2006.04.28
— Music
Maia Hirasawa is the winner of the 2006 Swedish Roland/SAMI Music Awards (for unsigned swedish bands)… and that’s really good news! The six finalists (Angels, Dear Euphoria, Idoru, Maia Hirasawa, Tupelo Honeys and Swedish Amateurs) played two songs live in Stockholm before the jury made their decision: “Using simple means, Maia could catch the attention of the audience with her self-confidence and her charm. There was a consensus among the jury about her presence and her catchy melodies.” (hum, that’s a quick translation from Swedish of the Digfy news. I hope it’s ok…)
In case you don’t know who Maia is, you should check her myspace homepage and listen to her songs: she’s got the voice of an angel. This is what she just wrote about the prize: “I won! Just want to tell everyone that I actually won Roland/Sami Music Awards yesterday! Wehoo! Now I can bye myself an ocean of new guitarpedals… No, just joking. It was great anyway and I’m very honoured. There is too many good things happening now at the same time- Got a gig on Hultfredsfestivalen and just been to Paris playing with Hello Saferide. And now I am in Olso with HS. Life is sweet some times!”
2006.04.27
— Music
For those of you who, like us, think of leaving their home country (even though, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not sure whether this is a serious plan, a dream, a fantasy or something even more unreal), you should read Shortcut, a “European city blog” with posts in English about the cultural life in most of the European capitals or big cities, such as London, Athens, Milano or (even more interesting for Noisedfisk readers) Reykjavik, Stockholm or Copenhagen.
One of the recent posts was titled “Copenhagen: New Fashion Blog on the Block” and it goes like this: “It was about time! Copenhagen gets its very own fashion blog, a sleek eye candy with an enigmatic name: IZKRA.
Nothing enigmatic though about its hip clothes menu: editor Ekaterina picks the best in boutiques, trends and fashionista ware from Copenhagen’s booming fashion scene. Language alert: The site is in Danish – yes, not ideal, but there are plenty of delectable snapshots of shoes, bags and dresses that don’t require additional language skills to be admired. What are you waiting for?” You’ll find many more tips like this on Shortcut…
2006.04.22
— Music
Islande Mon Amour is a tiny Icelandic music festival taking place in Paris on May 9. The lineup, although a bit short, is just great:
More information: official website.
2006.04.17
— Music
Hi. My name is Magnus and you may know me as an occasional contributor to indie-mp3.co.uk. Now I can happily add my interest in nordic culture to this already flourishing web site. Let me start by bringing up an Icelandic band, which few outside a limited circle of indie entusiastics in Iceland have ever heard of.
Bag of Joys were a quirky and funny band, which never got the recognition I think they deserved. They will now however get some, since I’ve gotten their permission to post some of their excellent songs. The band was formed in 1994 when a few friends who’d been making music together at home decided to start rehearsing properly and put together a live band. In 1995 they released a cassette called “Minnir óneitanlega á Grikkaland” of rather poor recording quality. The name roughly translates as “Kinda reminds me of Greece”. It was limited to a total of 40 editions, and managed to get bad reviews which were then reprinted on the sleeve of their next publication, the 7″ single “Nú á ég vermand vini”. This single was released in 250 editions later that same year and the recording quality had improved somewhat.
In 1997 Bad Taste ltd released a series of smallish cd’s with a few notable young underground bands, each CD containing around 7-9 songs, so these were kinda mini-LP’s designed to get the bands some starting point, but not distributed or promoted widely it seems. I think all of these bands disbanded pretty soon after those releases, and never properly got off the ground. The CD “Eins og ég var motta” (”Like I was a rug”) was released in 1997, and here they had aquired a female vocalist named Lena. The recordings are great and the songs are sparkling with naivety and non-sensical lyrics, including a cover of “We like to do it” by a band I do not know called Avocado Baby. They had a well attended release party, and then promptly disbanded.
Since then they’ve occasionally resurfaced playing one concert in 2002 and at a wedding last year, and one member named Sighvatur, also known as Musikhvatur, has been seen lurking behind keyboards as member of Apparat Organ Quartet along with Jóhann Jóhannsson of Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.
Here’s a few songs from their only cd, “Eins og ég var motta”:
2006.04.11
— Music
Yet another update inspired by the ever-inspiring Alistair Fitchett, whose Tangents website remains one of my main sources of… inspiration. As I said already, he’s one of those aware of the excellence of Swedish pop and he regularly posts some interesting thoughts about it… A couple of days ago, one of his reviews was about The Concretes (who are, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest pop bands of the moment, swedish or not): “Kicking off an album with a piano riff right outta ‘Daydream Believer’, as The Concretes do with this opener from In Colour, should tell you a lot about a band. It should tell you that they are knowingly in thrall to the magic of Pop…” That’s how the review starts, and that should be enough for you to go and read the rest. In spite of what I said before, In Colour is a pop gem, but I won’t get in any detail, read Tangents instead, have a look at one of their new videos and buy this fantastic album. The Concretes have just started a worldwide tour, go and see them live, they rock!
In the same post, Alistair suggets that we discover two other scandinavian bands. The first is Boy Omega: “Christ, what is it with Gothenburg these days? Why does everything that comes out of that city of angels kiss my ears and slips tendrils of infatuation into my heart? And here to the clamour is Boy Omega and the Black Tango set (on Stereo Test Kit in the UK). Recorded at home by one Martin Henrik Gustafsson with the help of friends who provide backing vocals, sax, violin and cello accompaniement and “breathing”, amongst others, it all adds up to a richly dark musical miasma of loss and longing, just like all great Pop ought. At times recalling the soft and gentle despair of early Elliott Smith, at others the quirky Pop experimentalism of Beck or Ariel Pink, Black Tango is a tempered ramshackle record of 21st Century folk music that understands the value of brief meanders and intermissions (half it’s twenty songs are under two minutes, and almost half of those are under a minute) and the importance of simply great songs (this track, and the wonderful, oddly Cure-esque ‘By Midnight We’ll Give It A Go’ are classy moments you could easily find yourself addicted to). Gothenburg, my heart belongs to you.” You won’t find much on the Boy Omega website, you’d rather visit Stereo Test Kit Records and download a free single (and if you insist, you can still read this interview with the label guys).
Then you have the Goodnight Monsters, hailing from Turku, Finland, “softpop inspired no-fi Indiepop with a lounge psych undertow that is both peppered with reference points moored in Pop’s past and utterly contemporary all at once.” 20 Fingers 20 Toes is a free download from their website. You can stream a couple of songs from their myspace page.
And a bit earlier, Tangents wrote a few lines about Swissair who are (hum) from Sweden. Worth a download and a listen as well from here: they have three free songs to download and my iPod loves them.
2006.04.09
— Music
I’ve just noticed that Ampop had a new album released last November. And nobody told me! I just love Made For Market, their second album. After listening a few songs from My Delusions, I can tell that the electro part is gone. What’s left? A kind of melancolic slow folk-pop, and it sounds good.
2006.04.07
— Music
Novoton have just released the new Existensminimum single Changing Lines.
Existensminimum, aka Magnus Henriksson, produced Antennas album Sins [mp3]. He’s also the drummer of the quite popular Swedish band Money Brothers.
Changing Lines is the second single from Existensminimum’s upcoming, and utterly brilliant, debut album Last Night My Head Tried To Explode And I Wrote Everything Down (which will be released May 5th). This single display a new and somewhat darker, dirtier sound of the coming album. It is a rhythmic and krauty exursion into electro-pop territories still with that sparkling set of vocals which have become Existensminimum’s trademark.
And I like it :)
Photo: Andreas Karperyd
