Nikolaj Grandjean

Biography

Nikolaj Grandjean was born in 1973 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Discovering his music talent early on, he started with writing songs for birthdays as a child. At early age he learned to play drums and was writing rap-lyrics, before moving on to playing guitar as a teen. Unlike his peers, Nikolaj instantly began writing his own material, instead of learning how to play known songs. At the beginning of his career Grandjean played in various rock bands, never really enjoying having to share the song wr...

Nikolaj Grandjean was born in 1973 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Discovering his music talent early on, he started with writing songs for birthdays as a child. At early age he learned to play drums and was writing rap-lyrics, before moving on to playing guitar as a teen. Unlike his peers, Nikolaj instantly began writing his own material, instead of learning how to play known songs.

At the beginning of his career Grandjean played in various rock bands, never really enjoying having to share the song writing with others. In collaboration with Danish singer Tanja Thulau and producer Per Vibskov he signed contract with Sony. After working on an album for 3 years, however, it was dropped by the label.

Grandjean went on to write songs for various top 10 Danish artists and in the beginning of the millennium was nominated for a Danish Grammy. In collaboration with Tanja Thulau and young jazz musicians he forms bandLuke, making rather dreamy electronic sounds. Being a songwriter, guitarist and co-lead singer really puts Grandjean to work. Luke releases three albums, “Luke” (2003), “Nurse and Amaze” (2005), and “Guaratiba” (2006), and achieves another Grammy nomination for best Danish new act in 2003.

During recordings with Luke on a mountainside in Brazil, Grandjean gets quite handy with the recording devices and with close friend, opera singer Mikkel Lomborg by his side, he decides to start recording his material himself as a proclaimed singer. This partnership defines a radical change in Grandjean's life and career. With support of label man, DJ, producer and recording artist Kenneth Bager, his first solo album, “Carrying Stars”, was released in 2008. For a while he toured around the world, playing more than a hundred shows, on big and small venues. He also toured playing his songs with the Danish National Radios Girlschoir.

Several of his songs were used in film and TV. In 2011 he wrote an original improvised score for the Swiss/Italian film "Summer Games" (2011). His song “Shift to reverse” (2008) was used in the Showtime series “House of lies” (2012) episode "Wonders of the World” (2013) and the song "Heroes and Saints" (2008) was featured in the Brazilian TV novella ‘Viver a vida’ (2010) earning Grandjean a lot of attention in Portuguese speaking countries. He furthermore achieved a platinum record writing and producing entertaining educational children's music with friend Mikkel Lomborg, who now is a very popular tv character.

In 2013 he started collaborating with Danish rapper and producer professionally known as Machacha on the experimental project ‘Dobbeltsyn’. Their first album is due to be out in 2014.

In 2013 German label Embassy of Music picked up on Grandjean’s new recordings. His new album “Together” was released on May 2, 2014.

http://ngrandjean.net/story/

The story is this. The stories are these. This is wondering. About the hurry, the war, the young and the poor, the right now that is only for you. We are. Together. We are us. And here. For sure.

The enormous dramas are perhaps not sensational to the naked eye, they can be simple and plain. And they are right there to be discovered.

Me, I never wake up having to pinch myself to be convinced of how just brilliant everything is. I don't do ecstatic. Growing up very much so on the outside of most of you, a true longing grew, an ability to sense and communicate. A curiosity to study. Needs. Your needs. My needs.

Like that I recognize and experience oceans of drama inside the near and elementary. Introvert adrenaline rushes. That I tend to hide from you.

When parachutes doesn't open. When I repeatedly mind you leaving. Me. I wonder. And wander.

Being subdued by outer powers. I've always taken care of you.

And I insist to talk about it. What is valuable to us. What gets us. The recognition. The acknowledgement. And that I tend to overrule you.

With this at heart and the principal, that I just need to aim for the naked simple, in the raw and underacted, I found myself in front of a computer screen, with a microphone and a guitar. Nights and nights. With birds singing and a few old instruments. As spring came around and overtook the darkness of winter.

I insisted. That it needed to come to life; the differences I understand we share. These things I been carrying, I wrote them down and made them into music. Basically. I have a determined belief that I'm not really wrong, when I invoke that presence. When I repeatedly tell you, that if you trust me, I will take good care of you.

To me that's an enormous drama. When life has you almost die,..

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