The duo Mutual Friends released the album “The Cabin” in the autumn. 10 beautiful tracks with folk music, americana on the border to country, acoustic and coloured with mandolin, banjo and harmonica.

The vocals feel very special with a dark voice that sort of marks the entire atmosphere of the music and gives it a more mature feeling, like if Johnny Cash would join in anytime, even if the style maybe lies more in outskirts of his territories.

You can listen to “The Cabin” on Spotify. I’m afraid that I haven’t found any other page with the band’s music, besides the ordinary 30-s snippets on for example Itunes and Amazon. The band also has a Facebook page.

Boys On Bicycles
Winter In July

That the band Heart-Sick Groans is inspired by american folk music and Bob Dylan is nothing new, and I’ve written about them before. The singer in  Heart-Sick Groans, Johan Brännström, takes it one step further though, as he digs his way straight down into the folk soil, in his new EP “My God How the Money Rolls In”.

To really create the right feeling for this music, the EP is even recorded on an old tape recorder.

You can listen to the EP and Johans earlier works on his Bandcamp page. You can also find Johan Brännström on Myspace. Heart-Sick Groans’ music is available on their Bandcamp page.

Born On Your Birthday
Come See Me Sometime

I find it interesting to listen to voices in completely new contexts. If it’s a skilled singer he usually manages to produce new layers of emotions that you couldn’t feel in the other genre. It’s like viewing a person from a new angle, the entire picture changes and becomes more complete, and this also affects the way you listen to the former work.

I’ve written about Makkan Johansson and his band Saigon Sickness before, and he has moved here from an alternative, darker rock to americana, as the singer in the band The Medicine Show. It’s about well-trodden paths which moves from country rock to a more rootsy american folk and country.

And they do this really well. Makkan shows a different register and personality here, and the band delivers a row of inviting melodies and songs.
I’ve been listening to their debut album, which is not out yet though, and if you like to be updated about this, you can follow the band on Facebook or on Myspace. Here are two songs from the album:

Paper Love (The Tide Will Turn)
Happy When I’m Drinking

It’s not too often I receive non-electronica instrumental music. It’s nice then to listen to Folkvang’s colourful tones.

The band name comes from nordic mythology and gives us a hint of the music’s ambience. I find their roots in the seventies’ progressive rock, within the softer, ambient and melodic parts of that genre. It’s often enshrouded in a northern Swedish melancholy, which testifies about large unpeopled landscapes, lakes, solitude and the stillness of nature. There is a nordic calmness in the music, which feels pleasant to enter and be inside.

Folkvang released their first album this year, and you can listen to it on Spotify or listen to parts of it on Myspace. You can also meet the band on Facebook. Here is a song from the album:

Ensamhetens Famn

Friska Viljor is back with a new album, “For New Beginnings”. i.e. they were already last fall, but for various reasons I didn’t get around writing about it then.

They say that the album is a new start where they have left the heartaches for stories about happiness, sorrow and hope and that musically they are heading for something different.

And yes, it can be noticed, it feels a bit more serious, a little deeper. I recognize their catchy folk pop, but it’s slightly restrained, the choirs aren’t that fat as on “Tour de Hearts” and in their jumps betweeen genres I can hear new influences.

Like I said, it’s as catchy as before, the melodies sticks and the characteristic vocals are in the front.

You can find Friska Viljor on their site or on Facebook. On Spotify you can listen to all their albums.

If I Die Now
Wohlwill Strasse

If I Die Now (live on MTV Home):