Craft Spells

Copenhagen Sessions, here we go! We have temporarily left Vienna and moved a bit further north to explore the Danish capital, which welcomes us with a rather adventurous opening session. It’s a cool October evening and we pick up the Seattle-based Craft Spells at the Vega venue after their soundcheck. What was initially the bedroom project of the young Californian Justin Vallesteros is now a full band on their first Europe tour, having collected very favourable reviews for their dreamy, melancholic debut album „Idle Labor“. After walking through the Vesterbro neighbourhood for a few minutes, we pop into a laundry and Craft Spells start setting up their instruments. Hardly a minute later the owner storms in, barks something in Danish and finally kicks us out without much discussion. „It’s bad for business“, he says. The band takes it with a smile and we walk on until we find a small, almost abandoned shopping mall that unfolds some dreary, washed-out charm. It is a bit weird that the guy who made us leave his laundry shows up again there, walking into the supermarket and giving us occasional suspicious gazes through the shop windows when Craft Spells start into a beautiful acoustic version of „The Fog Rose High“. For the second song, „Your Tomb“, the four guys walk along the mall, past closed and empty shops (and one of the omnipresent Netto supermarkets), and engage in some moonwalking in the end. „That was fun!“, Justin says. Yes, it was! A great start in Copenhagen!