. There were so many good ones! You can see all of them on this designated Flickr page.

It was not easy picking a winner with so many great submissions, but it had to be done of course. Together with Trentemøller we have selected 13 artworks that all will be featured in the booklet for the digital version of this release. You can also watch some of our favorites in this post below.

The release is available on iTunes now. We hope you like the two remixes and the many fine artwork submissions.

Efterklang & Trentemøler – Raincoats vs Tide – on iTunes

Artwork by Felix Schellekens

Artwork by Frederik Johan Scheel

Artwork by Sophia Zagloul

You can also listen to the remixes right here:
Trentemøller – Tide (Efterklang Remix)

Efterklang – Raincoats (Trentemøller Remix)

This record is very special to us.

Not only is Daniel James aka Canon Blue our dear friend, he also enlisted Mads and Casper to help him produce this new album and Thomas to play drums on a lot of tracks.

Our close friends in Slaraffenland also guest this album (Mike on bass, Niklas on trombone, Bjørn on drums) and so does amiina who has recorded all the amazing string parts. Peter Broderick guests one song and classical singer Katinka Fogh Vindelev who sings on our ‘Magic Chairs’ album is also featured on the album. It all sort of feel like one big happy family gathering!

If you have been following the announcements about this release you probably also know that, besides future Efterklang releases, this is the very last release we do on our label Rumraket. It really feels like the perfect record to end with. You can read a statement about the close of Rumraket here.

Well enough talk. Take a listen to two songs from the album below and if you are tempted you can buy the album on iTunes or on CD (designed by Hvass&Hannibal) via our Rumraket Shop.

Honeysuckle (Milwaukee) by Canon Blue

Indian Summer (Des Moines) by Canon Blue

Via the Rumraket page you can read a lot more about this release and enjoy a string of great video blips.

Canon Blue 'Rumspringa' artwork by Hvass&Hannibal

So many nice submissions!
You can watch them all here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artworkcontest

The winners will be announced on August 30th. Same day the two remixes will be available for download.

More info in the post below

We have remixed fellow Dane Trentemøller’s song Tide and he has made a killer remix of our song Raincoats. Together with Filter Magazine we are now hosting an artwork contest. You have the chance to create the official artwork for the digital release of this remix swop. Please give it a go! You can listen to the remixes and read about the artwork contest rules right here.

Efterklang – Raincoats (Trentemøller Remix)

Trentemøller – Tide (Efterklang Remix)

Trentemøller and Efterklang will pick the winner and as we have remixed each others music the challenge is to remix the artwork worlds of Trentemøller and Efterklang into something new. We would like to stress however that remix is to be understood loosely. All contesters are encouraged to create exactly the artwork they feel like, but it would be fun if the submissions are inspired by the artwork worlds of Efterklang and Trentemøller.

The contest aims at painters, photographers, graphic designers and visual artists in the widest sense, both young and old and established and non-established artists.

Contest Submission Guidelines:
1) Listen to the two remixes

2) Please email your image to atsn@senmail.de. Your submitted file should be a jpeg at 1200 x 1200 pixel size and 72dpi resolution. Filesizes exceeding 1MB will be rejected. Submission deadline: 05th August 2011. Submissions will be posted here as they come in: Flickr

3) Efterklang and Trentemøller will pick the winner(s) and the winning artwork will become the official cover of the release. The 10 best pieces of artwork will also be featured and credited in the official iTunes release‘s digital booklet.

Further prizes include Efterklang‘s „An Island“-DVD, Trentemøller‘s „Into The Great Wide Yonder“ limited edition and merchandise from both bands.

Back in 2003 we (the members of Efterklang) established the record label Rumraket out of necessity as no labels back then were interested in releasing our music. Shortly after we signed a record deal with The Leaf Label (and recently 4AD) and Rumraket was no longer a necessity it was something we loved to do on the side. We kept the label and signed Grizzly Bear as our first non-Efterklang band in 2005.

Rumraket released Grizzly Bear’s debut album Horn of Plenty in most parts of Europe, and this was followed by records from the rather obscure Japanese artists Cacoy and Kama Aina. Hereafter Rumraket became the base for bands like Slaraffenland (dk), Taxi Taxi! (se), Erik Levander (se) and Canon Blue (us). During the last six years we have released more than 25 titles – among them smaller releases from Our Broken Garden (dk) and amiina (is).

All that will now come to an end. August 29^th Rumraket will release Rumspringa, the second album from American artist Canon Blue. Rumraket will not close entirely, but Rumspringa will be the last release on Rumraket, which isn’t an Efterklang release. We will continue to use the label as Efterklang’s base in Scandinavia and therefore this is only almost the end of Rumraket.

We are very proud of all the records we have released throughout the years and the many musicians and artists we have worked with are today some of our very best friends. We would can only thank them for so much wonderful music and memories.

We are closing Rumraket because we no longer have the resources and more importantly the time to run the label. When you are releasing records made by your best friends you want to do your absolute best, but with all our tours and other projects this is no longer possible for us.

The last (non Efterklang) release on Rumraket is as mentioned Canon Blue’s Rumspringa. We can’t think of a more appropriate record to end with. A tour de force if there ever was one, Rumspringa is a dynamic, lush and orchestral Magnum Opus. It has taken Daniel James aka Canon Blue more than two years completing this album and all his hard work has paid off.

Daniel James recorded the album in Copenhagen, Berlin and Reykjavik in close collaboration with Mads Brauer and Casper Clausen from Efterklang who helped produce the record. Mads also mixed the record which features guest appearances from members of Slaraffenland, Efterklang and amiina who recorded all the string parts in Iceland. Hvass&Hannibal will do the artwork for the record as they have with many others of the past Rumraket releases.

Rumspringa by Canon Blue will be released August 29^th. Outside of Scandinavia the record will be released on American label Temporary Residence.

We look forward to share some music and more details about Rumspringa real soon.

www.canonblue.com – www.rumraket.com

Canon Blue photo by Thomas Husmer