I didn’t leave you with much this morning…I was kind of taking a little break after putting together that mega Christmas post but I just got a nice email from Anna of Annas Onödiga Blogg pointing me to the video for the new track from Maskinen. Check out her blog post and then the video below:
Shit I’m slow on the uptake here’s two remixes already up at Discobelle.
“Dansa” appears to be blowing up on the interweb with the YouTube video already at 50,000 views.
I wonder what would be a good present for your lovely gf/bf who is enamored with Swedish indie pop. Hmm…still thinking. Oh yeah! How about a Swedesplease t-shirt? It’s a very small operation over here at Swedesplease HQ so if you’d like to place a t-shirt order and get it in time for Christmas I’d get it in soon. Just click on the Swedesplease t-shirt link in the sidebar to order one as a gift or as a gift to yourself!
Thanks,
The Management (aka Craig)
Here’s some funky experimental electronic dub. The group name is Bongored and while I don’t know exactly what that translates into in English I’m guessing it has something to do with getting really high….at least that’s what you hear in the songs. “Stripping The Bananas” is a track with an MC rapping over a pretty solid beat. “Beware Of The Synths” has that video game feel I love, plus deep bass and futuristic synth lines. All of this is the work of one Luc Deutschmann. I’ve read somewhere that he’s working on his debut – this is some start!
Hey there. There’s not a lot new here, although I will update this post as new songs are released for the 2007 season. But what’s here is pretty top notch; highlights include incredibly the high notes hit by Montt Mardie on “I Wish Every Day…”, the Beach Boys surf-pop of Irene, Hello Saferide’s instant Christmas classic “I Pod Christmas”, Parker Lewis odd little indie pop dittie “X-mas Carols NYC”, and the strange electronic rendering of The Knife’s “Christmas Reindeer”.
P.S. Check out the Songs:Illinois Christmas Mix if you’re at all interested in great, off-the-beaten-path (anti) Christmas tunes.
Oh What A Christmas El Perro Del Mare
Christmas Day – Strayfolk
Christmas On The Beach – Irene
Silent Night – A Perfect Circle
All These Winter Nights – The Higher Elevations
Christmas Peace – Shade Tree
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town Bobby Baby
X-Mas Carols NYC – Parker Lewis
I Pod Christmas – Hello Saferide
This Christmas If You Come Back – The Carny
Christmas Reindeer – The Knife
Oh Sweet Christmas – Oh Sweet Music!
Blue Christmas – The Perishers
I Wish Every Day Could Be like Christmas – Montt Mardie
Last Christmas – Montt Mardie with Le Sport
I’ve been a pretty vocal, adamant and unrelenting proponent of Ida Maria’s music since the first time I heard it. But this takes the cake. To share with you her new video for her “hit” song “Oh My God” I had to create a You Tube account and upload it myself. Problem was the .mov file I had of the single wouldn’t upload so I’ve been checking You Tube off and on for two weeks waiting for the video for “Oh My God!” to pop and it finally has. The video’s pretty simple but certainly hints at the raw live energy Ida Maria is said to deliver live. Enjoy below!
But first, the original demo version of “Forgive Me”
“Oh My God!”
“It Will Be Back” is as close to a perfect pop song as it gets. Indie pop mind you. Bonne Idée is the group that came up with the great idea (sorry I couldn’t resist!) to record this song. The band was all female until one member quit and now they have Victor on bass. The number of women in this group and their slightly under-produced sound reminds me of that other Swedish girl group – Those Dancing Days. On “It Will Be Back” the group flits back and fourth between English and French before a cascading chorus of overdubbed “Bababababa’s” and high pitched squeels end the song.
Email the band through their MySpace to order a copy of their new disc.
Bonus video from Those Dancing Days – “Hitten”
(“Away From Her” by Brian Gibb)
Some Velvet Blog has a sampling of songs from Bedroom Eyes.
Indie Mp3 – Keeping c86 Alive has a couple of songs from the free ep by Josse (comparable to Hello Saferide, El Perro Del Mare).
Too Much Apple Pie has both The Dreamers and Action Biker.
In case you missed the recent flurry of activity over Lykke Li, Disconap sums things up nicely here.
Radio Sidekick aka Postverket has a nice mashup of Familjen’s “Birds”
I kind of promised no new posts `til next Monday (it’s Thanksgiving week here in the states and I’m on vacation) but Detekivbyran just released a “new” song for download. It may not be that new (it’s been the song playing in the background of Deketivbyran’s homepage for awhile) but it has only just become available for download.
There’s also a new video for “Lyckans Undulate” (this does as good a job as you could imagine at capturing both the frenetic energy of the band and the magical, almost supernatural, nature of their music). Stream it below or download it here.
Alright back to the beach for me, Happy Thanksgiving!
If any of you are (Swedish) record collectors than you might like to know that James Ausfahrt’s new vinyl-only release could well be your holy grail. I’ve written about his stuff here and here. The new one, Party For The Arty People, has just been released in Sweden and is only available from a small number of select local retailers.
What characterizes these songs as something different are the irreverent lyrics and the odd mixture of casio beats and guitar strumming. For instance “Lucy Ferocious” starts with a blast of electronic feedback and then quickly morphs into lofi bedroom pop a la Jonathan Richman meets Jens Lekman. Buy it here at Open Field.
P.S. I’ll be away for a week on Thanksgiving break. So you may not hear from me again until next Monday.
(Blaine Fontana’s “Truthkeeper”)
Missing Toof brings the punk rock noise and electronic remixes of Sweden’s greatest punk band – The Refused.
As Montt Mardie’s biggest fan I can’t resist linking to Discobelle who links to a Montt Mardie cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”.
A Plague Of Angels discovers the music of Friska Vijor who apparently recently discovered the music of Faith No More.
Speed Of Dark revisits the 90′s act Salt who have aged quite nicely and don’t sound that out of place in the 00′s.
How’s this for rather innocuous indie rock from Sweden. Will these guys light the world on fire with this insipid, generic, indie-rock light? The BlueKicks are a 4 piece from Gothenberg, these two songs are from their brand new single. Although it may seem like I don’t like them from that introductory sentence, after several listens I’ve found the single to be quite catchy.
Do they surf in Sweden? Apparently they do, but it sure looks cold. Anyway they do have surf music and for my 2 cents Maeds Dominos may be the pre-eminent Swedish surf rock band. Maybe that’s not saying much, but from the number of surfy bands listed in their MySpace friends section it may be a surprising compliment.
These two instrumentals capture the cascading wave action of the ocean as well as any I’ve heard from Dick Dale and company. Enjoy these two and hang ten!
La Strada de Muerte
Puto Camello de Mierde
Surfing In Sweden – A Dramadocumentary
If all else fails click here.
Wow! I’m speechless…well almost. I will tell you that the Japanese group Tenniscoats has teamed up with the Swedish group Tape for their new Hapna release Tan-Tan Therapy. The song “Baibaba Bimba” is what’s left me speechless. I felt it from the start, with it’s use of heavy breathing to replicate a Brazilian beat, the beautiful vocals and the finger-picked acoustic guitar. Tape added some unusual elements to this song and others from the new record, but everything is so organic nothing detracts/distracts from the easy vibe created by this song.
Tenniscoats with Tape live in Glasgow
I didn’t have that much to say about Goto 80 (they don’t like MySpace, click to see – so try here as well) when I posted one song back in 2005. I’ll try to elaborate a bit more now. Goto 80 is one of these swedish dj driven 8bit or c64 bands. They elevate the music you remember from 80′s video games to a more danceable, more complex level but usually staying within the framework of the basic sound. On Goto 80′s new record, Made On Internet, for the German label Pingipung, they break out of the mold by adding mc’s, guest artists and a more layered sound. In fact by the end of the song “Happy Daze” it builds to such a cacophony that you’d swear you’ve got multiple files playing at once. On “Error Energy” Anders Carlsson (Goto 80) adds his own vocals to the beeps, blips and whirs making the track more conducive to the dancefloor but maybe less conducive to contemplative listening.
More 8bit Swedish goodness courtesy of 8bitpeoples.com below:
Ohne Zuschlag – Din Stalker
Comsten – Goto 80
Science Fiction Man – Dorothy’s Magic Bag
P.S. Swedesplease Radio Player:
The Swedesplease radio widget is back. This time it’s being brought to you by this cool Facebook app that let’s you stream your favorite mp3 blogs right from your Facebook page. Here’s the homepage and be sure to add Swedesplease and Songs:Illinois to your favorites. Btw the player is accessing old tracks because of our url change but should be up to date later this week so keep an eye on it.
Every Music blogger has his or her own pet projects. These are the artists you want to see succeed, but at the same time you don’t want them to become too popular and eclipse your tiny little site. Pet Politics was a pet project of Swedesplease and remains one to this date.
Any lack of fame for Pet Politics is directly related to the scarceness and the format of his recordings not the quality of the limited number of songs he’s recorded. For example, his new record, is just that, a vinyl record. It’s a 7″ released on the small English label The Great Pop Supplement and on top of all that it’s limited to only 300 numbered copies. Like all of Pet Politics’ (aka Magnus) other releases this one is bedroom lofi rock. Sometimes when you see “bedroom” and “lofi” in the same sentence you might think of a sort of charming-yet-coy-Bright-Eyes-twee-pop, but this is not the case with Pet Politics. Instead what you get is a forthright and strong record that hints of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground.
“Taken Away By Aliens” is pretty self-explanatory story of an alien abduction except with the twist that the couple who are taken away are overjoyed by the experience. It’s a catchy and clever song and may be one of the best Pet Politics has produced. You can buy the 7″ here or Pet Politics early ep on Catbird Records here (there’s only two left!).
(“Roaming Tomcat” by Amy Crehore)
So about an hour after my supposed exclusive of a new song by Blood Music, Just Gimme Indie Music did their own writeup of the song and even got the elusive Karl-Jonas to sit down for an interview. What a small world!
Indie Waves has some really miserable music from Love In October, avoid them at all cost. Oh it’s painful, please make them stop!
Too Much Apple Pie has some great cover songs featuring The Cardigans, Acid House Kings and The Sweptaways.
Discobelle has a new track by Sabo.
Lykke Li was the Swedish act voted most likely to succeed by the bigger music blogs last week. Judging from this performance earlier in 2007 at Phaser and videotaped by MTV Europe these predictions are a “little bit” late as she already is the talk of Sweden. On her own and without the beats I’m not sold, but on the beat enhanced single “Little Bit” she’s delivered the catchiest Swedish song since PB&J.
Lykke Li – “Tonight”
And just in case you’ve had your head in the sand, here’s the video for her “hit” single “Little Bit”. This video was directed by Mattias Montero who’s company was responsible for Calvin Harris’ “Girls” as well video’s by Kent, The Cardigans, and The Concretes. Download the high-quality, hi-def, iPod ready .mov file here.
Lykke Li – “Little Bit”
When I’m old and infirm and sitting in some retirement home somewhere in Arizona blabbering away about the Swedish mp3 blog I used to run I’m sure I’ll struggle to remember 99% of the bands I’ve covered. However, there are a handful I think I’ll never forget. And Blood Music is safely in that handful.
Blood Music’s Sing A Song Fighter was one of my favorite releases in the past couple of years regardless of genre or country of origin. I expect Blood Music’s follow up to that debut, Don Quite, to be as good, if not better. You can hear a song or two streaming on MySpace but Swedesplease is the only place you’ll get to download a song from Don Quite before it’s November 28 release date.
Lead singer and sole band member Karl-Jonas Winqvist sings in a lilting sing-songy voice that is not that far removed from the crooning style of Jens Lekman. His Swedish accent is strong and lends to the charm/exotic nature of these songs. “Eagles In The Water” is a tipsy-topsy song where nothing is quite as it seems. In the song there are “sharks in the air” and “eagles in the water” and a chorus of “hold on, hold on” sung as if his life depends on it. Karl Jonas described the recording session for Don Quite as “quick and mostly live in this tiny old analogue studio in Stockholm”. The record becomes available through mailorder and iTunes on November 28. Blood Music is opening for Scout Niblet on Dec. 9 at Debaser and Of Montreal on Dec. 10 at Medis – if that gives you any indication of the bands stature and range.
Keep checking back on the Make It Happen homepage for ordering info or stay tuned here for more info in the coming weeks. Without further ado here’s “Eagles In The Water”:
I can’t quite get the story straight about Pandaland. It appears that this is the soundtrack to an actual video game. Could be hoax however and there is no game, since the game site is down. Either way as you no doubt now know I’m a fan of Swedish c64-style electronica. This stuff sounds great. Here’s a couple from Pandaland.
