Friday night is here and I aim to finish this week by helping you get a good feeling for the weekend. And for this I get help from Six Figure Transatlantic’s new album “The Owl”, which in fact is their debut album, even though they started already in 1999.
I wrote about the band a couple of years ago, and then the album was on it’s way, but you know, if you’re waiting for something good… And good it is, at least if you like soft americana, singer/songwriter and a nice retro sound. If you’ve encountered the band before, you’ve probably heard some of the songs on their earlier EP:s.
It was the singer and guitarist Mattias Dahl who came up with the name, Six Figure Transatlantic. Sick in fever, he read the name on a truck during a subway trip. The band was looking for an unusual name, it sounded sweet for them and they settled for the name. Afterwards it turned out that there weren’t any truck companies with that name; Mattias had misread the whole thing.
To listen to “The Owl”, you can go to Spotify or similar services. The band also has a Facebook page and a home page.
The Tranq, hailing from Örebro, recently released their debut EP “Peninsula”. It’s an EP and a sound with the roots firmly set in the eighties dramatic alternative rock/pop: the big rooms, the guitar sound, the snare drum, the lead synths, the male choirs and the drama expression in the vocals. And good for us they don’t take it too far, but pour some indie vibes into the mix as well, creating their own sound.
About the band name they tell me that they liked the harsh pronounciation of the name and the touching points with the song lyrics, which they want to be imbued with a subtle and calm social criticism.
Around New Year The Virtues released the single “Hope”. A really beautiful ballad which you can listen to and download here below.
“Hope” is the finishing song on the band’s latest album “Beautiful Game”, their fourth one since 2003, and was released last year. I haven’t written about it yet, so I took the opportunity to listen to it now. And I like the album, it’s a good rock/pop-album with a lot of vibes from Big Star and Tom Petty and a dose of early New Wave. I love the intimate sound in the songs; retro, airy and full of good-sounding guitars that have plenty of room to ring out their tones. Add then also Per’s nice rock vocals, good melodies and some interesting adventures like in for example the punk vibing “Liquid”.
The electronica duo Posttod, which I wrote about a little more than a year ago, is back with a new release. It’s about the 7-track album “Moon”, which you can enjoy on their site. Here’s a range of ideas and textures, from beautiful pieces of ambience to more energetic songs with vibes of synth pop. A really pleasant album to listen to.
The band name is a composition of the word post (in the meaning of after) and the german word for death, tod, which in some view is meant to reflect their thoughts and music.
Normally you will find Oskar Blondell in the band Ben Hogun as a lead singer, but as a side adventure he has also started the solo project The Forest Green. According to Oskar it’s his own uncompromising art project, where he can test his limits and do whatever he likes.
It sounds like perfect conditions for creating interesting music, and it also shows in his songs. You can listen here below to the first song he published, “Slowmotion”. A couple of days ago he released another, “Only One”, and more are on their way. He also tells me that he’s started a collaboration with the deep house duo Vildmarken, which we will know more about later on. You can follow his music on Soundcloud.
The name The Forest Green comes from the colour of his old favourite cardigan, which he was wearing when he created the first song. He also thought it perfectly described what he wanted to achieve with the project.
On February 28th The Mary Onettes will release the new EP “Love Forever”. For the first time, they have collaborated with an external producer, Dan Lissvik, which of course also affect how they sound. They write about the change:
Gone are the echoing reverbs, the 80′s guitars and the big, splashing drums. “Love Forever” is a wonder of genre-blurring fearlessness drawing on ambient textures, avant-garde rhythms and intricate arrangements.
As a taste of the EP, they have released the first song, “Love’s Taking Strange Ways”, which you can listen to and download below. You can find The Mary Onettes on Facebook or on their site.
That Tommy Svensson can handle synths we’ve seen before as I wrote about Yngling in the Autumn. He’s also running a solo project in his own name where he explores different electronic domains.
It’s a rather minimalistic, quirky music where he’s also added vocals on several tracks. And the voice, broken, low-voiced gives it al all a quite special injection to the ambience in the music. You can listen for yourself on his Facebook page or on Spotify. Here are two songs:
Last year Joakim “Budji” Buddee” released the album “Eldsjälar och bananskal” (“Driving spirits and banana peels”), a hip hop album which doesn’t sound like I would expect hip hop would sound like, seen from my perspective as someone who just occasionally dive into the genre. Here I don’t find any drum machine beats or synth backgrounds; instead the sound is built upon drums , bass, piano and foremost acoustic guitars.
It works perfectly well, and I guess it’s a sign of the span in hip hop today. The formula of the songs is the traditional verse-rap + pop refrains and he does both really well. There are sticky, melodic refrains where he gets help from a number of singers like Hilda Dahlberg, Lovisa Birgersson and Tom Goren, and tight rap lyrics performed in a nice relaxed way by Budji himself plus a few guests like PelleP and Adam Opinio, lyrics that add a needed sharpness with social criticism about shallowness, comersialism and cynical politics.
You can download “Eldsjälar och bananskal” for free on Whoa, and you can listen to the album on Budji’s site, the Facebook page or on Spotify. Here are two songs:
Joakim Jakobsson is a former member of The Search and last year he started the band Duellen (The Duel) together with Argentinian Brian Biezki. Brian soon left the band and instead the former The Search-members Tina Bergström and Mikael Saltzman plus Olle Bilius (Jeniferever) and Simon Lundström entered the band. Then in december the five-track debut EP was released.
It’s indie pop in Swedish, rather darkly colored, radiating with vibes from the eighties’ new wave scene. They vary smoothly from synth based songs to guitar driven ones without losing the atmosphere. Straight melodies that stick quite fast on a good EP that promises more.
Pal is Albin Johansson hailing from Malmö. In December he launched the 7-track debut album “Weeks”. It’s about a rather soft, dreamy pop, a bit minimalistic. The mix of analogue synths, guitars, old drum machines and often a nice rolling bass give a special feeling to the sound. It feels a little retro and I can’t help thinking of Air when I listen to the harmonies and the bass figures. A very nice new acquaintance and you can listen to the entire album on Pal’s Bandcamp page.
The name Pal, Albin invented in 2007 when he uploaded his first home recordings to Myspace. He wanted to be anonymous and he liked the combination with the hint to his first name and the meaning of the word.
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On February 28th The Mary Onettes will release the new EP “Love Forever”. For the first time, they have collaborated with an external producer, Dan Lissvik, which of course also affect how they sound. They write about the change:
