In this Friday’s SpaceScan we present Danish singer/songwriter Esther Maria (and her band The Song Horse), who works in alternative country and folk, and Norwegian quintet THE SHOCK! (fond of capital letters), who have Manchester as it sounded some thirty years ago as partner in crime. You know the drill: Read, listen, hopefully enjoy and then head on to their respective corners of MySpace for more. Have a great weekend.

Esther Maria & The Song Horse (DK)
The Aarhus based singer and songwriter Esther Maria released her debut EP ‘My Black Heart’ in October last year and she’s currently working on a followup. With her impressive, goosebumps inducing vocal as vessel she moves in moving alternative folk and country ways (the EP) and more classic ditto (first three songs on MySpace from the UTAH session). Here’s ‘My Black Heart’ in the EP version:

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THE SHOCK! (NO) (Photo)
It’s got Manchester written all over it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Norwegian quintet THE SHOCK! (which they probably won’t, really) know how to cut enticing rock, witnessed especially by ‘In Silence’ with a bit of Springsteen added and recently released as single with B-side ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Kill’. Both are streaming on MySpace along with two more songs, and here’s ‘In Silence’:

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WHO DO YOU THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD HEAR?
Although we spend a lot of time out there, we can’t claim to have heard every band on MySpace, so please feel free to recommend bands – Scandinavian, of course – you think everybody deserve to hear. We do reserve the right not to feature your band(s), but we guarantee to check them out. Drop links to: spacescan (a) allscandinavian.com