ENSLAVED Announced As Artists In Residence For ROADBURN FESTIVAL

Norway's ENSLAVED will be "artists in residence" for next year's Roadburn Festival, set to take place April 15-18, 2010 at the 013 and Midi Theatre venues in Tilburg, Holland.

ENSLAVED, along with various other musicians, will play several special shows during the festival starting with an April 15 performance which will "pan towards the latter-day ENSLAVED and will consist of a set list specially put together for Roadburn; emphasizing the heavy, the psychedelic and not but least — the visual aspect of what ENSLAVED is today," says ENSLAVED's Ivar Bjørnson. "Be prepared for a surprise or two!"

TRINACRIA has been invited personally by Tom Gabriel Warrior to play his Roadburn-curated event, Only Death Is Real, on Friday, April 16.

Formed by Ivar Bjørnson (ENSLAVED),Maja S. K. Ratkje and Hild Sofie Tafjord (both from FE-MAIL),TRINACRIA combines the hard hitting sounds of cutting-edge, Norwegian extreme metal with contemporary Norwegian noise, originally commissioned by Rikskonsertene for a concert series. This group turned into a vital and creative project, completed by Grutle Kjellson, Ice Dale (both from ENSLAVED),Iver Sandøy (EMMERHOFF & THE MELANCHOLY BABIES) and Espen Lien (SLUT MACHINE).

DREAM OF AN OPIUM EATER is a special collaboration between ace-metal musicians like ENSLAVED's Ivar Bjørnson, Reuben Gotto (JOHNNY TRUANT),Ben Calvert (ex-KILLING JOKE) and Julia Ruzicka from MILLION DEAD. Like in the old days, when a pianist would accompany silent movies, DREAM OF AN OPIUM EATER creates an epic and unsettling soundtrack — composed by Reuben Gotto and Ivar Bjørnson — to a collection of mind-bending horror short-films, projected on a huge screen behind them. Expect some dark, intense, but also swirling takes on psychedelic metal reminiscent of TOOL, VOIVOD and even JOY DIVISION, as icy horror and fright oozes from both the screen and the speakers.

"DREAM OF AN OPIUM is a powerful outlet for my doom sides," says Ivar Bjørnson. "I was stunned when we got together to do our first show at the Roskilde Festival in 2007; we sounded heavier together than I had dared hope for.

"For me, music is energy, and getting to express the lower, heavier energies through DREAM OF AN OPIUM EATER is amazing — every single time we perform. Playing to these very unique Norwegian short horror movies adds an extra dimension that creates a bubble of weirdness at our show. Not having a vocalist also makes life easy when we get together, hehe!"

After playing Roskilde festival (2007),Carling Leeds festival (2007) and Wacken Open Air (2008),this will be the fourth-ever performance from DREAM OF AN OPIUM EATER, set for April 16 as part of the Roadburn Festival.

ENSLAVED / SHINING (Norway; not to be confused with the Swedish black metal act of the same name) will be the main headliners of Roadburn Festival 2010, playing their 90-minute Armageddon Concerto on Saturday, April 17.

ENSLAVED and SHINING are two of Norway's most hard-hitting and progressive bands, constantly pushing musical boundaries on their own. Now the bands will be joining forces again, and impress and shock Roadburn Festival 2010 with a rare performance of the Armageddon Concerto — for the first time ever outside of Scandinavia.

The Armageddon Concerto will lead Roadburn Festival 2010 on a journey from our present state to the inevitable downfall of this world — through Ragnarok and a following period of vacuum and nothingness, a brief and painful post-apocalyptic era; and finally through the rise from the ashes to a new beginning in a distant time and space.

Composed by ENSLAVED's Ivar Bjørnson and SHINING's Jørgen Munkeby and arranged together with the band members, the Armageddon Concerto is described by Bjørnson as "an experience of a lifetime. Prog, doom, jazz, extreme metal, northern mythology, science fiction — this is going to be massive."

For more information, visit www.roadburn.com.