Dark, heavy, powerful and monotone is my impression of Isobel & November’s music. They released their album “The Ghostwater Gospel” in the end of last year. Ten heavy tracks where I have a hard time to find anything to compare with, and which end with the brilliant and more than 15 min long “She Came Down the Mountain”, a song you can listen to below.
“She Came Down the Mountain” was recorded live in an old church, which I can really hear and feel in this mighty rock sermon.
You can find Isobel & November on Myspace and on Facebook. On Spotify you can listen to the entire album “The Ghostwater Gospel”.
Kate and After participated with a song in our Christmas special in December and I thought it was time to listen to more tracks from the band. Below you can find two songs to listen to and download.
I think that Kate and After radiates a joy of playing and an energy that is contagious. It’s about indie pop, but there is a feeling in the sound; some of it because of the hammon organ; that gives me a lot of retro vibes. I also have to mention Magnus Lindquists vocals and his expression that send out that extra which makes Kate and After stand out.
The Idle Hands started out some years ago, but it was not until 2008 that they got their current formation. During 2009 they released the album “Dark Rooms” and in the end of last year the singel “Hearts”.
They present a very nice mix of guitar driven indie rock and the grand pop that bands like Coldplay stands for. Listen for yourself here below to the singel “Hearts” and the title track from the album “Dark Rooms”.
Last week the Gothenburg band The Berndt released their debut album “GBGBG”. My expectations were rather high before the release, but I wasn’t disappointed. Charming and characteristic is the least I can say about The Berndt’s energic punk-pop-indie.
With their crazy playfulness, catchy sound and of course Emil Lundin’s special voice, this really is a unique band. Emil seems to be able to do whatever he likes with the vocals and it comes out great.
The Berndt is best experienced live, and chances are that you might be able to see them soon, as they now launch their european tour that runs through Sweden, Germany, Austria and Italy.
In the Autumn Magnus Weideskog released his debut EP and any day now his first full length album, “Unga hjärtan” (Sony Music), will be available. Magnus has been compared with Ted Gärdestad, which I agree with to some extent, especially cosidering his voice.
One description could be soft pop in Swedish. Delicate lyrics that never get trivial and a production that’s exemplary minimalistic which gives the music an honest and close expression. It’ll be interesting to listen to the new album soon.
You can find Magnus on his site, on Myspace and on Facebook. On Spotify you can listen to the EP and the new singel “Förlåt” from “Unga hjärtan”. Here’s the video and the audio track to “20 år”:
Labbet serves us some soft, cool, laidback electronica. “Excellent music for driving a car or strolling through the park on a Sunday afternoon”, he writes, and I quite agree. Really nice music to listen in the car, driving along a dark night.
The songs below are from the first singel release “I’m Gonna Miss You When You’re Gone”, and on 1980 Records’ site you can also listen to some new tracks with lead vocals by Russell Morgan.
It feels great to listen to Fredrik Malmgren’s, aka Apgeneralen, bluesy voice in this rock, which feels like it could be recorded from a sweaty rock jam in the first halv of the seventies. But it’s not quite that simple overall.
The Medicinal Storytellers don’t hesitate to mix in some Reggae, latino influences and instrumental rock, and without losing themselves. I think that they are great example of a band that can find their own identity within musical areas where thousands of bands have been playing for many years.
In spring 2009 they recorded the album “It’s Medicinal Time” and here below you can listen to two tracks from these recordnings. Listen some more on their Myspace page.
“My ambition is to always leave someone with a feeling, to be a feeling and to move somone. You should for a moment be able to walk away from normal life and just be inside the music”. The words are Lennart Lindgren’s, and I think that he does a good job at it. For me it means a trip back to my childhood’s troubadours with beautiful melodies and beautiful poetic lyrics.
It feels dreamy and very soft, and it’s a little like putting on a warm jacket, to go out for a long walk in the snowy landscape and dream away for a while.
You can find more of Lennart’s music on his Myspace page.
Sidechild is the story about the songs that disappeared in a computer crash, but was born again, reconstructed from sketches and memories. It’s also the tale about the songs that turned out to be the real love children, and that made Pontus go for his side project, his own music. Hence the name Sidechild.
Even though he got a fantastic start in 2007, as an opener for The Magic Numbers on their Swedish tour, it has taken a long time to finish the debut album. But after failed record deals, discontent over productions and songs, he started all over again and finally found his way home again. And like he did it!
“Music For Children” is the name of the debut album that came out of all this, and it will be released in the end of January. And I can really hear that it is a love child; there is a warmth and a feeling right through the record that makes it’s way quite bit into my soul. It’s often about pop and and melodies that really gets to you, and I walk away with a number of new hooks spinning around in my head.
There is a liberating, minimalistic style in the album that I like. It feels like that they have carefully added exactly those instruments that is needed in each track. And yet they succeed to combine classic soul and pop arrangements with more modern vibes, and with variation.
In the end it is Sidechild’s voice that is the strongest part of it all. And it’s very special. The closest I can think of is how Bowie sounded in some songs during the seventies. It’s dramatic, naked, fragile and what makes maybe the most naked songs the best ones. Like “Come On Come On” you can listen to below.
Follow Sidechild on his site and listen to more tracks there.
Zucchini Drive released their third album this autumn. The album is called “Shotgun Rules” and oozes of heavy electronica, hip hop and rock, not to mention som really nice pop hooks. I enter a dark and dense soundscape and even if I feel the same vibes there is quite some variation from track to track.
The vocals are excellent and are performed by a range of invited guest artists such as Marina Gasolina, Christy Brewster, M Sayyid, Seraphim et. al.
The albumet is released on the digital music company Marathon of Dope, run by Zucchini Drive together with other artists like Pip Skid and Birdapres from Canada. The idea is to release all music for free. Albums, remixes, videos, instrumental versions and so on will be available for everyone, and with this they hope to spread their music as much as possible and then get support from those who like it.
I have just woken up from the Christmas coma, and I felt it was time to present some new music again, here on Meadowmusic. And first up is Jörgen Kjellgren, more known as guitar player and songwriter in the band Oh Laura. I have spent some time listening to Jörgen’s upcoming debut album “Noir Syndrom”, a warm experience in this biting winter cold.
It’s darkly poetic and I like Jörgen’s almost low-voiced way of singing, exploring lyrcs that I can feel. At the same time there’s a warm, mostly acoustic music shroud where Jörgen like a modern troubadour tells us about “guilt, deception, loneliness and lost faith”.
The album will be released in February, and here below you can listen to the first singel from the record, “Han har gjort det igen” as well as the song “Edie Brickell”. You can also watch the video to the song “Han har gjort det igen”, directed by Simon Yemane.
Sibling Sense is an interesting band. If you want to simplify things, you could say that they are a post grunge band, but it’s not that simple, as always. They can produce a grand, dramatic rock like in “Lights out”, but they don’t hesitate to bring out a more dirty rock sound like in the dark, suggestive “Frogs”.
These two tracks were released in November, and you can listen to them here below. I have also added the video to an earlier song, “Blossom”. Discover more of Sibling Sense on their Myspace page.
“We All Die” is the name of New Found Land’s debut album, which was released late spring earlier this year. Initiated by Anna Roxenholt and from the start a duo, the band has grown into a group of sometimes up to 8 musicians.
“We All Die” is a varied album with one foot in a modern indie sound, where the band has been compared to Feist, Loney Dear and Postal Service, and another foot in folk music with a hint of jazz. One thing that definitely stand out with this album is the clear, beautiful melancholy, here below exemplified with the song “All the Nights”, a song that also gives me some Joni Mitchell-vibes.
Well, let’s celebrate Christmas this year too here on Meadowmusic. And then with some Christmas songs you may not have heard before, at least not in the version you’ll find here.
The tracks we presented last year are of course good for this Christmas too.
Maybe you will find a new Christmas favourite or maybe you will find an artist you want to listen more to.
“Lika lätt som att vissla en melodi (lika lätt blåser livet förbi)”, Bangalore (Gbg) calls his EP, which was released this autumn. Behind the name Bangalore (Gbg) you’ll find Tomas Persson Carlberg; a pop troubadour you could call him.
Naked and revealing lyrics, like confessions before a new start, are accompanied by beautiful melodies and arrangements according to the principle “less is more”. It’s peaceful and emotional and plenty of room for Tomas’ sensitive voice and the naked lyrics.
You can listen to the EP on Bangalore (Gbg)’s Myspace page, Facebook page or on Reverbnation, where you also can download the tracks. He has promised to present new songs this winter, so you can watch out for them on his pages.
Ola Angleby is a quite busy artist. In addition to the duo Swedish Shoes, which I wrote about in spring, and the band Jane Gulliou, he also has a band in his own name. Different from the other projects, in this one he sings in Swedish instead of English.
Their sound is also different, here in their own mix of grand mellow pop and young indie pop/rock. But they don’t dig too deep in the melancholy, but get up front on stage shouting out their frustrations.These skilled musicians released an EP earlier this year and you can listen to the songs on Ola Angleby’s Myspace page.
EP’s Trailerpark was formed already in 1999 by Eric Palmqvist. With former members like Magnus Tingsek, Björn Yttling et. al, they have a history of some releases, but nothing during the last five years. Up until now, as they released the five-track EP “Black Heart” in the end of October.
And it is a comeback that definitely makes me wish for more. It’s music with country vibes, maybe in the direction of folk rock, which every now and then takes me to the domains of Neil Young and CSN&Y. Especially in the mellow, fateful-sounding title track “Black Heart”. In “Black Heart” they are also joined by Frida Öhrn and Christian Kjellvander on backing vocals.
You can find EP’s Trailerpark on their Myspace page and on their blog. If you have Spotify you can listen to the EP there. Here below you can listen to and download the song “Black Heart”.
The videon to “Black Heart” is directed by Mats Udd, who, I think, has a nice, special way of telling a story around a song. If you like the video I recommend you to take a look at Mats Udd’s Vimeo page.
Marching Band’s music is perfect today. Their easy-going, uplifting indie pop is fighting away the winter cold, steadily marching forward with the two drum majors Erik Sunbring and Jacob Lind in the front.
I’m listening to their first full length album “Spark Large”, which was released last year. At first I came to think about Belle and Sebastian, with the lightness and playfulness in the music. But here I meet more layered arrangements, full of beautiful vocal harmonies and quite a few nice surprises.
Several of the songs from the album have found their way into american movies and TV shows, among them “Feel Good About It”, which could be heard in the movie “Zombieland” this autumn.
You can find Marching Band on their site and if you’d like to listen to more songs you should visit Marching Band’s Myspace page. Here are a couple of tracks from “Spark Large”:
Mixtapes & Cellmates has recently released their new album “Rox”. They offer a nice warm indie pop, with a little rough edges and dense sound which is easy to listen to.
In August Epelectric opened for Moto Boy and Anna Maria Espinosa at Stockholms kulturfestival. Since then the band have been quite busy with a lot of gigs and in October they released their debut singel, the song “Founded”, which you can listen to here below.
It’s easy to get hooked on the energic rock they present with “Founded”, and apparently the music company X5 Music Group also got caught by the song, as they during the autumn signed a deal with Epelectric to collaborate in the year to come.
Sweet Serenades released earlier this year a very strong debut album, “Balcony Cigarettes”. It contains a bunch of contagious songs with high humming factor. It’s playful, romantic, melodic, dramatic in a modern indie pop which let their roots shine through.
Coming from Timrå, Martin Nordvall and Mathias Näslund formed Sweet Serenades in 2002. Among the numerous gigs since the start, they have frequently performed in Swedish prisons. They have tested their songs on the internees and, as they say, thrown away songs that haven’t provoked any dance, cries, tears or riots.
Today’s band is the interesting Örebro band Yes I Am. This autumn they released the EP “Nightmares”, from which you can listen to a track here below.
I can sense the Coldplay inspiration but also some indie vibes. Especially I like the singer Christoffer’s voice that in a nice way blend with the music.
Luke Jackson traveled to Sweden, with a heap of pop songs in his luggage, to collaborate with Magnus Börjesson (remember Beagle?) and ex Brainpool members Christoffer Lundquist and Jens Jansson. It all resulted in the album “And Then Some…”, a real pop-feelgood-album.
It almost feels like this is Luke Jackson’s own condensed version of classic guitar based pop history. Then it always starts somehow in George Martin’s studio, but lands in the fantastic pop-seventies. There’s gorgeous string arrangements, beautiful melodies and and a songwriting full of fantasy, leaving some space for being unpredictable. But I can also hear the traces from his coworkers’ earlier pop history from the nineties.
“Citizen K was born on August 4, 1966. The bastard son of a beautiful go-go-dancer, and a famous rock’n'roll star.”
That’s how the story about Citizen K starts, and without reading any further I would have guessed that the father was someone from Crosby, Stills & Nash or from Pink Floyd or maybe George Harrison himself. That would have been my guess after listening to the 16-track album “Meet Citizen K”. 16 tracks full of excellent pop songwriting with folk influences.
This feels like a really solid album, which grows each time I listen to it, and it wasn’t easy to pick two favourite tracks to present in this post. I dillied back and forth until I stayed with the two songs you can listen to here below.
From the Malmö/Helsingborg band Tic a rock energy beam, hard to avoid, is delivered. With the singer Emma in the front they give us a raw, unpolished rock with garage feeling but with a hard rock heaviness. This is probably best experienced live, but I think they have managed to impregnate the recordings, which you can listen to below, with a whole lot of energy.
If you like Tic you can visit them on their Myspace page. Here are two songs to listen to and download:
Today we continue with more electronica, but this time of a more ambient kind. Dr. Sounds is the artist, he has released a number of albums and you can listen to and download some of them on his Jamendo page. The latest album, an extended version of “Aquasphere”, is a real mastodon with 31 tracks and over 6 hours of music.
It’s minimalistic and ambient, but with different characteristics between the albums. From “Aeroball III”, which explores melodies and sounds and feels more experimental, to “Aquasphere” which is truly ambient in it’s nature with beautiful and peaceful soundscapes.
It’s also interesting when Dr. Sounds tells us about the healing power of this type of music. And then in the context of helping children with concentration difficulties, where there have been studies which indicates that continuos sounds of low volume can help children with ADHD to focus. Since he’s been one of those children himself he writes about this on his site, how the music has helped him to concentrate better.
Here you can listen to a couple of tracks, “Aquamon” from “Aeroball III” and “Fundamentals of Sexuality” from “Aquasphere”:
Today will be electronica day here on Meadowmusic, together with Anto. It’s about dance and like he describes it:
“Crazy electro music combined with nostalgic sounds. Arcadegame melodies or 80’s synth-pop sounds.. It’s like travelling back in time but also into the future at the same time so the music touches you in many different ways”.
Anto produces his own instrumental dance tracks but also quite a few remixes, as he often is contacted by other artists about remixes. Especially I liked his remix of “Taken”, a song by the german indie-electronica band Digitalism, where the vocals mixed with Anto’s disco-heavy music makes a really cool combination.
That I Am You We Are is different from most bands I’ve heard, is clear to me already after a minute or so in the first song “Love Song For the Mob”, from their EP “Masquerade”. An oriental-inspired melody played by transverse flute and accordion turns into something more folkish and Phoenix and Anahitas voices give the song a somwhat different character.
The five songs on “Masquerade” are quite different from each other, where they vary the instrument set from song to song. They experiment with flutes, piano, accordion, guitars, djembe, trumpet and no set seem to be the same as the other. I can’t help thinking about that I’m listening to a mini musical, where the scene changes from song to song.
It’s different and interesting. You can listen for yourself below to the track “Love Song For the Mob”. On their Myspace page you can find more songs from “Masquerade”.
It just hit me how few of the artists I present here on Meadowmusic that actually sing in Swedish. After all, the purpose of the blog is to present new Swedish music, but I guess that’s more or less how it is on the Swedish music scene today. If that’s good or bad I’ll let you decide for yourself.
But when I listen to the indie-soul, sung in Swedish, from År & Dar, as a Swede, I definitely feel closer to the music. There’s nothing in the way and the words find their way inside me directly. This is not about soul from a glamorous scene, it’s soul with rolled upp sleeves, which walks beside me as I travel under the cold and grey November skies. And it feels a little lighter, a little bit warmer.
Adam Pålsson’s voice is made for this. It’s earthbound, unpolished and soulful, and lifts the music to another level. Listen for yourself here below where you’ll find two videos and the song “Vad blir det av oss” (”What becomes of us?), which you can listen to and download.
Listen to new swedish music and download mp3-files. (right-click link to download)
Do you like what you hear? Then tell others about it! Add links about the artist on communities and other websites, write about it on your blog site and tell your friends.
We would be grateful if you linked to this site.
All songs you find here on this page have been approved for publication by the the artists.
Dark, heavy, powerful and monotone is my impression of Isobel & November’s music. They released their album “The Ghostwater Gospel” in the end of last year. Ten heavy tracks where I have a hard time to find anything to compare with, and which end with the brilliant and more than 15 min long “She Came Down the Mountain”, a song you can listen to below.
Kate and After participated with a song in our 
The Idle Hands started out some years ago, but it was not until 2008 that they got their current formation. During 2009 they released the album “Dark Rooms” and in the end of last year the singel “Hearts”.
Last week the Gothenburg band The Berndt released their debut album “GBGBG”. My expectations were rather high before the release, but I wasn’t disappointed. Charming and characteristic is the least I can say about The Berndt’s energic punk-pop-indie.
In the Autumn Magnus Weideskog released his debut EP and any day now his first full length album, “Unga hjärtan” (Sony Music), will be available. Magnus has been compared with 
Labbet serves us some soft, cool, laidback electronica. “Excellent music for driving a car or strolling through the park on a Sunday afternoon”, he writes, and I quite agree. Really nice music to listen in the car, driving along a dark night.
It feels great to listen to Fredrik Malmgren’s, aka Apgeneralen, bluesy voice in this rock, which feels like it could be recorded from a sweaty rock jam in the first halv of the seventies. But it’s not quite that simple overall.
If you liked 
“My ambition is to always leave someone with a feeling, to be a feeling and to move somone. You should for a moment be able to walk away from normal life and just be inside the music”. The words are Lennart Lindgren’s, and I think that he does a good job at it. For me it means a trip back to my childhood’s troubadours with beautiful melodies and beautiful poetic lyrics.
Even though he got a fantastic start in 2007, as an opener for 
Zucchini Drive released their third album this autumn. The album is called “Shotgun Rules” and oozes of heavy electronica, hip hop and rock, not to mention som really nice pop hooks. I enter a dark and dense soundscape and even if I feel the same vibes there is quite some variation from track to track.
I have just woken up from the Christmas coma, and I felt it was time to present some new music again, here on Meadowmusic. And first up is Jörgen Kjellgren, more known as guitar player and songwriter in the band 
Sibling Sense is an interesting band. If you want to simplify things, you could say that they are a post grunge band, but it’s not that simple, as always. They can produce a grand, dramatic rock like in “Lights out”, but they don’t hesitate to bring out a more dirty rock sound like in the dark, suggestive “Frogs”.
“We All Die” is the name of New Found Land’s debut album, which was released late spring earlier this year. Initiated by Anna Roxenholt and from the start a duo, the band has grown into a group of sometimes up to 8 musicians.
“Lika lätt som att vissla en melodi (lika lätt blåser livet förbi)”, Bangalore (Gbg) calls his EP, which was released this autumn. Behind the name Bangalore (Gbg) you’ll find Tomas Persson Carlberg; a pop troubadour you could call him.
EP’s Trailerpark was formed already in 1999 by Eric Palmqvist. With former members like 
Marching Band’s music is perfect today. Their easy-going, uplifting indie pop is fighting away the winter cold, steadily marching forward with the two drum majors Erik Sunbring and Jacob Lind in the front.
In August Epelectric opened for 
Sweet Serenades released earlier this year a very strong debut album, “Balcony Cigarettes”. It contains a bunch of contagious songs with high humming factor. It’s playful, romantic, melodic, dramatic in a modern indie pop which let their roots shine through.
Today’s band is the interesting Örebro band Yes I Am. This autumn they released the EP “Nightmares”, from which you can listen to a track here below.
Luke Jackson traveled to Sweden, with a heap of pop songs in his luggage, to collaborate with Magnus Börjesson (remember Beagle?) and ex 
“Citizen K was born on August 4, 1966. The bastard son of a beautiful go-go-dancer, and a famous rock’n'roll star.”
From the Malmö/Helsingborg band Tic a rock energy beam, hard to avoid, is delivered. With the singer Emma in the front they give us a raw, unpolished rock with garage feeling but with a hard rock heaviness. This is probably best experienced live, but I think they have managed to impregnate the recordings, which you can listen to below, with a whole lot of energy.
Today we continue with more electronica, but this time of a more ambient kind. Dr. Sounds is the artist, he has released a number of albums and you can listen to and download some of them on 
Today will be electronica day here on Meadowmusic, together with Anto. It’s about dance and like he describes it:
That I Am You We Are is different from most bands I’ve heard, is clear to me already after a minute or so in the first song “Love Song For the Mob”, from their EP “Masquerade”. An oriental-inspired melody played by transverse flute and accordion turns into something more folkish and Phoenix and Anahitas voices give the song a somwhat different character.
It just hit me how few of the artists I present here on Meadowmusic that actually sing in Swedish. After all, the purpose of the blog is to present new Swedish music, but I guess that’s more or less how it is on the Swedish music scene today. If that’s good or bad I’ll let you decide for yourself.
