Pitchfork

Welcome to the latest edition of Pitchfork's Guest List. Each week, we ask one of our favorite artists to fill us in on what they've been up to lately: which tracks they can't stop spinning, what books they can't put down, and what new bands they've caught on tour. This week it's Slaraffenland's Christian Taagehøj, who recalls his trip to SXSW (2007), laments the price tag on CDs and jeans in Denmark, and brags about his vintage guitar.

>> Favorite New Songs from the Past Year

We all have heard TV on the Radio, the last album they made especially "Wolf Like Me"...that's an excellent track.

I'm not sure if it's the newest one, but Xiu Xiu, "Boy Soprano". At least I'd heard that.

And then Chad VanGaalen, he's a Canadian guy, he's on Sub Pop, there's a track on the new one we've all heard a lot of tour called "Sing Me to 2 Sleep". It's very very good.

And then we all like another Danish group called Murder, it's like a very quite band, it's a duo, it's very folk-like, but they have a very nice track called "When the Bees are Sleeping".

>> Favorite Older Songs at the Moment

We all listen, of course, to the Beatles. We wanted to find a Beatles track that we listen to a lot: "Julia" from the White Album is maybe the favorite.

And then some Neil Young, I think "Old Man", from Harvest.

And then we always listen to a lot of Cocteau Twins, especially the album called Heaven or Las Vegas, the first track called "Cherry-Coloured Funk".

I'm not that much into Bryan Ferry, but I'm very much into the track called "More Than This". It's an amazing track. When I always imagine someone else playing that track I think it sounds very much like shoegaze thing, like I imagine Kevin Shields.

>> Favorite New Band

I'm not sure if he's new, but Chad VanGaalen, we all like him. I'm not sure if a lot of people in Europe know him, at least I never read about him in the news over here, but we all bought some records in the States when we were touring once, and we were playing at SXSW and we went to see his show but he didn't show up-- I think he was stopped in the customs between Canada and the US. So that was a bummer because he was the number one show we wanted to see. But he filmed a video that was quite amazing, you can see it on Youtube.

>> Favorite Song Ever

My Bloody Valentine: "Only Shallow"
I think the first track from Loveless, it's called "Only Shallow". It's amazing. Slaraffenland did a version of it, like one of the only cover tracks we've ever done. It wasn't that original, we never played it live, we just recorded it. It's perfect.

>> Best Recent Concert

Back at SXSW we saw a show by Brad Laner of Medicine. He's got a record coming out on Home Tapes, our label. We played right before him and he played liked a solo show, that was amazing. We were all blown away by it. It was in a parking lot in a day show and he just killed it.

>> Last Great Film I Saw

Actually my girlfriend just started studying films so we never really go to the movies anymore. She watched so many movies. But two days ago or so the movie called The Prestige with Christian Bale. I've been watching a lot of Christian Bale. I just watched The Machinist as well.

>> Last Great Book I Read

I just read Jonathan Safran Foer's book called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's about 9/11, but not, like, about 9/11, it takes place in New York around that time. 9/11 is sort of a side event. It's a little boy whose father dies in the twin towers, but it's not about the twin towers it's about the little boy.

>> Favorite Piece of Musical Equipment

Our bass player he said he really likes his double bass, I think maybe it's because he never uses it anymore, he never plays it with Slaraffenland, if he did some jazz gigs or something like that he plays it. Our saxophone player really likes his new guitars, he just bought two guitars and he's got to learn to play guitar. He just started playing a little bit of guitar. Then one of the guys, he plays all sorts of brass and he just bought a new trumpet. And the drummer, he just bought a delay pedal and a mixer so he can sample drum sounds while he's playing, so he's very much into that. I play guitar, and I have a lot of expensive guitars but my favorite one is an old Fender Mustang from '65 and I bought it in Boston once for $400. It's pretty much the guitar I play.

>> Favorite Record Shop

Kent's Media and Music, New York
It's probably not that original but our favorite record stores would probably be Kent's Media and Music in New York, and also Other Music. It's because over here in Denmark a new CD would be $25 so whenever we go to New York we buy a bunch because it's half the price. We always leave with 50 CDs each whenever we tour in the US.

>> Best Purchase of the Past Year

I bought a very cool cowboy hat when we played in SXSW, and I wore when we were there, but I haven't put it on when I came back here-- it would be a little strange I think. The rest of the guys, they bought new iPods and laptops in the States. And jeans, we always buy jeans when we go on tour because it's double the price in Denmark. We always buy CDs and jeans when we're touring.

>> Best Thing I Did This Year

Two of the guys have kids in the last year, so those ones overrule everything the rest of us have done. Then I think in the past year we recorded the new album, added vocals too, it's a new thing for us to use vocals in our music and I think it's staying there. I think it's a very good thing to explore that.

>> Favorite Music Venue

We just played the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. It's an amazing festival, it's very nice. Even though it was rainy and muddy this year, but it's such a cool venue-- a cool festival. We played a show in the US this March in Fayetteville, it was a house show in a very small cottage, like a living room. It was a very new experience for us to play such a show like in someone's living room. And we were playing with American Princes and Catfish Haven, so it was totally great, like 50 people standing by right in front of you. It was very intense. But it was a very good experience. So maybe it's not even a venue, but it was a very cool experience for us. We don't have house shows over here, it's not that kind of place.

>> Favorite TV Show at the Moment

Right now it would be Tour de France, the cycling race. We have a Danish guy leading so everybody's very nervous and watching all these days. I don't know if you watch it but the last eight years it was Americans who won-- Lance Armstrong-- so it's very cool that it's a Danish guy this year. There's a wee left, but it seems like he could make it.

>> Favorite Video Game at the Moment

Nobody buys video games, but when we're crashing and the band's playing stupid games like "Pac Man" or "Minesweeper" I could use...in the summer time when it's raining, just staying inside, I could use a day just playing "Pac Man".

>> Favorite Radio Show

We have a very cool radio show in Denmark called "Radian". It's like the only totally alternative music show, and it's got one of the best reviewers from the newspaper. It's two hours a week and it's very, very, very cool. We don't have that many different radio channels in Denmark, it's been so small of a show, but this show is very good. We also like, there's a radio in Boulder, the Hometapes city, it's called radio 1190 [AM], I think. They play Slaraffenland a lot. I think they played all of the songs from our album, even the most experimental things. So we like them as well.

>> My Ringtone

It's always silent on my phone, like the vibrating thing. But one of the guys in the band, he makes his own ringtones. Like, it would say, "Pick me up. Or don't. You decide." It will be totally long, it's the same thing with his voicemail; you have to listen for, like, two minutes before you can leave a message.