Ylvis, Birdy, Slaves, Dillon, There Were Eleven of Us, Pohoda ’97 and more Pohoda 2017 news
“Does Humor Belong in Music?” is a question Frank Zappa asks on his legendary album from 1984. Currently, brothers Ylvisåker and their comedy-music project Ylvis is the best answer out there. Pohoda is the first European venue outside of Scandinavia, where these nice, talented creative siblings will play their show. There is hardly a better fit in Slovakia than Milan Lasica with album Bolo nás jedenásť (There Were Eleven of Us) and band Chiki liki tu-a to accompany them.
07. December 2016
Ylvis – The Expensive Jacket Tour
Thursday night highlight will be Ylvis with their spectacular The Expensive Jacket Tour set. Brothers Ylvisåker made a name for themselves when their song “The Fox”, whose purpose was to promote the third series of their show I kveld med Ylvis (Tonight with Ylvis), went viral in 2013, exponentially spreading across the internet with over 640 million views as of today. Thanks to this anti-song, people all around the world got to know the gems such as “Stonehenge”, “Dubstep”, “Trucke’s Hitch”, “Jan Egeland”, “A Capella”, “The Cabin” and many more.
In their songs, they parody all sorts of music genres and, basically, anything that crosses their minds. With the size of their fanbase, but mainly, thanks to funny lyrics, videos and quality music production, Ylvis joined the ranks of the most successful music-comedy acts in the world, such as Flight of the Conchords, The Lonely Island or Tenacious D. “What Ylvis do is genius. When preparing Pohoda, we’ve been using their songs as a perfect anti-depressant for quite some time. I haven’t heard such amount of creativity and staying-on-top-of-things attitude in music for years. Even though their approach is different, to me, with the easiness and humor, they have become a current international version of the legendary album There Were Eleven of Us of trio Lasica-Satinský-Filip. I can hardly think of a better opening for the 21st edition of our festival and am particularly proud of this booking: what adds to it is the fact that we are the first venue outside of Scandinavia ever that Ylvis confirmed to play,” says Michal Kaščák.
There Were Eleven of Us
“I consider There Were Eleven of Us to be the best vinyl of the Slovak music scene and I know I’m not the only one. We have wanted it to be performed at Pohoda for some time now and Ylvis confirmation sealed the deal. Master Lasica’s reaction made me really happy.” Michal Kaščák explains the addition of There Were Eleven of Us concert to festival lineup. The album will be played in full with Milan Lasica singing Milan Lasica’s part; Jaro Filip’s daughter, Dorota Nvotová, singing Jaro’s part; and Július Satinský part will be sung by several guests. The best “machine” Valihora-Minárik” will be in charge of the rhythm, Dano Salontay will play the guitar and, gradually, more musicians will be added.
One of the best UK talents – Birdy
She won the Echo Music Prize, was nominated for the Brit Awards and Grammy and this year is the most sold UK singer with an album released in 2016. In total, she has sold 18 million records. Young pianist with a beautiful voice, Birdy, had achieved all of this by the time she was 20. She made a breakthrough with excellent covers such as “Skinny Love” or “People Help the People.” More and more, she is being recognized for her own music, with her latest album serving as a proof. Her fans saw her videos on YouTube half a billion times and each month, she has 6 million listeners on Spotify. Birdy is currently one of the most followed female singers. We will see why this is so in summer at our festival.
Energetic punks Slaves at Pohoda 2017
Slaves released their debut album, Are You Satisfied?, on 1 June 2015. A week later, it ranked number 8 on the UK Album Chart and was nominated for the Mercury Prize 2015. In 2015, they were also nominated for the BBC Sound of 2015. This year, they played the main stage at Reading festival and the BBC praised them for their energetic set... “We saw Slaves at International Festival Forum Conference where agents introduce festival promoters to the hottest acts. Slaves played in the afternoon in front of “conference attendees” and transformed even this type of event into an impressive punk shindig. It was definitely the best show of Fall 2016. Isaac Holman is a drum genius that works like an oiled pneumatic hammer and apart from that, manages to sing and make incredible dance creations. An exceptional band, punk is definitely not dead,” says Michal Kaščák.
Dillon
Young Brazilian-born singer based in Germany makes music characterized by dark-tinged melodic songs, muted electronica, piano and a distinctive voice and work with vocal. The BBC compares her to Lykke Li and Fever Ray; Berlinger Zeitung to Björk. After two successful albums and this year’s beautiful recording of her live performance at Haus der Berliner, she’s planning to release her third studio album and go on tour in 2017. One of the stops will be at Pohoda, where she’ll be performing with a Slovak female choir.
C Duncan
C Duncan is a young Scottish indie-folk composer, artist, singer and multi-instrumentalist. His debut Architect (2015) was nominated for the Mercury Prize. In October, he released his second album The Midnight Sun. According to The Line of Best Fit, he eclipses all expectations and the album received 9 out of 10 points.
Resisters and Elektro Guzzi present Parade – nontraditional combination of genres from Austria
Resisters is a trio of crazy girls whose music and choreography merge into a humorous show. A mix of arrangements with a leading three-part singing of dancing princesses. There’s easiness, humor to it that manage to entertain in an elegant way. We saw them at Waves Vienna and their energy recharged our batteries for the whole evening.
Elektro Guzzi play techno with punk lineup: drums, bass, guitar. Pohoda visitors already had a chance to hear their top-class electronica in pure instrumental arrangements two years back. This time, they will have a brass section, namely, three trombones that have been incorporated as oscillators.
Chiki liki tu-a
When considering who would best open the Thursday’s night together with Ylvis and Lasica, our obvious choice were the Prešov based serious-crazy guys Chiki likitu-a. We’re currently discussing the option of adding their legendary projects to the lineup and hope that during their performance they will also show up as Antracit, Hudci Prérie, The Wajgles, Dzigi Džabur & the Black revolution Band or Der Kondenzator. If you meet Maco somewhere in the street, tell him that this would be really cool!
Pohoda 1997
Didn’t make the Royal Pohoda in 1997? No worries. With a unique concept, year 2017 is bringing two festivals in one. Apart from the new edition, one of the days at one of the stages, will be dedicated to the whole first year’s lineup, which will show how the festival has evolved in the 20 years of its existence… :) A fun fact: almost all the bands are still active; the only bands that don’t usually play are those of the two festival founders. At Pohoda 97 and at Pohoda 2017 will play: Russian phantasmagoric Auktyon, Czech alternative fixtures Garage, Laura a její tygři and MCH Band, ska dance party Polemic, fathers of the Trenčín alternative and long-term festival supporters Chór vážskych muzikantov, hardcore project Flow of Pohoda’s co-founder Mário Michna and Bez ladu a skladu.
Pohoda 2017 visual concept
Milk Design Directors have been collaborating with Pohoda for more than 10 years. The concept they have prepared for the 21st edition of our festival is extraordinarily fresh and exceptional and we are glad that top world graphic designers will take part in the creative process. This is in line with the long-term concept of Pohoda being an international festival of arts, with ever increasing emphasis on visual arts. The agency has approached the world-wide known artists Craig & Karl. The two gentlemen have collaborations with top brands such as Nike, Vogue, Chanel, The New York Times and National Geographic under their belts. Now it’s Pohoda’s turn. Design Director Martin Jenča says about the collaboration: “The main idea of our visual concept is for Pohoda to be a celebration of colorfulness and diversity, mixing all sorts of genres, tastes and cultures. A nice metaphor would be to compare the festival to a pack of candies – it contains all sorts of shapes and flavors, and you can pick your favorites, the known at the festival – or, on the contrary, discover with zest something completely new out of what Pohoda has to offer. Craig & Karl have prepared a package of unique graphic elements exclusively for Pohoda out of which we in Milk independently put together all the visuals. Basically, we created a small playground out of them – it’s up to us which elements we will choose, how we will combine them and what candies we’ll pick. This gives us a palette of multiple options to play with – and at the same time, thanks to its unique style, it allows to instantly identify Pohoda without its visuals being boring or annoying.”
The great news started with the announcement of the first confirmed act, the winners of the Mercury Prize, alt-J. 4 nominations in TOP 10 shortlists of the European Festival Awards in the categories of Best Line-up, Promoter, Medium-Sized Festival and Personality of the Year made us really happy (more here:…). We launched the sale of new merch, tickets for people with severe health disability, car park and campervan passes and, today, our special Christmas merch that is soon to be added to our Shop offer has arrived. If you don’t feel like waiting for good music and atmosphere till July, we would like to invite you to the 3rd year of Doma Dobre and 10th year of the St. Vincent de Paul low threshold hostel. On Sunday, 11 December, bands Allstar Refjúdží Band, Vrbovskí víťazi and Swingless Jazz Ensemble will play here with guests (Lasky, Vec and Michal Kaščák). Besides a nicely spent afternoon, you can support a good thing. More info here:...
This all is just the beginning. We’re looking forward to seeing you at Doma Dobre and the 21st year of Pohoda, 6-8 July 2017. On behalf of Pohoda Team, Tono Repka.