House Of Shakira are a Swedish rock formed by guitarists Mats Hallstensson and Anders Lundström that started out in Stockholm around 1991 under the moniker The Station. The mid 1990’s saw the band change their name to House of Shakira, named after a London bordello and found a settled line up with Per Schelander (bass), Tony Andersson (drums) and Andreas Eklund (vocals) alongside Hallstensson and Lundström. The band's motto is simply "Try every idea with an open mind", therefore every member of the band contributes with own ideas to make this music unique. House Of Shakira consists of five very different personalities that only have one thing that ties them together – to write and perform good songs. A good song is the key to make this band function, style or sound doesn’t matter as long as the song is good.
Avalanche is the first solo album by Canadian artist Matthew Good since Raygun. Released in 2003, the album marked a creative departure from his earlier work with the Matthew Good Band, and featured accompaniment by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on several tracks. The album had three singles: "Weapon", "In a World Called Castastrophe" and "Near Fantastica", although "Near Fantastica" was released only to radio in a substantially shorter edit. The music video for "Weapon" won a Juno Award, which was shared between Good and co-director Ante Kovac (Good refused to accept the award, however, as he boycotts the Juno Awards).