You take a house DJ and make him play the drums, then you ass a Bowie-loving bassist who sings too, and finally you fill in an avantgarde jazz guitarist with a mean moustache. These are the main ingredients in trio WHOMADEWHO. A mouthwatering steew that enjoys things a bit stirred.
Let's put down some facts in separated chapters so that you can skip what ever you think is really boring and wack...
The PEOPLE
Band: Tomas Barfod, Tomas Hoeffding, Jeppe Kjellberg
Label: Munich based GOMMA
The MEETING
Tomas Barfod (drummer, producer) had known Jeppe Kjellberg (guitarist, vocal) for some time. He amired the long guy for his creative and personal way of handling the guitar. He also admired his thick, wild semilong hair. Tomas himself had shaved his head a few years earlier, cause that's the way things go sometimes. Anyway, they got together and spoke about music, wanting to do something out of their current field. They had an urge to bend and melt down genres of their likings. But they needed ome more person to make it all ad up. Along came another boldie, Tomas Hoeffding (bass, vocal). This guy was a fine fellow from Jeppe's social circles and he had an instant connection with Tomas Barfod as well. Not only was he hairless too, but also he understood the way of thinking and was the owner of a smooth honest voice.
Early on on the making the boys drove away to an old, soiled house in the country. Here they got down some raw, intuitively played recordings, that later became solid tracks on their debut album of 2005. The threesome was united.
GREEN VERSIONS (released summer 2006)
Now some label sales-talk:
A good song is a good song. No matter what style you play it in. WhoMadeWho write good songs. On GREEN VERSIONS, they have re-interpreted fourteen of their own compositions in a completely different manner.Those songs originally made up their much acclaimed debut album, which was released on Gomma last fall and met with euphoric reactions, especially in the UK and France. Art Brut, Mylo and Annie invited them as opening act to their gigs and they were main support for Soulwax on the tour throughout Europe including a euphoric gig at the After Show Party of the MTV Music Awards in Lisbon. (The press also loved them: The NME as well as i-D Magazine described them as Simply brilliant and Mixmag called them the best disco-not-disco band since LCD Soundsystem.)Now, WhoMadeWho had the unique idea to re-interpret their own debut album.
While the original versions (and their live performance) portray WhoMadeWhos energetic (more futuristic disco rock) side, on GREEN VERSIONS the band presents itself from a completely new angle: Now they play the same songs in a melancholic, beautifully acoustic way: No beats. Just Space Rock, No Wave, futuristic Folk you could even claim some Bluegrass influences.This one-time variation comes as no surprise if one is aware of the diverse musical backgrounds of WhoMadeWhos three members: bassist Høffding was socialized in the strong Skandinavian Garage Rockscene. Kjelleberg (on guitar) lived in New York for a while, where he studied with David Tronzo (from the legendary art jazz band The Lounge Lizards). And Barfod, the drummer, loves djing freaked out disco records. So WhoMadeWho are a symbiosis of three very different personalities who create totally new, original musical atmospheres in the case of GREEN VERSIONS romantic, spaced out neo folk tracks.These re-interpretations emerged while jamming around acoustically on after show parties, in the tour bus, in Tomass living room just for fun. However, people loved the acoustic versions, and it would be a shame not to collect these gems on a limited special album. Not just for fans, but especially for people who love good songs.
