Leo August is an artist who recently released a two-track single, produced by Johan Forsman in Göteborg. It’s two songs soaked with vibes from the seventies and folk inspired pop. I liked the first track best, “Lady Overseas” with the strong chorus and choirs. Listen for yourself here below.
You can liste to both songs and follow Leo August on his site.
You can call it acoustic folk punk or Swedish progressive music if you’d like. The band JA!, hailing from Umeå, released this year their debut album ”Vi heter ja” (“Our name is YES!”); 8 songs with clenched fists, sing-a-long refrains an Swedish prog melancholy. They call themselves street musicians and the frequent performances in streets and town squares is what has shaped the band’s music. The singer Johan Wallén writes:
Since May 2010 we have played for thousands of people in the streets. 12 people here, 40 people there, 100 people there and then for 6 people at a bus stop. Last year we played live more than most bands rehearse, if not more. We walk up to a group of people and say: “Hey, we’re going to play a song for you now”, and then we just play. Often it ends up in a sing-a-long and we leave a bunch of happy people behind as we head on to the next place.
(translated from Swedish)
The band name was invented just when the project started. Johan renamed the work folder for the song “En trosa med en blomma” (“Panties with a flower”) to JA! And according to Johan JA! (“Yes!”) has come to stand for positive songs that provoke, Yes! to love, anarchy for the free thought and that everyone should be allowed to be exactly who they are.
The album is available on Spotify, Wimp and Bandcamp. You can follow the band on Facebook and on their blog.
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.
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”:
Caviare Days released their debut single “The Awakening” last month. The title track shines of references from Mamas and the Papas and Jefferson Airplane from the end of the sixties, while the second track “Allure” feels more experimental and difficult to place in time, though also with psychadelia vibes and a large dose of folk music.
The band consists of the two sisters Lina and Maja Westin backed by a band with drums, violin, keyboards and guitars. The single is a first taste of the debut album, to be released next year. Their name is taken from a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “Tender Is the Night”.
Read more on Caviare Days’ site and on Facebook. The single is available on Spotify.
Antonia Vai is a singer/songwriter from Stockholm who’s working now on her first full length album. But there are a bunch of songs to listen to already now; songs recorded mainly by herself and which she publish on her pages in a steady stream.
The influences seem to come from a number of sources, but the most obvious vibe is a dramatic feeling in many songs in the direction of Björk, without exactly sounding like Björk. Mix that with a lot of soul vibes, closer to Erykah Badu, as Antonia describes it herself. I also sense inspiration from folk music; from the latin world, from the US, and some song from the Swedish mellow folk tradition.
You can listen to the songs on her site or on her Facebook page. She also has a frequently updated Youtube channel. Here are two songs:
Everett Parker is Daniel Börjesson’s solo project he started in 2006. He tells about the name that the project’s name from the start was Writers Edge, mainly because he then only had his lyrics and had just started to play the guitar. He got tired of that name and changed to Everett Parker. Everett he got from George Clooney’s character in the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou”, and Parker, well, it sounded good together with the first name.
“Run For the Uppercut” is the name of his debut EP and was released about a month ago. On the surface it’s about americana and somewhere close the spirit of Dylan inevitably shows itself. A closer look reveals four songs of different character, all with Everett’s somewhat raspy voice that breathes authenticity into the well-written lyrics. I’m close to the sixties in the naked production but in a song like “Truck Light Search” I sense that I get closer to contemporary singer/songwriters like Damien Rice in the mellow feeling.
Listen more on Spotify or on Soundcloud. You can find Everett Parker on his site and on Facebook.
Support the artist: Buy “Run For the Uppercut” – on Itunes – on Amazon
The duo Musicemia, consisting of Daniel Renström and Goran Sajinovic, has a somewhat different setup with acoustic guitar and accordion. They describe their music as folk/rock/lo-fi influenced by Pearl Jam, Beirut and Yann Tiersen which feels like a very fitting description of how they sound.
With a nice voice from Daniel Renström they produce a quite pleasant melancholy, a melancholy with ingredients from various sources in folk music. I hear British islands, french cafés, some americana and on occasion a breath from the Balkans.
They have recently released their second EP “Light and Sound” which you can listen to on their Bandcamp page or on Spotify. Follow Musicemia on Facebook.
I discovered Jon Rinneby and his special ability of creating melodies that stick, a couple of years ago. It’s hard to put your finger on it but all my alarm signals shouted out that this was a songwriter who had that extra creativity to craft songs that you can’t get rid of. That he’s not more well-known is just because of that he hasn’t put his marketing puzzle together yet.
It seems, though, that this is on it’s way with his band Turn Off Your Television, a trio that recently released their self-titled debut album, And I wasn’t disappointed; it’s a brilliant album that can stand many listens. I’ve tested it.
They play pop with americana influences in a soft and nice ambience. I recognize “20 Million People” from before but the other songs are new to me, and they show a good variation and excellent songwriting. To me the best song is the totally disarming “The Days We Have Today”, which you can listen to here below.
You can listen to the album and download it for free on the band’s site and it’s also available on Spotify. You can also follow Turn Off Your Television on Facebook.
Magnus Fagernäs has quite some experience from the music biz. After being member in bands like Pinballs, Bombi Bitt et al, he handled the drumsticks in Dead Scouts, Traste Lindéns kvintett, Perssons Pack and Atomic Swing. One day he tired of it all and left the stage to focus on other things.
10 years later he was persuaded to join the band Little Red Snapper, he regained his passion for music and started to write songs. The result was a debut album as a solo artist under the name Mankku [mancko]. The album was released last month and is called “Festen har bara börjat” (“The party has just begun”).
It’s an album that grows each time I listen and the more I give it attention. And this is also the case with Mankkus bright, dramatic vocals that little by little put new layers of meaning to the stories. I like the arrangements which are tastefully “less is more”-produced, and gives an extra fateful and mellow feeling to the ambience.
It’s a varied album where he blends pop, rock, country and folk. In a way it feels in the end like something born out of the deep nordic woods, in the stories, in the blackness and in the folk sounds that shine through. Well, I’d love to party on with Mankku [mancko].
You can listen to the album on Spotify and you can find Mankku on his site and on Facebook. Here’s “Väskan” (“The bag”):
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