Swedesplease – The Swedish Music Blog

Wan Light (MS) recorded two lps and an ep for the biggest indie label in Sweden (Labrador) and then that was that. Their music was described by the very same folks at Labrador as some of the best they’d ever released. I fell for their last single on the label, “Airborne”, in a big way. Somehow their music came along at just the right time for me; it’s perfect for iPods, which means it’s perfect for getting wrapped up in while listening to on headphones.

The band is presently searching for a label to release their new tracks and if I’m reading the new sound right this has a bigger element of deep house and a little less guitar and piano. Here’s the work in progress – “Sunburst”.

Sunburst

Bonus back catalog tracks

That Grim Reality
Landmarks and House

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I’m not sure if Oskar Schonning (here) is one of Sweden’s jazz stars or not, but from the tone he pulls off in the song “S” he certainly should be. “S” is the b-side to a two song free single released in the spring of 2007. Oskar is presently busy recording his new album in Serbia and Croatia.

You can catch the band in it’s latest incarnation Sept. 4 and 5th at the Glen Miller Cafe in Stockholm. How I long to be there?!

Other Birds
S

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(Rachel Sumpter’s “Chronicles of Stalactite”)

Another Kind Of Relief does a career respective (lol) on the band Salty Pirates. God I love the internet.

While Turn the Page takes a slight historical look at the whole Swedish scene (from ABBA to the Knife).

ArjanWrites about the new pop duo Plej.

Hits In The Car catches up with the indie pop of Dew.

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I’m quite comfortable writing about each and every Swedish release on Cloudberry Records. I don’t have a seconds remorse or guilt about repeatedly shedding light on this tiny label from Miami, Florida (of all places!). The label has brilliant taste and sticks safely within the indie pop, twee, and shoegaze genres. Like SST in it’s prime, or Sub Pop in the 90′s or, yes, like Sarah Records and Creation in the 80′s, Cloudberry knows what it likes and likes what it knows.

The newest release is a 3″ ep by Signed Papercuts due out August 1. “Fools Rush in is lofi droning shoegaze of the highest order. The song moves into and out of periods of noise and then back to the relative safety of quieter, more introspective moments.

Fools Rush In

Bonus track:

Nothingness

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Going back a month or two in the Cloudberry catalog and you’ll find an ep by the Swedish band Twig. Check out their Myspace page and you will be completely and utterly startled to see Marc Almond listed as an influence. Listen to “Helen of Troy” to see what I mean:

Helen of Troy

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The talk of the town in the world of Swedish music is this video by David Sandstom of his cover of Wilco’s “Jesus Etc”. David can be seen above creating the space for his new studio (or alternately the set of his own personal SAW III). There seem to be some new songs up on his homepage and they all seem a little mellow for the former drummer of the punk band Refused. Here’s a couple of those new songs plus the video for “Jesus Etc”

TJ Queen
The Sixties

“Jesus Etc” Video

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I’m still having serious problems with Blogger over my music blog Songs:Illinois. It’s now some sort of Pharma spam seach site. I hope to get it all worked out and be able to take back control of Songs:Illinois at that original url. But for now you can read the archives and get any updates at this new temporary address:

Songs:Illinois (http://wwww.songsillinois.blogspot.com)

Thanks,
Craig

P.S. Just to ensure that Elbo.ws and Hype pick up this post here’s a song from Sean Walsh which I love and hope to review as soon as I get my site back from the mf spammers.

Float

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(Thomas Denver Jonsson)

There are two new developments from artists I’ve covered here before on Swedesplease. And although they offer music that exists on the either end of the musical spectrum I have a place in my heart for each.

Adventure Kid (here and here) first made waves with a coll robotic cover of and I’m From Barcelona song. Now he’s back with a new jammin little song called “Deathcab”.

Deathcab

Thomas Denver Jonsson (here and here) is one of the elite singer songwriters coming out of Sweden at the moment. Of late he’s been expanding his repertoire with the experimental duo A Perfect Friend. But for this new song off an upcoming solo cd he returns to familiar waters

The Border

Bonus TDJ song:

One Of My Blessings

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The synthpop disco band Gender has released the video for their new homoerotic song “If I Was A Girl”.

P.S. Songs:Illinois (bastards!) is still down. Hopefully Blogger is looking into and working on the problem. I’ve put the archives up here temporarily.

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There have been some problems with Blogger of late and as a result my other music blog Songs:Illinois is now down and has been replaced with a Spam Blog. This was involuntary on my part and wholly a result of some errors made by Blogger. In the meantime I have moved all old posts and will add any new posts to this address:

http://www.songsillinois.blogspot.com

If I ever do get my old Blogger address back I’ll make an announcement here. Unfortunatly for now anyone linking to that old address will either get an error message or an advertisment for lingerie.

I had to include an mp3 to get picked up by Elbo.ws and Hype so here it is a preview to a post I plan for the next week or so. The song “Unwritable Girl” by Gergory Alan Isakov.

Unwritable Girl

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Bakers At Dawn (here) have a new song up at their MySpace. “Missing All The Time” is worth a listen and then another and another… you get the picture. Bakers At Dawn will have some new music out on the US label Series Two Recordings sometime soon. I’ll try to keep you updated.

Missing all The Time

I’ve written about the group Band In Box before (here), but the subtlety of their music is such you you aren’t instantly infatuated. But the more I hear and the more people I respect (in this case the Swedish label Friendly Noise and the US label Series Two) rave about them, the more I’m convinced that this is something special.

Here’s the seemingly-slight, bossa-influenced track “Elevator Theme”.

Elevator Theme

A brand new demo:

Let The Birds Out

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Against what could be insurmountable odds the small, flegling indie pop label Series Two Records based out of Nebraska will be releasing some fine Swedish music over the next couple of months. Their first release by Oh! Custer (wrote about `em here) is an ep called States (it also includes the older Leaves ep as bonus tracks).

With Oh! Custer it’s all hard jangle pop with beautiful vocals that hide beneath and behind the guitar and elements of noise. I’m still hearing Galaxie 500 guitars and Felt-like vocals. “Post” is one of the standout tracks. If you want to get States simply Paypal $12 to seriestworecords@gmail.com or email them if you have any questions.

Post

Bonus song:

States

Plus from Leaves

Your Name

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(Art by Martha Rich)

Raven Sings The Blues has found a simple but slightly disturbed and extremely melancholy mostly solo piano record by Library Tapes.

Eardrums has the find of the century. It turns out the newish Billie The Vision and Dancers’ record Where The Ocean Meets The Hand is now available for free download here. Including the Hello Saferide duet “Overdosing With You”.

BiBaBiDi shares a song from The Embassy. It can originally be found on a split single with a song from The Tough Alliance.

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I believe I wrote the definitive Skweee post here. Judging from the lack of comments it seems skweee is not taking off any time soon. That’s a shame as I find it the most interesting sub genre in electronic music and some of the best electronic music coming out of Sweden today.

One of the new progenitors (I know, oxymoron right?) of the movement is Joxaren from Fruagen, Sweden.

Pork Chop Riddem

On a completely unrelated note and completely on the opposite end of the Swedish music spectrum comes news of a 250 megabyte summer sampler from Labrador. As of last night it had crashed their site but the download, courtesy of Rapidshare, is still up and running. Click here to get all 4 parts and over 60 songs free and legal.

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Sorry not a lot of time today. I did stumble across some eurodisco from Malmo. The band is called Societe des Admirateurs. Man you Swedes love to dance!

Eurograce
When I Go Gymnastique

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“The Better Half of Cynical Boys” is the new song from the US release of Mixtapes and Cellmates’ self-titled debut for One Little Indian. I’ve written about the band (here, here and here)(they’re Swedish of course) and they have a relatively high profile, but I’ve never been completely sold on their music.

On this new song the music stutters along in fits and starts with both electronic beeps and bips and shoegazy guitar. It’s a nice mixture. Not sure if I’m completely sold yet, but I’ll be checking out the full album stream here over the coming days.

The Better Half Of Cynical Boys

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Sometimes I wish more people read this blog (what blogger doesn’t wish that), it’s not because I want more people to read my writing but instead I would love if more people could be exposed to all these great Swedish artists. It was Hans Appelqvist who got me contemplating these thoughts today. Hans is one of those rare artists that is both critically acclaimed, challenging artistically, and at least in Sweden, has achieved a sizable popular appeal.

I get the impression that Hans could easily write a song that would catapult him into a Jose Gonzalez-like sphere of musical import, but that he’s just not that interested in taking the easy path. His new song from his new record sounds something like Jose’s gentle folk, but instead it is subverted, inverted, and spliced into something truly unique and original. His new record was released by Hapna in May. Order it here.

Tank att himlens alla stjanors

There’s a high quality, iPod/iPhone-ready, disturbing animated video available here.

Or here’s the YouTube version

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I was able to give a tiny little plug the other day for Maia Hirasawa. That got me searching for something new from her. Luckily for me (and subsequently you) I found her new video to the song “Gothenburg”. The video was directed by Magnus Renfors who has worked with a bunch of Swedish artists including shooting a video for Sahara Hotnights.

Once again Maia’s charm (and her smile) is infectious and the song translates well as a video since it is an homage to the city where the video was shot. I love the line “Gothenburg I came back to you. Now, you be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you.”

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(“Su Alma” by Bob Dob)

Exitfare beats everyone to the punch with a new song off the upcoming release by The Perishers.

Copy And Paste has fallen under the spell of My Darling You. I dare you not to love this band.

I’ll take any excuse to write the words Maia Hirasawa. Thanks !Tashed for giving me another opportunity to spread the word about Maia.

Discobelle has the Tough Alliance remixed track from Jonas Game on the new “it” Swedish label Sincerely Yours.

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(The Hiding Place” by Julie Himel)

Much like Pencey Prep, The Hiding Place, is not afraid of adding lo-fi electronic beats and textures to their otherwise experimental indie pop. Also like Pencey Prep, the band has created an aura of mystery around themselves by providing very little in the way of bio or photos on their MySpace page. “I Prefer To Be Silent” reminds me of some of the spoken word pop coming out of Glasgow (Looper right? or something like that). I like the thick accent and the pretension that pervades the song.

I Prefer To Be Silent

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Boat Club is yet another Gothenberg electronic duo. Unlike other reviewers, I’m having a hard time finding something unique in Boat Club’s minimal electronic pop. Still the sound is one I could see myself being drawn to after repeated listens. Their new record, Caught By The Breeze, is due out on Luxxury on July 11 and can be picked up on CDON. “Always Away” is the first single and is a fitting one for this band with it’s oceanic references to the sea, escaping to breezy climes and rainy days.

This is escapist music pure and simple. In the same way that you don’t go to Live Free Or Die Hard for the literary references nor should you listen to Boat Club in the hopes of hearing political or even slightly sociopolitical lyrics.

Always Away

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Pencey Prep is one of the new, extremely young, but undoubtedly very talented “New Faces of Swedish Indie Pop”. Pencey Prep add a substantial dose of electronic punk energy to their brand of indie pop. Their new song “Heart Me Up” artfully combines big guitar licks with electronic beats and swashes of lovely synthesizers.

Heart Me Up

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