Today I’ll present some instrumental music of a different character than the other day. It’s about Conny Olivetti and his latest album “Stratagems”, an album divided into tracks but yet a whole as the songs blend into each other. It feels classic and reminds me of names like Eno and Fripp but also to some extent Roger Waters.

First of all it’s ambient music, which paints pictures in my mind as I sink into the sounds. Sampled voices guide me into the scenes from the theme, which is about war incidents. Conny describes it like this:

The theme for the album was initially to be around “international incidents, but was soon abandoned for a more loose connection to war incidents, past and present.

A strong album, which I will definitely listen to more times. The album is available on Conny Olivetti’s Bandcamp page, where you also can listen to his earlier albums. You can follow his work on his site. Here are two tracks from “Stratagems”:

International Incidents
Narrow-band Imaging

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

Björn from electro band Slagsmålsklubben and Tjompa from indie rock band The High Fives have a child together which is called City. And last month the duo City released their EP “Ex-Files”, six tracks with retro dance-pop with messy, unpolished vocals, which is of course the way to do it if one would produce dance pop. It’s summer vibes and party time.

Listen more on Spotify or on their Facebook page.

Kom igen Tjompa

In the beginning of this year Sidewalk released the excellent EP “Wonderland Sessions”. Now you can also listen to three tracks from the new EP “Houdini Sessions”. Three songs of different character, where Eboi joins them in one song and Swingfly in another. Below you can listen to the Zappa-vibing “Jack” and if you’d like to listen to the other tracks you can visit Sidewalk on Soundcloud or on Spotify.

You can also find Sidewalk on Facebook and on their site.

Jack

Andreas Österberg wondered what everyone is listening to as they ride buses and trams through the cities. He ended up creating a soundtrack to a tramway line in Göteborg, line 11 from Bergsjön to Saltholmen.

The music, both instrumental and with vocals, catches the atmosphere around the stops along the line and is also adpated to the time it takes to ride the tram from the start in Bergsjön to the last stop in Saltholmen.

To the project; Det Mekaniska Undret he calls it (“The Mechanical Wonder”); he’s also added video clips for each distance, filmed riding the tram. A brilliant and skilfully implemented idea you can follow through his blog. Listen more on Bandcamp, on Youtube or on Spotify. Here are a couple of tracks/stops and one of the clips:

Bergsjön
Mariaplan med Svartsjön