The Matinée Holiday Soirée!

Celebrating the forthcoming holiday season, the final Matinée release of the year is a very special Christmas single called "The Matinée Holiday Soirée", and it is now available on Itunes, and for pre-order at Matinée.

The tracklisting is:

1. Math and Physics Club - It Must Be Christmas

2. Northern Portrait - Leave The Trees Alone

3. Strawberry Whiplash – Santa Needs A Holiday

4. Champagne Riot – Xmas Safari

5. Bubblegum Lemonade – White Noise Christmas.

And we're, again, delighted to be included on an EP with some of our personal Matinée favorites. A new favorite among these, is our very own bassplayer Caspar's other band, Champagne Riot - be sure to check out their holiday-hit "Xmas Safari" too, at the Matinée sounds page.

Behind the scenes of "Crazy"

New set on Flickr.

Pre-order 'Life Returns To Normal' now!

Our new single 'Life Returns To Normal' is now available for pre-ordering at the Matinée Recordings website: http://www.indiepages.com/matinee/catalog.html?id=076

The single is limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies pressed on stylish ultra clear vinyl and comes with a free MP3 download code.

Stefan alone in the UK

Stefan will be singing some Northern Portrait songs on his own (including some brand new ones and perhaps a few covers) in London on Friday the 24th and in Nottingham on the 25th. And on the evening of the 25th he'll do a bit of DeeJaying in London as well, at Scared To Dance.

New video for: I give you two seconds to entertain me

We have no idea who made this very cool video for "I give you two seconds to entertain me" but it is quite thrilling nonetheless.

New video for 'Crazy'

Live @ Pop & Merguez

Stefan comments on the World Cup

Northern Portrait's very own Stefan Larsen has suddenly and unexpectedly become an international football expert alongside some quite fascinating people at Skysports.com. Read the article here.

Northern Portrait DJ-set @ Ideal Bar

Northern Portrait will be doing a somewhat British inspired DJ-set at VEGA's Ideal Bar this thursday. We're on from around midnight till 2pm - See you there!

Northern Riot

Stefan has contributed vocals, alongside Ulrika from Compute and Liechtenstein, on the latest pophit by NP's very own bassplayer Caspars duo, Champagne Riot - and it is entitled something as beautiful as Ingrid Bergman. It has just been made available for streaming on their very colourful myspace page, hope you'll enjoy it!

Microsonidos 2010

The Candy Twins, part 2

As mentioned in a friendly comment on this blog, The Candy Twins have now done an official studio recording of the excellent song "The Next Big Thing". We're absolutely delighted to be mentioned in a song so terribly catchy.

Live @ Buffalo Bar

As you can probably see by this video, theres been a few changes; We're now fourpiece which means that Stefan is doing alot more guitar-playing than before, and Michael's got a haircut.
A big thanks to Baby Honey for having us, and an even bigger one to everyone who showed up and danced.

Northern Portrait interview for Isto é Música.

Brazilian blog Isto é Música has brought an interview with Stefan, in Portugese. Here it is in English:

1) Why Northern Portrait?
I suppose the question goes for the name, which I honestly cannot remember. I think it had something to do with the portrait of 'Palle Sørensen' that we use on 'The Fallen Aristocracy' EP and on our myspace.


2) In the website and in the myspace the band said "Northern Portrait is a band who’s raison d’être is the making of sophisticated pop music". In your opinion, What is sophisticated pop music?
To me sophistication is about taste, refinement and complexity. Mainstream pop music of today is such a broad spectrum of things; sometimes good, but more often horrific - it's basically just a headline that covers everything that's in the charts. The complexity in chart pop is often ruined by the recipe type songwriting, you know: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, chorus, chorus, fade.
Our music is certainly pop, but just not the polished and radio-friendlyfied type, and only very few of our songs really have a chorus in the traditional sense. And I think that type of music demands a little bit more from the listener, a little bit more interest and sophistication: It's something you have to search for, and you can only find it, if you're very much aware of your own taste and so on. The reason why we label our music 'sophisticated pop music' is also because 'Indie' has been completely exploited to sell almost anything, so it really makes little or no sense using that term these days.


3) What's your favourite album of The Smiths?
If 'Hatful of Hollow' is on option, I'll go for that one, but I suppose it might not count as a real album. Perhaps 'Strangeways Here We Come' because of the pureness of the production, and the brilliance of all the songs (except Death at One's Elbow).


4) What is the second best new band from Denmark?
Unfortunately I'm not really that much into the current music scene in Denmark, but I must of course recommend our bass player Caspar's group 'Champagne Riot'. If we look back in time I really enjoy a Danish early 80's band called 'Kliché', a singer called 'Lars Hug', a group called 'Love Shop', and another group called 'Gangway'.


5) Who plays what instrument in the band?
Jesper Bonde: Guitar
Michael Sørensen: Drums
Caspar Bock: Bass
Stefan Larsen: Vocals and guitar