Spellbound by Next to Beluga

Electric Caviar
Next to Beluga, the pop band named after James Bond’s favorite caviar, is now ready to reveal their brand new album ”Spellbound” which will be out on September 1st 2011.
The band has earlier received lots of praise for their atmospheric, dreamy pop-poetic universe

When Next to Beluga released their debut album ”Out of Place” in 2008, the press and reviewers where excited and said:
”Next to Beluga gives you the feeling of a musical, dreamy and free-space in a time full of stress and chaos. They give a taste of something sweet, melodic, airy, charming, ultra-feminine, detailed and soothing to all us busy people running around in every-day-life”.

Since then, Next to Beluga has been playing a lot of concerts, while working hard on studio recordings, a music video and the creation of new tunes for the new album.
Some of the band members have other music careers on the side of Next to Beluga, amongst those are backing singer Sidsel Storm who has made a career in Danish vocal Jazz, and pianist Karen Bach who has just released third album with her trio and received much praise from the Danish and International press.
Some band members have given birth and expanded their families – in fact summing up, the band has put 4 new babies into the world!
But in spite of all the changes, Next to Beluga is still a strong unit consisting of four people, just like a four-leafed clover.

And now they are ready to release the new album ”Spellbound”.
Jump into the Beluga-world with us an feel that dreamy, synth-based, edgy vibe - we look forward to seeing you. Welcome to Beluga-space...

Dreamy electropop and sombre lyrics
The music of Next to Beluga is still dreamy electropop, but it now has a darker vibe and a heaviness that wasn’t on the previous album. The sound is more raw, more edgy and more simple. And the lyrics circle around serious areas like what is in the past, what is death and what is sin. The songs are about feeling like nothing, feeling like air. A reflection of your surroundings, a mirror. Like if you were caught in another person’s dream – Spellbound (like the album title). Twirled into a story that has already been told, with lots of tabus, sins, suppressed urges and skeletons in the closet. The atmosphere is like the silence before a storm.

Inspiration from the North
We are in the middle of no-man’s land. Far away from the scenaries of every day life. This is what it feels like when the members of Next to Beluga leave their homes after the kids have been put to sleep. The band disappears down underground to an old bomb shelter where they have their rehearsal studio. Here they build up their dreamy-pop. ”Out of Place” is the title of Next to Beluga’s first album. And this place is defnitely an out of place-space. Through the music, the band travels to find the holes and pauses in everyday life, that particular place where time expands and suddenly feels like eternity instead of something limited.

The band is located in Copenhagen where the four members live, but for lead singer and songwriter Sara Futtrup, the creative space was found when growing up in Greenland and the Faraoe Islands. The isles in the middle of the foaming ocean. Here, the nature, the silence, the madness and the big sky created an atmosphere that Sara Futtrup has pursued ever since.
The result has become this dreamy, big-city pop with a hint of longing after mythologi and a personal past in the Northern Seas.

The Music:
Next to Beluga is atmospheric, dreamy electropop. The inspirations are a mix of artists like The Cardigans, Beach House and Kate Bush – with roots in both indie-pop, electronica and jazz. Through old synthesizers, airy vocals and a characteristic female lead, the simple melody is interpreted in a quirky universe of sound. The acoustics are mixed with electronic details. The sweetness is coloured by nordic melancholy and sombre poetic lyrics of ruin and darkness.

A Beluga is...
A white whale that looks like an over-weight dolphin. The Beluga likes human beings and is also called ”the canary bird of the sea” because of it’s ability to sing.
But a Beluga is also a fish that hides within it’s body the finest and most delicate beluga-caviar, famous because it is the one that James Bond prefers.
The band creates pop music, simple and sophisticated as caviar. They thrive in the nordic sea, somewhere between legends of western Denmark and myths from Greenland...

Background of the band:
Next to Beluga met in 2004 and was started by singer and songwriter Sara Futtrup. Sara has earlier had a career in the band Labrador. The band also counts keyboard player Karen Bach, a highly regarded pianist from the Danish underground jazz environment, the bassplayer Thomas Marcussen who has played with MC Einar and Tobias Trier, and drummer Ole Lindholm. Next to Beluga has three releases out: ”Preface EP” from 2005, ”Out of Place” debut album from 2008, and now the newest album ”Spellbound” from 2011.

The new album:
”Spellbound” consists of ten songs. It is produced and mixed by Morten Bue (who has worked with artists such as Moi Caprice, Figurines and The Rumour Said Fire), and Lasse Lyngbo (who has worked with Vinnie Who, White Pony and Diefenbach).
The album will be released on September 1st 2011 from the independent label ”Blue Sea Recordings”. The album is supported by Gramex, Danish Artist Society, DJBFA and KODA.

The Danish electro pop band named after James Bond's favorite caviar is now ready to present their newest album "Spellbound". Jump into Beluga-space with us an feel that dreamy, synth-based, edgy vibe - we look forward to seeing you!

nexttobeluga.dk