Last year Friska Viljor released their second album “Tour de Hearts” (Crying Bob Records), a wonderful album full of great melodies and warmth. In a way the band started out of pain and bitter change in 2005, as the two band members just had broken up from earlier relationships. They set out to speak about their feelings around this, through music.

And even if I feel the pain from the singer, in a way like an Axl Rose that has calmed down and started to sing in The Cure, this music feels upplifting for me. Great pop melodies, many times with a sing-a-long feeling, is given it’s own character with mandolins and a folk and acoustic feeling. But at the same time grand. Does that make any sense?

Well, anyway, you can listen to a couple of tracks from “Tour de Hearts” here and hopefully you’ll have the chance to see them live some day. If you want to listen more and talk to them, you can visit Friska Viljor on Myspace.

On and On
Old Man

Others about Friska Viljor and “Tour de Hearts”: Eaten By Monsters, Absolut Noise, Indierock.net (in portuguese)

Light, light, like bare feet on a flowering meadow in spring, I hear  Ida Olsson’s bright voice with the piano or guitar play of  Simon Ljungman. I don’t even think I have to listen to the beautiful words to feel a warm breath of spring break through the cold winter that predominate now, at least here in Sweden.

It’s swedish ballads mixed with some feeling of french chansons, especially in the piano based songs. It’s acoustic and naked on their new album “Ida & Simon”.

Ida has released two albums before, both of them in collaboration with Simon, and the latest album was born, in a sense, on Ida’s birthday. She received a gift card from Simon, which said “recording mix and master of your next album”!

Here you can listen to a couple of tracks from “Ida & Simon”, and I just had to add a track from her last album “Andas solsken” (“Breathe Sunshine”) also, “Spara vackra dagar” (“Save beautiful days”). Visit Ida’s site (in Swedish) to read, listen and download more songs. You can also find Ida on Myspace.

Två hjärtan i samma kropp
Vi vet inget om imorgon
Spara vackra dagar

Meet Fredrik Hillnor. He says his music consists of “various instruments joint together in small symphonies I record on my computer”. It’s instrumental electronica in a nice harmony with guitars and other instruments. He says he simply uses the instruments that comes his way and make him happy.

I feel rather comfortable walking around in Fredrik’s sound landscape, where different instrumental melodies ar interwoven into a whole. And it never gets boring, the music changes frequently as one instrument takes the lead from another, and I’m often fascinated how he brings it all together.

Judge for yourself by listening to some tracks below. To listen more, you can visit Hillnor on Myspace.

The Pt 10
Helt
Wood In the Hood

dePhaser went for the top right from the beginning. That is, they were formed on the top flor in Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden. They rehearsed and wrote songs for a year or so, but they didn’t feel complete until the singer Markus Gustafsson entered the band. An even if I don’t know how they did before, it’s clear to me that Markus’ nice tone and rock voice sits perfectly with their music.

Well, now they are on their way out with their music, a tight and well played rock, catchy, with a post grunge feeling. Here they give us two tracks, where I was especially caught by “It’s Over Now”, which has really nice dynamics and a nice drive. If you’d like to see the band live, their next gig takes place the 17th of March at Arena 305 in Malmö.

You’ll find dePhaser on Myspace.

It’s Over Now:

It’s Over Now
Forgotten Words

I haven’t really figured out yet what’s behind Anyone For Tennis‘ interesting band name. If they are referring to the classic phrase in some way or to the old Cream song with the same name, or to something else. (sorry, forgot to ask :-)) But there’s no question what their music is about: great pop/rock with a lot of energy.

Maybe I could describe it as one part of Foo Fighters and one part of brit-pop. Well produced, but not overpolished, creating a nice balance between the pop and the rock energy in the music.

The band is just about to release a new five-track EP, and you can get a taste of it here, “In Her Honor”. I also added a track from their debut EP, “Radio”.
Read more about them and download more tracks at Anyone For Tennis’ site or visit them on Myspace.

In Her Honor
Radio