Monogatari is a band created by Sebastian Ungh. With an open mind for what could be contained in music, he started writing and recording songs in 2007 with the help of instruments from all over the world; old and new, toys and real instruments joined together in the songs and was collected in the debut album “It May Have Seemed Like a Sign of Hope That the Birds Followed Them Out Into the Vastness of the Open Sea”.

A live line-up was formed, which after several changes ended up in a septet that performs using a lot of instruments like banjo, charango, accordion, guitars, drums, bouzouki, violin, ukulele, toy piano, chimes, stylophone, harmonica and percussion in various forms. A few weeks ago the new album “One Step Forward and Two Steps Back?” was released, which is the first one in an album trilogy, to be launched during this year. The records will each have it’s own direction, with this first one having an acoustic, peaceful vibe with a lot of guitars and vaious string instruments. It’s rather naked, with folk-influences from many places and sometimes with a fairytale-ambience to it. Listen to a taste from the album here below.

Monogatari’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Soundcloud

High Coast, a band hailing from Malmö, released their debut EP recently. On it you’ll find four tracks with earthy, Americana-vibing acoustic music full of nature poetry. “Talvatis”, the song here below, was earlier released as a single, and got it’s name from a lake in the north of Sweden.

High Coast on Facebook – on Spotify – on Bandcamp

Mikael Persson has played in different bands during thirty years, but it took until 2011 before he released his solo debut album “Moving With Mrs. Carter”. After a couple of  EP:s he’s now out with the follow-up album “Marks & Bleeds”, an album where he has invited guests as songwriters and musicians like Greg Copeland, Janni Littlepage, Luisa Jordan-Killoran, Citizen K among others.

It’s a rather varied record which revolves around country rock and Americana and Mikael’s dark, laidback and expressive vocals. There’s quite a few excursions with other influences too; I can hear Irish folk vibes, nice power pop-like choruses, the Dire Straits-sounding “St. James’ Park” and a beautiful cover of Yazoo’s “Only You” to name a few. There’s plenty of guitar candy on the album as well as a great sense of sticky melodies, which you have two good examples of here below. The album is available on Spotify and on Wimp.

Some 50 Roads
Man With Hound By His Cottage

The quintet Rambling Nicholas Heron, hailing from Göteborg, started out in 2006 and have since then released ten album DIY-wise, that is, on CDR:s, cassettes and the like. But they waited until last year, though, before they released their first official full length album “Cannot Feel At Home In This World Anymore”.

It’s an album that breathes of the seventies in what they call indie-folk-rock-boogie-blues. You can find numerous references to artists from that decade on this varied album, as they pass from country songs, playful american folk, boogie grooves, blues rock and other stuff. I like their simple sound, which keeps it all in line together with the singer’s special tone, which I would describe as a mix of how Dylan could sound in the seventies, Canned Heat and Steve Miller. There’s a lot to enjoy on this album: Strong compositions and hooks with quite a few great melodies, a delicious guitar sound, a dynamic production sweet for the ears and from time to time a groove that makes my feet involuntarily move to the beat.

Rambling Nicholas Heron’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

The two sistes Piroth continues with their plan of releasing a new song each season, the most recent one “På fältet” which is out now. Beautiful, acoustic and folk-melancholic, and as before illustrated above by the artist Kheira Linder. The third song, “Morgondimma” (“Morning Mist”) will be released in the end of May.

Piroths hemsida – på Facebook – på Spotify – på Wimp – på Soundcloud