Fortress Round My Heart

Product Description Born and raised in the icy Norwegian stillness of the Arctic Circle, Ida Maria brought a new cool to the top of the pops when her first single release in the UK, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" hit #13 on the national chart and sent her debut album, FORTRESS ROUND MY HEART straight inside the Top 40. FORTRESS ROUND MY HEART - which drew 4 star UK reviews in Q magazine and The Guardian - has now been signed to Mercury Records, and will be distributed by Fontana in a close collaboration with a March 24th digital release. "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" was officially released as a digital single in the U.S. earlier this week (on February 24th). Ida Maria's song "Oh My God" will be used in all the Gossip Girl promos for this season. Originally airing 2/23, the promos will continue for months ahead! On the heels of her 30-show, sold-out headlining UK tour in November, four critically acclaimed showcases in Los Angeles and New York, and NME's prestigious Shockwaves Awards show earlier this month - Ida Maria and her band (Stefan Törnby on lead guitar, bassist Johannes Lindberg, drummer Olle Lundin) will play their first U.S. tour in March. Kickoff is the South By Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, March 18-22. Dates will continue in New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington DC, West Chester (PA), Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Boston. Ida Maria will return to the U.S. for a performance at the Coachella Festival in California on April 18th. 24-year old Ida (pronounced ee-dah) Maria grew up in Nesna, Norway, a university town of fewer than 2000 people north of the 66th latitude. When she moved to the great city of Bergen as a teen, she rubbed shoulders with everyone from metal bands to avant garde jazz musicians and bluegrass singer-songwriters. There she "discovered the inner beast that was hiding in my vocal chords." At the same time, she developed into a formidable songwriter, informed by a benign variant of synaesthesia, a rare condition in which perception in one sense mode arouses imagery from another, so that one can see sounds or hear colors, for example. Following the success of "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked," "Oh My God" was issued as a new single, and earned a 4 star review from RollingStone.com. Time magazine placed the song at # 3 on their "Top Ten List of Everything in 2008," praising her "powerhouse voice - deep, commanding, a little masculine, exotic, too, like Nico, but with an abundance rather than an absence of feeling." Review "At once deeply confessional and dangerously carefree, Norway's latest export sings every song like she's on the verge of breaking into a million pieces. The Music holds her together." -- Paste "Ida Maria...Courtney Love minus the bullshit plus more charm..." -- Spin "Meet the Norwegian garage-pop singer of your future." -- Rolling Stone "The Scandinavian sensation is crashing borders with her garage-rock tune's stuttering vocals and buoyant choruses." -- USA Today "This 24 year old Norwegian has a powerhouse voice.... Ida Maria turns her lyrics into epic drama." -- Time About the Artist Like the Norse warrior maiden Freya, 24-year-old Norwegian rocker Ida (eee-da) Maria is a force of nature, a goddess of love, fertility and sexual desire who led the Valkyries into battle, a fearless fighter who, paradoxically, has a passion for romantic music and flowers. Mirroring the weather in the tiny university town of Nesna in Norway, where she grew up, Ida Maria is a raging storm one moment, a blinding ray of sunshine the next. That dichotomy is perfectly captured on Fortress Round My Heart, her debut album for Mercury Records, and a description of the armor she takes into war--the songs which form her defense against the world, but also reveal the raw, honest emotions that she put into creating them. It forms the kind of full-bodied attack Ida and her powerful Swedish band--guitarist Stefan Tornby, bassist Johannes Lindberg and drummer Olle Lundin--exhibit on the U.K. hit single, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked," which catapulted the critically acclaimed Fortress straight into the British Top 40, prompting comparisons to female vocal sirens like Janis Joplin, Nico and Chrissie Hynde. "I hoped that song was going to be for the alternative kids while I wrote it," she says of "Naked." . I wanted to see how catchy I could make all the songs. I hadn't really grown up on anything but rock music, so I tried to see if I could do that." About the song's unusual lyric, Ida says: "It's very much a shout-out to all those who objectify women. I wanted to turn it around and make the male body an object. I think I succeeded and I'm very happy about this." The tune uses as its indelible hook a sing-song nursery rhyme that sounds like a "Shortnin' Bread"-style standard you've heard before, but can't quite place. "I used the simplest kind of melody to get my message across, so that people would sing the
ASIN: B001V7UXB2
VSKU: DBV.B001V7UXB2.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:MARIA,IDA
Binding: Audio cd
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: Individually inspected: Guaranteed to play perfectly or your money back. Case may show wear and may be in library packaging. Ships Fast!