Tenonsaw is a Swedish-Irish duo with the members Salt Eriksson and Thomas Luke. In the Autumn they first released the debut album “Beginnings”, and later, in November, the EP “Pact”. It’s not that easy to describe their music and I can’t really find any close comparisons among other artists.

The foundation, and what they also started with, is folk music; melancholic and with Tom’s acoustic guitar accompanying Salt’s sad song melodies. Soon, electronica, guitar figures and other sounds add new layers in a minimalistic way. Scales clashes with other scales and new layers add other types of emotions, which sometimes create slightly chaotic situations where there are no rules. They describe the ambition themselves:

…create emotional songbased music, based on the principle on finding the balance between clarity and confusion and between ugliness and beauty.

There is a large span between the songs, where they sometimes lie very close to folk music tunes and sometimes have left it completely behind. You can listen to the title track from the EP here below, and the rest of the songs are available on their Bandcamp page. You can find the duo on their site and on Facebook.

The name Tenonsaw they found in a dictionary while looking for a suitable band name. They liked the association with sharpness and details, and that it’s a small saw, not a big dangerous one.

Pact

Ambas is a duo who’s name is formed from two members Amber Watts’ och Jonas Lundqvist’s first names. In the Autumn they released their debut EP, the soul vibing “Places”. There you’ll find four quite enjoyably songs; it’s feels souly, a little jazzy and airy, and at the same time experimental, liberated from many of the clichés from the genres they are walking into. Amber Watts has a nice, soft tone in her vocals, like it was made for this music.

The fact that they have created this as a part of a project on the music highschool Rytmus, where they both attend, makes it even more impressive. They write, though, that it won’t stop there and that they will continue with the band afterwards. If you like what you hear, you can follow them  on Facebook, and then you can read their Tumblr blog, where you also can listen to the entire EP and download it. Here’s a song from the album:

Train

I wrote about the electro pop band Storbritannien and their EP “Krita” in the beginning of this year. After some delays with the follow-up to their EP “Krita”, they are now back again with the new single Domino. They are releasing it today and gave me the opportunity to publish it here on Meadowmusic.

This will probably be the last post in 2011, so I would like to wish all the artists and all you listeners that come here a happy new year! I’ll see you next year, and judging from the incoming stream of music, we have a lot to look forward to in 2012.

Here’s “Domino” with Storbritannien:

Domino

Every year I present some new Christmas songs in a post, and this year’s no exception. If you’d like to check out the songs from earlier years you can check them out here: 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

First up is ad dios. They have produced Christmas songs every year since a few years back, and now finally they have made a collection of these, together with new ones, on the album “Season of Tranquillity”. Here’s the opening track:
In the Bleak Midwinter

I wrote about Slottet and their new EP “Servants” a couple of weeks ago. Here’s their Christmas contribution:
A Cold Christmas

The Higher Elevations released their Christmas song in 2006, but since I haven’t presented it before, I thought it would fit perfectly in today’s post:
All These Winter Nights

Acid House Kings with their new Christmas single:
(I’m In) A Chorus Line 

Finally a contribution from Skånske Arne & Jonny Spöge who with “Kanske tomten har Facebook” (“Maybe Santa has Facebook”) finish a productive year with this follow-up to their debut singel “Gula lådan“:
Kanske tomten har Facebook

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Edit 20/12 2011 – added the new Christmas single from Acid House Kings

The duo Old Amica, which I wrote about earlier this year, have now released their debut album “Debris”. They continue to explore their special sound landscapes they introduced us to in their earlier releases. They write that although there are no overall theme for the album, many songs is about loosing the feeling for a home.

And the music in itself has no obvious genre home. There is a feeling of folk music and influences from for example Neil Young, but the acoustic parts are equally interwoven with electronic pads, sound figures and beats, in songs that can be experienced as ambient as well as traditionally built melodic songs. It’s mellow and reflects solitude and vast landscapes, but there is also a warmth and softness, well maybe humility is a better word, like if they have covered everything with a nice blanket to rest on.

Johan Kisro, one half of the band, tells that the band name originally comes from a sailing boat named “Amica” that his family owned when he was a kid. When they duo started playing together he found some old photos of the boat and thought that it would fit as a band name. Old Amica, which could be translated to “old friend”, refers to the two members as well as a symbol for people and events that pass by in life. A nostalgic feeling in other words, which is reflected in the music.

You can listen to the album on their site or on Spotify. They also have a Facebook page. Here are two songs from “Debris”:

New Start
Summer Morning Light

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