The music that comes out of my speakers right now feels like a soundtrack to the cold, snow-covered landscape outside my window. This first real taste of winter makes an effort to penetrate the window to reach inside, but the tones from Winter Took His Life create a comfortable peace in the room.

Now the name “Winter Took His Life” may seem a little ominous to have as a soundtrack right now, but I feel really good. This naked music with beautiful melodies rather promises that the sky will clear up and the gray days will be followed by sunny, bright winter days. That’s how it feels.

Winter Took His Life is Susanna Brandin, a singer/songwriter that released her debut album last year, “You Know What It’s Like to Be Alone and Shut Down” (Bless the Press). Enjoy three tracks from the album:

Lucky Star
Oh
When You Said You Headed Home

Visit Winter Took His Life on Myspace. On Last.fm you can listen and also download more tracks.

If you’re in Göteborg on Thursday, the 27th, you can go to Kontiki and see Winter Took His Life play live.

There was obviously some problem with the track “Obedient Minds” with Dubious Quip as published two days ago, some people have reported. Therefore we have converted the track into a more common format which you can download in this post:

Dubious Quip – Obedient Minds

A couple of years ago Henrik Åström released the album “Miracle” and he is now on his way to release his second album, aiming for the beginning of 2009. And it feels nice to be able to listen in on some tracks here below.

I would like to call Henrik’s music downscaled pop. Which is a quite stupid thing to say since nothing is downscaled from anything; it is what it is and maybe also what it should be. But something makes me want to differ Henrik from the singer/songwriter-genre that comes from another direction with Dylan and others in the background. Here I feel more pop in the melodies, even if I sense the folk influence in the verses sometimes.

And the way I hear it now, no upscaling is needed; the guitars and the piano is quite enough for these beautiful melodies and emphasize the closeness and the thoughtfulness. And the whistle-melody in “Oscar Wilde” is forever stuck in my mind…

Oscar Wilde
A Soldier and a Fool
The Heart

Visit Henrik Åström on Myspace

I feel rather limited in presenting Echodeck in a blog post. Their entire concept is built upon a total experience of sound and vision and also contains a large part of improvisation. I do feel, though, that the recordings they present gives an interesting insight into what they want to accomplish.

It’s about music that is built around an ambience where layer is built upon layer, often to an electronic beat. Melody passages is mixed with moments of pure ambience and sounds of normal instruments are interwoven with  electronic sounds.

It is very beautiful, and it would be very interesting to be able to see them live someday.
Enjoy two tracks with Echodeck:

Black Box
Ohm

Visit Echodeck on Myspace

Hari and Aino is not a duo, as the name suggests, but a 5-member band with Andrea Dahlkild, with her Debbie Harry-sounding voice, behind the microphone. The music they create definitely belongs to the music-that-makes-you-happy-category. In an uncomplicated and clean way, they step lightly with bright, beautiful melodies. Part like a more pop-sounding Blondie and part like a modern indie pop band.

Earlier this year they released a much appreciated debut album (Plastilina Records) and this winter they release a singel on vinyl “A Considerate Kind of Home” (Cloudberry Records), and you can listen and download one of the tracks from the single below.
If you want to see them live and are close by Uppsala this week (and if you´re a student), then you can watch them at V-dala Nation’s live club on Friday. In February next year they will tour England, playing in London, Brighton, Birmingham among other cities.

Gold (or something just as nice):

Enjoy three tracks by Hari and Aino:

Second Song
Seasons
A Considerate Kind of Home

Visit Hari and Aino on Myspace or on Last.fm if you’d like to listen to and download more tracks.
I you want to buy their debut album, it’s available at Plastilina Records’ site.

Reviews of Hari and Aino’s debut album: Too Much Apple Pie, Absolut Noise, indie-mp3