Swedesplease

Detektivbyrån used to be the best under discovered band in Sweden. Anything this good (regardless of its lack of mass appeal, limited commercial potential or even the fact that it lacks lyrics) will find a place in the world. Whether this gets discovered through placement in advertisements, film soundtracks, or hopefully written about on countless blogs, Myspace profiles or Twitter updates (I’m looking at you James Gunn, and don’t try to hide Alexandra I can see you too) is up to you. All it should take is a little bump to put this band into the consciousness of the right people that will enable them to reach a broader audience.

I’ve been writing about the band for years, but amazingly their upcoming release, Wermland, is their debut LP. So this is not one of those bands that comes from nowhere only partially formed (Cold War Kids, Vampire Weekend). The songs on Wermland don’t stray far from what got them here. And that is a combination of traditional folk, gypsy, circus and world sounds combined with modern (and not so modern) electronics (often home rigged). It’s so hard not to compare this band’s music to film so I won’t bother restraining myself. “Om Du Moter Värg” starts out like music from the next Tim Burton production, but rather quickly becomes something you’d expect to hear in a Wim Wenders or Werner Herzog film. And that’s because it’s music of dreams. And dreams are what the films of those three visionaries are closest to.

A release date of September 3rd has been set for Wermland, but you can pre-order the record now here (Sweden) or here (Int’l).

Om Du Moter Värg

P.S. If you liked this there’s an ever so slight chance that you’ll be smitten with Kirsty McGee’s “vaudebilly” over at Songs:Illinois (sorry for the shameless cross promotion).

(Illustration by Zohar Lazar)

Before we get to the music here’s some meta stuff about people that bring you the music:

It’s A Trap is nominated as best Swedish mp3 blog by Svenska Podradiopriset.

Discobelle is also nominated and was recently featured at the blog/label/licensing site rcrd lbl.

Now on to the music:

Burning World has something new from The Radio Dept.

Friction NYC has the glorious dream pop of Air France.

The Panic Manuel has Britpop by way of Sweden and the band The Ruling Class.

Nine Bulletts linked to a couple of songs I haven’t by Sweden’s best americana group The Lancaster Orchestra.

The newish Dutch blog Angmoh has some unclassifiably great music from the Swedish/Japan group The Informations.

Undomondo has the neo soul of Sweden’s Kissy Asplund.

The folks at Hultsfred Festival have announced their rookie stage where they feature up and coming Swedish acts. Over the next two weeks I hope to be writing about some of these groups. Chris Wigren & The Headaches is one such band. Chris is a huge fan of Elliott Smith and you can hear that in his songs, but I think his vocals remind me more of Bob Mould at times, and it’s surely no coincidence that Bob Dylan is displayed so prominently in the photo above.

He’s just released a new EP and in May was invited to Washington DC to play House Of Sweden. These two songs are from a previous recording but the new songs are streaming on MySpace.

Bad Feeling
Grow Up

In my other life I write a lot about music inspired by the Balkans, by gypsys and even by American vaudeville. But on this Swedish site I rarely have linked to this type of folk music. Detektivbyrän plays a facsimile of this type of Eastern European folk, but they add so many other elements that it is an entirely new entity once they’re done with it.

So I was happy to discover the Stockholm based group Davaj the other day. The band is seven members and play this folk music in a lively manner encouraging concert goers and fans to dance and sing-along. These two songs are from the groups new demo which can only be purchased at one of their upcoming live shows. Check MySpace for dates in April.

Maroc
Aidiano/Sherele

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Speaking of Detektivbyrän here’s parts 3 and 4 of their great video series on the making of the new album.

Part 3

Part 4

Thomas Denver Jonsson’s record The Lake Acts Like An Ocean was released in Sweden in September, but on March 22 it gets it’s European and UK release by Shellshock. I know I’ve written about this record before but I will do so again to encourage everyone in Europe to buy this today.

One Of My Blessings
The Border

New demo from the next record “Nansen”

Nansen

Brand new video for “The Border”

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Also the Australian travel writer Peter Moore contacted me about a live show from Istanbul up now on the Jens Lekman website. He’s also done a great interview with Jens Lekman here that combines Peter’s love of travel and his love of music.

Here’s the link to the whole concert.

Istanbul

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The latest update on Jens’ site is from earlier this week and is an interview with the Istanbul based duo of Kim Ki O. Jens will be bringing them along for some dates on his European tour so I thought I could share that with you as well.

Dogru
Kapali Kapali Kapali

It seems strange that on the day I’m highlighting bluegrass/gospel inspired music on Songs:Illinois that I’d be doing the same on Swedesplease. But odder things have happened.

Blue Eyed Blondes are a country/folk/bluegrass duo from Sweden made up of Lina Lönnberg and Kristoffer Emanuelsson. No surprise then that their friends section on MySpace looks like a who’s who of this genre including folks like Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Dan Tyminski, Lucinda Williams, and Nickel Creek.

“Would You Cry” is a beautiful song, Lina’s vocals are angelic which contrasts a bit with the song references to cocaine, death by train and dead dogs. Befriend the band here.

Would You Cry

I wrote about Old Lost John over a year ago. Since that time he’s released his 2007 release The Ghost Of Calder Mountain, which you can buy from CD Baby here. In the meantime Old Lost john has put up a beautiful new song. This is a song that J Tillman or Richard Buckner would have been thrilled to have written/performed.

She Won’t Listen

From The Ghost Of Calder Mountain

The Boy With a Fever