DOUBLE BAND ANNOUNCEMENT TONIGHT!!
BAND ANNOUNCEMENT #11!
Progtoberfest Festival is very happy to welcome Oak – Official Fanpage from Oslo, Norway!!!
Oak is an Oslo based quartet made up by Simen Valldal Johannessen (vocals, keyboards), Øystein Sootholtet (bass), Ole Michael Bjørndal (guitars) and Sigbjørn Reiakvam (drums, percussion, programming). All the band members are in their late 20’s or early 30’s and have mostly grown up in the Oslo area. They have a huge variation in their musical inspirations – everything from classical composers and singer/songwriters to electronica, progressive rock, and metal.
Oak released their debut album, Lighthouse as a digital release in September 2013. In addition, a limited run of CD’s was produced for promotional purposes and to accommodate sales at gigs. The album was mixed and mastered at Fascination Street Studios by noted producer Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Symphony X, Paradise Lost).
As of January 2015, the band is working on new material for their second album, and are working towards getting international distribution for this forthcoming album as well as becoming a more active band in the live circuit.
To hear their full album:
Website: http://www.oakinoslo.com/
BAND ANNOUNCEMENT #12!
Progtoberfest Festival is happy to welcome The Knells!!!
The brainchild of guitarist Andrew McKenna Lee, Brooklyn, NY based band The Knells is a band that belongs to a genre inhabited perhaps by themselves alone. The band is self-proclaimed as a post-rock neo-psychedelia act, but the musical collective is so much more than that. And indeed the band is a collective more than just a band, as Lee utilizes a trio of vocalists, Nina Berman, Amanda Gregory, and Katya Powder, two guitarists, Lee and Paul Orbell, drummer Michael McCurdy, mallet percussionist Jude Traxler, electric bassist Joseph Higgins, and the critically lauded Mivos String Quartet. The twelve-piece band weaves a sonic blanket that ranges from choral chamber rock to avant post-psych to melancholic psych-blues.
The Knells released their debut self-titled album in 2013 on New Amsterdam Recordings. The album is an enveloping one hour song cycle that follows the concept of the meaning of life, the meaning of time, the beauty and violent tendencies of nature, and the questions that plague humanity’s existence. A dense theme for a dense album – and the band pulls it off.
While the uniqueness of this band makes it difficult to relate artists to them, fans of impossible creative avant-garde rock will likely enjoy this band. The band fuses elements of chamber rock, choral music, psychedelic and post-rock, and the raw power of classical composition.
ProgtoberFest Info
https://www.facebook.com/progtoberfest/
