Rickard Ahlgren has released his first official EP under the name danmarck. Here he continues with his grand-sounding furious rock he showed us in the Autumn on the single “Mayfire”. The garage is just a memory now as he heads out on the vast plains like a hurricane on the four tracks. He pushes his voice to the limit while melodic, alarming guitar lines sweep in over the soundscape. There’s something very direct and punk-like when he grabs a theme and just hammers on with an intense beat for two-three minutes, but you will also find traces of goth, alternative rock, industrial and other stuff. He writes that he’s found his inspiration to the songs from artists like Arcade Fire, Hurula, The Damned and Nirvana, influences he interweaves with his dark and ominous sound. Every song has its own character and you can listen to all four tracks here below and read his comments to each song:

Danmarck on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

About “All Hail”: “The lyrics are about various things, partly about the importance of being dedicated to something and partly about our need for a short-circuit of all IT, phones, computers and so on, “All we need is another short circuit”. Musically it’s inspired by Olle Ljungström and Hurula.”

About “Sessala”: “Is there light in here?”. “About our insecurity when we have to choose (not TV:s…:)). Is there anything good with what I’m doing right now..?
Musically inspired by av Thåström, Kite and Nicole Saboune.”

About “Anavia”: “Be who you want to be and be a role model. Do good. Musically inspired by Nirvana’s “Endless Nameless” (hiddden track on Nevermind) and also Nine Inch Nails and Sex Pistols.”

Secret Cameras, hailing from London, are warming up before the release of their debut EP with the second single from the record, “It Doesn’t Matter”. It’s a track that breathes of postpunk and alternative rock and which gives me plenty of Suede vibes. The song is quite intense, culminating in a massive sound explosion in the chorus, still with a sweet melody hook. The first single is also worth checking out. “Going Places” is a bit calmer and with the synths more in the foreground, but with the same dense, ambient sound and an ending where they pour in everything they’ve got.

Secret Cameras’ site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

It’s exciting with music that is searching more or less actively for what it really is. That is how I perceive this album, not as if it has an identity problem, but rather like if it is trying new ways in a playful and fascinating manner. “Gnistor, irrbloss” is music for a wind quartet (mostly brass), percussion and a voice (Nicolai Dunger), who alternately improvise, sound and play compositions which sometimes just are, sometimes are pop-melodic and sometimes are fragmentary. This search also makes it hard to categorize. Sometimes it sounds like jazz, but it’s also art music and pop. “Gnistor…” is the first album of two made in this way.

The founder is Johan Arrias, who gathered the musicians playing on the album, and he also writes that the record is “a mixture of ready-mades, poetry, songs, sounds and sketches”. This makes the album appear like an art gallery or maybe like a part of an art gallery. In any case, I get quite curious about the continuation.

Sista striden

Reglerna och leken
Johan Arrias’ site – on Spotify – on Apple Music – on Bandcamp

The starting track “Overture” with a chanting, echoing piano, a growing dark atmosphere and a thin string on the verge of snapping immediately sets the ambience. When I listen to Jenny Garbrielsson Mare’s new album “Comb the Wicked” I’m reminded of the dark setting from her duo collaboration with Fredrik Jonasson, White Birches. But even if the electronic effects are important it is overall an organic sound that forms the base in these songs. Organ, piano, bass and percussion build a sparse, suggestive sound in a low tempo while Jenny’s soft vocals soars above it all like a spiritual being.

She wrote the songs while she was staying in Brooklyn two years ago and let the environment inspire the music in various ways. Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Avenue and the hot indian summer meet religious symbols, dark entities and thoughts about guilt in a sometimes almost meditative, nocturnal journey. The closest I can compare with is Nick Cave, but this is very much Jenny’s own sound in songs where she has broken out of the common structures. Here she also gets help from Michael Blair, an instrumentalist who has worked with artists like Tom Waits and Lou Reed, and here has added percussion and drums in a quite varied and well-sounding way, from the marching drums of “Dig Real Deep” to the gospel claps on “Hard Times”. It’s an album that really should be listened to from the beginning to the end, but I’ll give it a try to pick out two songs to taste here below:

Jenny Gabrielsson Mare’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music – on Bandcamp

I’m almost hypnotised by Lilou’s vocals. Her dark alto voice breathes of blackness, mystique and rock attitude, like a magical music incantation I just have to listen to again and again. Together with her husband she form the duo Lilou & John, who earlier this Autumn released the debut EP “100 Faces”.

Here we hear them in five tracks that spans from epic folk songs to alternative rock and indiepop, all wrapped in an unpolished sound that perfectly matches Lilou’s charsima. Each song also has a corresponding music video created by different video artists from USA and Brazil. You can watch an example here below in the video to the song “When Murder Victims Die”, a video created by Patrick Paax. The other videos are available on their Youtube channel.

Lilou & Johns site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

About “He Broke My Neck, Joséphine”: “…inspired by a vivid dream that came to Lilou one night. The ghost child Elizabeth shared with her the last days of her life, and in the dream Lilou felt the brutality when the father of Elizabeth’s love Joséphine broke her neck. It happened somewhere at the end of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th not far from the city of Jönköping.“

About “100 Faces”: “About our instinct to always hide our true self, maybe further emphasized by the alienating effect of the modern society of consumption and our emotional difficulties.” (transl. from Swedish)

About “When Murder Victims Die”: “…tells the story of the post-traumatic experiences of a child surviving a brutal serial killer. The lyrics was highly influenced by Motörhead and Lilou decided at an early stage that she would sing the song in a weird, tim-burtonesque way, balancing on the edge of quirky disharmony.“