Already in 1980 Pål and Conny laid up their plans for wHaT iF. These included Pål’s yet unborn daughter Linea, so obviously they had to wait a little :-) In 2005 the time was right and the band wHaT iF was born. The one who waits…

I’m now listening to their third album “The Final Meltdown”, a really enjoyable album. Playful and experimental, catchy melodies, varied and a with a nice ambience. Linnea’s voice and the experimentation reminds me sometimes of Björk, while the concept, the atmosphere and the radiovoices gives me a lot of Roger Waters vibes.

You can find the band on wHaT iF’s site, on Myspace and on Jamendo. On Jamendo you can download, not only this album, but all three albums.

Listen to and download three tracks from “The Final Meldown”:

Rainy Days
Dream of Peace
Running Over Fields

I’m sitting here listening to nice ambient tones from Moist. To be exact, the EP “Alone”, a 7-track record with 4 original tracks and 3 interesting remixes from Addeboy vs Cliff, Håkan Lidbo and Red Snapper.

The Moist songs has a mellow, atmospheric feeling, where heavy bass beats step down and give depth to it all. At the same time this is good down-tempo pop with Maria Marcus’ somewhat distanced, souly voice in a perfect marriage with the ambience. Really good electronica which you can dive into and dream away with for a while.

Behind Moist you’ll find the songwriter and producer David Elfström Lilja, who, in various collaborations, creates this beautiful music under the name Moist. On Moist’s site you can listen more and also download the EP “I Am What I Am”. Recently a collaboration with Sophie Rimheden “Just Say You’re Sorry”, was released, which you can listen to and download.

Moist also has a Myspace page, where you can listen to the EP “Alone”. Here’s a video from the EP “I Am What I Am” and two tracks from “Alone”, which you can listen to and download:

I Am feat Íse (from I Am What I Am):

Not Alone
How Long

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

Natubella is the argentinian that changed hemispheres and settled down in Sweden. With her base in Sweden she’s is about to launch the new album “Little Devil. It will be released the 27th of February and a large part of the album is produced by Povel Ohlsson (Navid Modiri & Gudarna).

I would say that her style consists of one part of Madonna, one part of Goldfrapp, some part of Gwen Stefani, a lot of attitude, distorted guitars and electronica that stands out. Heavier dance beats are mixed with softer pop tracks. Below you can watch the video for TDG, from the coming album, and listen to and download two additional songs.

Interestingly “Athene’s Hymn” and “Evolve or Wait”, both have their origin in Natubella’s obvious fascination for computer games. “Athene’s Hymn” was created after a collaboration with the biggest profile in World of Warcraft and celebrate the character “Athene” from the game, while “Evolve or Wait” is a tribute to the game “Spore“.

I also just had to show you another version of the song “TDG”. The swedish theremin-player Pekkanini has made a cover of the song, which you can watch below!

If you’d like to know more about Natubella and taste more of the tracks from the album”Little Devil”, you should visit Natubella’s site. You’ll also find Natubella on Myspace.

TDG (from “Little Devil”):

Pekkanini – TDG:

Evolve or Wait
Athene’s Hymn

Baron Bane is a band that wants to challenge the concepts of what a band is and how you relate to a band’s music. Baron Bane is the fictitious front figure and also the leader of the band and the one that sets the direction of the music.

Maybe this is most obvious seen live, where the band, which consists both of musicians and graphic artists, try to give an audiovisual experience to the audience and move some boundaries. An example of this a while ago, was when they performed with prerecorded lead vocals, instead of the other way around!

In November they released an EP with the song “Love.Cure.All”, accompanied by four remixes of the song, made by Sophie Rimheden, Tony Senghore and others. Here you can listen to the suggestive titel track, electronica and pop with massive synths, and also to a remix by Sophie Rimheden.

If you visit Baron Bane’s site you can download the entire EP fro free, and you can also go to Baron Bane on Myspace to listen more.

Love.Cure.All
Love.Cure.All (Sophie Rimheden remix)