Is it our Last Christmas?
2005.12.18
A trio of indie bands from Sweden has just released, for the Euro X-Mas website, a cover of “Last Christmas“, which you’ll find here. Those bands are Le Sport (formerly known as Eurosport), Montt Mardié and Mr. Suitcase. And, to top it all, Le Sport was nominated in the “Best newcomer” category in the Swedish national radio award “P3 Guld”. Well… I’m still wondering why, to be honest: I’m not into this kind of Eurodiscopop music at all, and I’ll let you make up your own mind.
George Michael seems very popular in Scandinavia. You may remember that Erlend Øye, the lead singer of that charming Norwegian duo, The Kings Of Convenience, had already covered “Last Christmas” on a special christmassy compilation, “Seasonal Greetings”, released on the German label Mobilé Records in 2002. This version was, to my humble opinion, must better than Le Sport’s. Acoustic, calm, just perfect.
Acoustic (well, not always), calm (yes) and just perfect (oh yes). These are the words that come to my mind when I think of this unsigned* band I’d never heard of before: Kuryakin. Petter Gjöres (vocals, guitar, computers) and Johan Norberg (guitar, computers) met at the university in Uppsala in 2002 and started playing together a year after that. Kristina Dahlman (background vocals, computers) joined them recently. Petter lives in Stockholm nowadays and Johan and Kristina live in Uppsala. The music is put together mostly by Johan and Petter who mail samples and ideas to eachother and then play together a few times a month. And that makes great indie-pop, even if the songs I’ve heard are only demos in mp3 format, probably recorded in their bedrooms or kitchens (see picture). Have a listen to Fought A War, you’ll probably be convinced. Then discover four of the songs they’ve recorded on their website. These are probably the most promising songs I’ve listened to for a long time. Songs that will make you forget this crappy version of “Last Christmas”. If we keep the faith in 2006, it will probably be thanks to Kuryakin and gems such as “A Parade“.
[To finish with, have a look at this December Tangents article: you'll see that we're not the only ones to be astonished by "sweet Swedish pop"...]
* Update: Kuryakin are signed to Series Two Records. To listen to songs from the bands of the label, go to www.myspace.com/seriestworecords
December 18th, 2005 - 23:10
Very nice article on Kuryakin. For your informantion they are signed to make two releases on Series Two Records. One of those releases has already been made with the release of their three song cd featuring a parade, fought a war and birds. According to Johan he went to stockholm to record a few weeks ago and are preparing a new five song cd. Stockholm is far away from any bedroom or kitchen of their own hehe. For people that want the cd if they are in sweden they should contact the band and for people not in sweden to obtain their cd go to seriestwo.com . Also if you would like to join their message board go to seriestwo.net
Merry Christmas to all!
all the best, Chris