Today, two days after the horrible events in Norway, it’s hard to do anything without being reminded of what happened. And words are not enough, they don’t help. Maybe music can help us deal with it as a refuge for our thoughts and feelings. I, for one, like to listen to music without words in situations like this.

Here are a couple of tracks from “Ack du arma barn”, a new album with Släktträff.

Ack du arma barn
Sparka grus

Leanids, hailing from Västerås, recently released their debut album, “Under the Leanids”. It’s a pleasant, laidback production which makes me think of soft rock from the beginning and the middle of the seventies with some indie vibes and an ounce of Ryan Adams.

Listen here below to two songs from the album and listen more on Spotify or on Soundcloud. You can follow Leanids on Myspace and on Facebook.

Flying
Rewind/Forward

Magnus Fagernäs has quite some experience from the music biz.  After being member in bands like Pinballs, Bombi Bitt et al, he handled the drumsticks in Dead Scouts, Traste Lindéns kvintett, Perssons Pack and Atomic Swing. One day he tired of it all and left the stage to focus on other things.

10 years later he was persuaded to join the band Little Red Snapper, he regained his passion for music and started to write songs. The result was a debut album as a solo artist under the name Mankku [mancko]. The album was released last month and is called “Festen har bara börjat” (“The party has just begun”).

It’s an album that grows each time I listen and the more I give it attention. And this is also the case with Mankkus bright, dramatic vocals that little by little put new layers of meaning to the stories. I like the arrangements which are tastefully “less is more”-produced, and gives an extra fateful and mellow feeling to the ambience.

It’s a varied album where he blends pop, rock, country and folk. In a way it feels in the end like something born out of the deep nordic woods, in the stories, in the blackness and in the folk sounds that shine through. Well, I’d love to party on with Mankku [mancko].

You can listen to the album on Spotify and you can find Mankku on his site and on Facebook. Here’s “Väskan” (“The bag”):

Väskan

It’s the early seventies. My friends and I have gathered on a large meadow just outside the city. We are sitting on blankets, drinking red wine, eating snacks and we enjoy the sunny summer’s day. In front of us is a stage where our buddies in the ensemble My Enhanced Little Rhubarb perform the musical “In Memory of Rupert Cloud”.

That image passes before my eyes as I listen to My Little Rhubarb’s album “In Memory of Rupert Cloud”. The story takes place in the fantasy land Rhubarbland, inhabited by a number of strange characters. Among them is Rupert Cloud, from the album title, who dies tragically when his own rhubarbs eat him, and Selma the tree who’s fallen in love with John, one of her own apples.

You can listen to the album on their Bandcamp page. You’ll also find them  on Facebook. Here are two songs from the album:

Selma’s Fourth Fall
Enter Cloudman

Earlier Fredrik Johansson was songwriter and guitarist in the hard rock band Link and later in Laguna Stardust. After a life crisis in 2005 he decided to step forward and grab the microphone, first as a singer in the band Exil, then in Riket and now as a solo artist under the name Karl Fredrik. Last month he released the solo debut album “Ingenstans Man” (“Nowhere Man”).

It’s an even and good album, but rather varying, especially in the verses where he moves from americana-influenced songs to eighties retro to Kent-vibing ambiences, while the refrains often ends up in a grand rock crescendos. Interesting self-revealing lyrics carried by a voice with just the right blackness.

You can find Karl Fredrik on his site and on Facebook. Listen more on Spotify.

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