Apparatjik
Apparatjik (pronounced /æpəˈrætʃɪk/ ap-ə-RAT-chik) is a supergroup formed in 2008 that consists of bassist Guy Berryman from Coldplay, guitarist/keyboardist Magne Furuholmen (Magne F) from a-ha, singer/guitarist Jonas Bjerre of Mew and producer Martin Terefe. The band's name literal translation is 'agent of the apparatus'. Apparatjik stans for apparatchik, which is a word of Russian origin and is used to describe 'people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organisations'.
The band first came together for a charity album for Survival International called Amazon Tribe: Songs for Survival. The album wads produced by Martin Terefe and Molly Oldfield, and the band produced the first track on the album, "Ferreting". This track was used as the theme music for the Amazon series on BBC 2. Subsequently they continued to work together in Magne Furuholmen's studio in Norway, and created more tracks that were periodically made available on their MySpace and Youtube pages. They also have a complex website, through which they released various videos and song snippets. They have an alliance with the "Eye On Committee" and aim to bring fans into their world, "inside the cube", in their uniquely odd way by claiming "you too can be an Apparatjik". On 30 November, they released the first official track, "Electric Eye", from their then-upcoming album through their website.
Apparatjik's first live performance was at the eleventh edition of club transmediale, an annual festival in Berlin, which took place from January 28 to February 7, 2010. This gig consisted of the band performing inside a specially constructed cube at the WMF on February 1, 2010. The same day saw the release of their debut album, titled We Are Here, for digital download via their official website. They have since released further singles, their 4 Can Keep A Secret If 3 Of Them Are Dead extended-play, and on June 15, 2010, they re-released We Are Here on iTunes in standard and deluxe versions.
After playing at the Flø festival in Norway in June, on 23 September 2010, the band played their third concert in London. The cube was transported to the red summer pavilion, designed by Jean Nouvel, when Molly Oldfield brought the group to the Serpentine Gallery, in Hyde Park, London. As a nod to the fusion of art and music in their performances, they were invited by the Serpentine Gallery to play at the Future Contemporaries party.
Performances by Apparatjik are an eye-catching affair, with specially-created visuals and silhouettes of the four band members being projected onto all four sides of the cube.
Apparatjik's first song to be played on BBC Radio 1 was a radio edit of "Datascroller", which aired on June 14, 2010.
In November 2010, Magne Furuholmen revealed the promise for "a few very exciting things with [Apparatjik] in 2011" during a BBC Radio 2 interview.
Apparatjik launched a new project called agreeneryouniverse on 11 February 2011. This project invites people across the world to plant a tree, make a picture and upload it to their website. The first 1,000 people in doing so would receive new music as a gift.
A new download-only single was released on 28 March 2011 called "Combat Disco Music".
On 11 November 2011, Apparatjik released their second album called Square Peg In A Round Hole as a free iPad application. Four days later it was given away as a gift as part of the agreeneryouniverse project. The initial target was to release new music upon reaching 1,000 newly planted trees across the world, but the album was released to a wider public after 727 trees had been planted. The iPad application contains a date of 21-02-2012 (21 February 2012) which has led to discussions by fans about the album being released in a physical format on that date.
The band collaborated with Canadian singer Elizabeth Lowell Boland, better known as Lowell, who drummer and producer Martin Terefe has been working with beforehand, and released the mini-album "If You Can, Solve This Jumble" (stylized as "Apparatjik Presents Lowell: if YOu_ _ caN, 5olve thi5 jumble?") on 29 October 2012. Each track in the extended play features lead vocals by Lowell. The debut single "Shake Him Off" has been played on BBC Radio 1 and became single of the week in Canada on iTunes.
Sites: Discogs, MusicBrainz and YouTube Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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