Ida Maria to release debut album “Fortress Round My Heart”

A relentless west coast tour by Norwegian “Punk-Pop Spitfire” Ida Maria (as she was characterized in Rolling Stone magazine’s April 2nd issue), has focused attention on her debut album, “Fortress Round My Heart” and its two interna­tional hit singles “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” and “Oh My God.” The tour will now be extended a week past her date at Coachella Festival next Saturday, April 18th, to make room for appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (April 21st) and Last Call with Carson Daly (May 8th).

Coinciding with Ida Maria’s West Coast stay, a one-week free Discovery Download of “Oh My God” starts April 14th on iTunes, and has been chosen to air on all the Gossip Girl tv promos for this season (which started in February).

Ida Maria was chosen for MTV’s Discover & Download campaign. She was also recently selected as a featured artist for mtvU’s “Ahead of The Curve” spots, which showcase original music selections from an eclectic mix of artists, set in an intimate environment. Ida’s “Ahead of the Curve” video will air on mtvU, MTV’s 24-hour college network, beginning on Monday, April 20th, and you can also check it out at www.AheadoftheCurve.mtvU.com. While video for “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” was added to MTV across the board (mtv, mtv2, mtv hits and mtvU)

“Fortress Round My Heart” is a critics favorite – as USA Today proclaimed, “The Scandinavian sensation is crashing borders with her garage-rock tune’s stuttering vocals and buoyant choruses.” 4 Star Review in People Magazine. SPIN calls Ida “Courtney Love minus the bullshit plus more charm…” TIME magazine states “This 24 year old Norwegian has a powerhouse voice…Ida Maria turns her lyrics into epic drama.” Ida Maria was signed to Mercury records which is distributing the record in a close collaboration with the Fontana label

24-year old Ida (pronounced ee-dah) Maria grew up in Nesna, Norway, a university town of fewer than 2000 people north of the 66th latitude. When she moved to the great city of Bergen as a teen, she rubbed shoulders with everyone from metal bands to avant garde jazz musicians and bluegrass singer-songwriters. There she “discovered the inner beast that was hiding in my vocal chords.” At the same time, she developed into a formidable songwriter, informed by a benign variant of synaesthesia, a rare condition in which perception in one sense mode arouses imagery from another, so that one can see sounds or hear colors, for example.