Scandinavian post-punks Iceage released their album Plowing into the Field of Love back in the fall, but just a few months later, frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt is heading into a new direction with a different project. This outfit is called Marching Church, and they will release the debut full-length This World Is Not Enough on March 31 through Sacred Bones/Posh Isolation.
Rønnenfelt has been using the Marching Church alias since 2010 and has issued a couple of short-form releases, but it wasn't until 2013 that he formed its current incarnation with Kristian Emdal (Lower), Anton Rothstein (Lower), Cæcilie Trier (Choir of Young Believers), Bo H. Hansen (Hand of Dust, Sexdrome) and Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary).
In an announcement, Rønnenfelt explained that the project came together when he booked a hometown show in Copenhagen. Two months before the show, he presented the band with "a few half-thought-out ideas and sketches" and was surprised that his collaborators fleshed out the songs with an emphasis on improvisation.
He conceived of This World Is Not Enough as something that "sounded half asleep and like it was being dragged across the ground, or smouldering in a bonfire." Eventually, he developed more of an interest in soul band-leaders like James Brown, Sam Cooke and Young Americans-era David Bowie. The result is "eight songs of nocturnal longing, preposterous self-obsession and cockeyed etiquette."
To hear what this sounds like, scroll past the tracklist below to hear the seven-minute "Hungry for Love," which begins as a spoken-word track in a foreign tongue before turning it a dramatic art-jazz experiment.
This World Is Not Enough:
1. Living in Doubt
2. King of Song
3. Hungry for Love
4. Your Father's Eyes
5. Calling Out a Name
6. Every Child (Portrait of Wellman Braud)
7. Up a Hill
8. Dark End of the Street
Rønnenfelt has been using the Marching Church alias since 2010 and has issued a couple of short-form releases, but it wasn't until 2013 that he formed its current incarnation with Kristian Emdal (Lower), Anton Rothstein (Lower), Cæcilie Trier (Choir of Young Believers), Bo H. Hansen (Hand of Dust, Sexdrome) and Frederikke Hoffmeier (Puce Mary).
In an announcement, Rønnenfelt explained that the project came together when he booked a hometown show in Copenhagen. Two months before the show, he presented the band with "a few half-thought-out ideas and sketches" and was surprised that his collaborators fleshed out the songs with an emphasis on improvisation.
He conceived of This World Is Not Enough as something that "sounded half asleep and like it was being dragged across the ground, or smouldering in a bonfire." Eventually, he developed more of an interest in soul band-leaders like James Brown, Sam Cooke and Young Americans-era David Bowie. The result is "eight songs of nocturnal longing, preposterous self-obsession and cockeyed etiquette."
To hear what this sounds like, scroll past the tracklist below to hear the seven-minute "Hungry for Love," which begins as a spoken-word track in a foreign tongue before turning it a dramatic art-jazz experiment.
This World Is Not Enough:
1. Living in Doubt
2. King of Song
3. Hungry for Love
4. Your Father's Eyes
5. Calling Out a Name
6. Every Child (Portrait of Wellman Braud)
7. Up a Hill
8. Dark End of the Street