Radjoteatern was created by the duo Pentti Lindén and Pontus Englund in 2010. They came up with the name Radjoteatern (The Radio Theatre) during a trip to Egypt where they noticed that the only thing that was played in the Egyptian taxis was Arabian radio theater.

Before forming the band they worked with quite different styles of music, but had the fascination for electronic music in common. In Radjoteatern they started experimenting with synths, drum machines and sampling, mixed with acoustic instruments.

There is an EP released with the band’s music, 5 songs with their own style of electro pop with a hint of R&B, light and with nice melodies. On the EP they are joined by Nick Martin (Prins Eugen, Raketen!), Max Nilsson (Funkalics, No Big Deal) and others.

You can find Radjoteatern on Facebook where you also can listen to the entire EP.

Scissors

Today Bus Stop Dreams, the band I’m part of, made the second release. It’s the single “Anything” with the two songs “Anything” (vocals by Jenny Fall) and “As Long as I Don’t Cry” (vocals by Ulla Wrethagen). The title track is written by Lasse Thomasson and Fredrik Muskos and the second song by Lasse.

You are more than welcome to listen more on Bus Stop Dreams’ site, on Spotify and on the music page. You’ll also find Bus Stop Dreams on Facebook and now also on Google+. Here are the songs:

Anything
As Long as I Don’t Cry

Support the artist: Buy “Anything” – on iTunes – on Amazon

Daniel (Elias & the Wizzkids, Yamon Yamon) and Simon (The Third Try Club) form the duo Shpy, and a little while ago they released their debut EP “Springs”. And it’s a nice debut indeed; 4 songs of indie vibing pop, with an interesting sound, rather dreamy and melancholic.

They picked up the band name Shpy when they saw the the word Shpy on a ship in Dubrovnik. As they also like the sea they thought it would fit as a band name.

Listen to and download their EP on Shpy’s site. You can also follow them on Facebook.

Lated

The band Avgrunden recently released their second album, or LP, like they prefer to call it; it was primarily released on a good old cassette tape through Ominous Recordings (sold out at the moment).

The name of the album is “The Cursed Earth”, and like the name implies the music is rather dark, or at least with a strong mellow ambience. Drone music the genre is called, though the title track is referred to as doom country. It’s about instrumental, slow music, where the closest music I can refer to is ambient music, but here the instrument setup is based on guitars, drums, strings, and percussion.

The ambience reminds of a barren, desolate landscape with a heavy, fateful atmosphere. In a song like “Crazy Horse Redress” I’m looking at american deserts, but overall the feeling I get from the music is a strong nordic melancholy.

Victor Granat, who started the band, explains that the band’s name Avgrunden (The Abyss) is partly based on the quote from Nietsche: “If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will in the end stare back at you” (my translation). In the beginnning (2 years before the band was formed and the concept consisted of just Victor and two guitars) he could play a guitar riff for 15 minutes and that was it. The idea was that if you repeat something enough it will change it’s shape and appearance, Victor says and continues:

I also get the feeling that Sweden is kind of “The end of the world” or at least “The end of the western world” (according to many). There is a melancholy within Swedish culture that I, personally, love and it’s the same melancholy you would expect if you were standing on the edge of the end of the world, staring into the infinite abyss.

Th music is supposed to picture that border land at the end of the world, it’s music that hopefully will take the listener on a journey through musical landscapes on the edge of the abyss.

You can find Avgrunden on their site or on Facebook and you can listen to more music on their Soundcloud page.

The Cursed Earth

I wrote about Reform and their fifth album half a year ago. Now they’ve released their sixth album, “Reveries of Reform”, in the shape of a double album, which seems somewhat unusual these  days. Maybe their music style is not that common either today; jazzrock, moving into the borders of progressive rock, music that during the seventies fronted with names like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Santana and also with Swedes like Björn J:son Lindh and Janne Schaffer.

And even if they use synths, it’s first of all from the seventies I sense the vibes, well with a refreshed feeling, and with music easier available than for the predecessors I mentioned and often beautifully melodic.

It’s a quite ambitious project the five-membered band Reform has launched, a project where they are visited by a range of good guest musicians. They describe the band formation as a rather fluid concept, where they have changed members a number of times since the start in 1998, and this album is maybe a sign of that when you look at all the participants.

I definitely think that they have succeeded with the project and created an impressive piece of art, which I think you will like if you know this genre, but I also think that the album is an opportunity for those that are curious about what happens when rock meets jazz in different forms. Listen for yourself below in a track, a track taken from the first CD. You can find Reform on their site and on Facebook. Listen more on Spotify.

Mitsuhirato

Support the artist: Buy “Reveries of Reform” – on iTunes – on Amazon