Labrador Asia Tour--Club 8 + Pelle Carlberg live in Shanghai,18 JAN 2008 January 18, 2008

Date: 18.01.2008
Time: 9pm
Band: Club 8 + Pelle Carlberg (former lead singer of Edson)
Supporting: Yu Guo
Venue: Shanghai Zhijiang Dream Factory
Add: 28b Yu Yao Rd (Tong Le Fang), Jing'an District
Ticket Price: RMB200 (Pre-sale) RMB250 (At the door)
Enquiries: 02152378662
* Only 500 Tickets

Club 8 Biography

Club 8 was formed in 1995 by Karolina Komstedt (from the band Poprace) and Johan Angerg?rd (Acid House Kings, Poprace). They made simple bedroom recordings of their three first songs and sent them to their ten favourite labels. The response was just as immediate as it was good with half of the labels wanting to release the band. Club 8 chose the Spanish label Siesta where they released their debut single ?Me too? later the same year and the debut album ?Nouvelle? the year after..

The sound on the debut album was definitely a bit naive and twee. And as charming as a lot of people found the debut the follow up ?The friend I once had? (1998) felt like a big step forward for the band. Their mix of bossa nova, glittery guitars, shiny pop melodies and small hints of dance music made this album an indie-success. They also debuted as a live act with a performance at CMJ in New York in 1999.

Striving for constant change and improvements Club 8 moved away from the bossa nova influences and direct pop songs of ?The friend I once had? with the self-titled follow up. ?Club 8? (2001-Parasol/Labrador/Flavour of Sound) was both darker and slower. Still, they managed to expand their audience and had somewhat of a hit with ?Love in december?. The only real problem the band had experienced was the fact that recording on limited studio time was a hindrance to their experimental lusts. Late 2001 Club 8, along with fellow band Acid House Kings, set up their own recording studio – Summersound Studios.

With 24/7 access to a recording studio of their own Club 8 enterered their most creative and productive phase to date recording the diversified, semi-electronic and slightly experimental, but intensly emotional ?Spring came, rain fell? in 2002 (Parasol/Labrador/Dodgie Disc) and the more guitar-based and kept together follow up ?Strangely beautiful? (2003-Parasol/Labrador/Quince). The latter contained the song ?Saturday night engine? which was, very accuately, described as " a storming (very) Northern soul-inspired track bursting with an excitement that sounded quite out of place in that quiet group's discography” and a forerunner to Johan’s band The Legends according to All Music.

After the release of ?Strangely beautiful? Club 8’s activity slowed down while Johan formed The Legends and released three albums with the band between 2003 and 2006, plus the album ”Sing along with Acid House Kings” with Acid House Kings in 2005. During this period Club 8 only did a few minor tours in Asia and Europe.

Summer 2006 Club 8 was about to burst of creativity and urge to start recording again and in September they started recording their 6th album.

The boy who couldn’t stop dreaming? is Club 8s most profound to date, balancing perfectly between sunshine and melancholia. Twelve songs that’ll make you sing along about death to while dreaming of summer days. A glorious return to say the least.

Pelle Carlberg Biography

Pelle Carlberg grew up in middleclass, nuclear family in the university town Uppsala. The fact that Pelle has devoted his life to the music wasn’t always looked upon with keen eyes, but when Pelle passed thirty people stopped asking him when he was going to get a proper education and real job.

Between the years 1988 and 1993 Pelle was the lead singer and songwriter in the band Amanda om natten, a quartet that didn’t just become world famous in Uppsala, but also played live in Japan and Ireland. Amanda om natten was inspired by typical ”friends of Sweden”, like The Smiths, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, The Go-between and The Church. After two vinyl releases and a CD-ep the members went separate ways.

Pelle moved to Stockholm, bought an electric guitar and immediately got a new band together. With what might be the worst band name in history, Salami, Pelle’s characteristic melodies was lustfully drenched in distortion. After the regular record label promises and lies, the band came to nothing.

At the time Pelle was studying English at the University of Stockholm, which eventually lead to a job as translator at a multimedia company. After a couple of months behind an office desk Pelle started to write new songs and decided to start a new musical project. The basic idea was to arrange the songs in a simple and natural way as possible. Edson thought in terms of ”What’s best for the song?”, ”organic” and ”fluffy”. The sextet played live frequently all over Sweden and in 1999 they appeared on the Up and Coming stage at the Hultsfred festival. Soon after that the band released a four track CD in cooperation with the American John Cloud and MNW.

In the year 2000 Edson signed with Summersound Recordings (today a part of Labrador) and recorded the album ”Unwind With Edson”. The album received overwhelming criticism, 4/5 nearly everywhere. The band then released an album a year (”For Strength” –02 and ”Every Day, Every Second” –03) and toured Sweden and parts of Europe. Until one day when Pelle felt stuck; being in a group takes its toll and if you’re going to spend every day and every second thinking about songs, it can eventually become indefensible to compromise too much.

Pelle decided to make the next album totally on his own. The solo debut, ”Everything. Now!”, in October 2005, felt like an obvious step in a long career. For the first time Pelle recorded and produced his songs from his very own vision. The song Go to Hell, Miss Rydell – that deals with a bad review of an Edson album - became a ”talker” and many journalists wanted to know if it really happened.

At this point the interest for Pelle Carlberg’s music started to rise around the globe. During 2006 Pelle and his one-man band Henrik Nilsson toured Great Britain, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Indonesia. The album was released all over the world and the reviews in, for example American press were overwhelming, and noteworthy was that Pelle’s personal and quirky lyrics were praised in unison.

I spite of assiduous touring and four children back home, Pelle is now done with a new album. According to Pelle the new album is full of sparkling folk pop, bitter observations and untrendy production. Simply, Pelle Carlberg in a nutshell.

Official Website: http://www.yuyintang.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=141&Itemid=43