Foto: Anna von Brömssen

The band Kataokas with the singer Kalle Kataoka at the front has a premiere here on the blog today with the new single “Bad Time to Die”. The song is taken from their upcoming album “Anthesis”, to be released on the 12th of May. They write about the song:

“Kalle has got a friend whose wife passed away a couple of years ago. Her cancer was diagnosed when she was pregnant with her daughter. The cancer was unstoppable and the child lost her mother before age of one. The funeral was all through horrible. No one should have to die that young. Sorrow was hard to bare but at the same time everyone attending the ceremony found themselves smiling and laughing with the child.
The song Bad time to die was composed in the void between hope and sorrow.”

Despite the heavy subject, the song is an irresistable, catchy track which breathes of folky indiepop and sprouting joy of life. Listen for yourself here:

Kataokas on Facebook – on Spotify

Heres a taste of Billy Momo’s second album “Drunktalk” which was released during Spring. The duo Tomas Juto and Oskar Hovell serve us 15 songs, starting with the splendid “I’ve Got You” that was featured here in the Autumn. The main ingredients are pop, blues and american folk, but that doesn’t stop them from adding some spices from for example Motown or Balkan folk. All in all it’s quite a tasteful, varied menu that leaves me with a laidback feeling embedded in a certain melancholy, whether this is siphoned from the folk layers or from the blues tones. An accomplished album with it’s very own personality.  Here are three tracks from the record:

Billy Momo’s site –  on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Last Saturday Låtsaspoeten, alias Jon Rinneby, released the debut album “På riktigt”. If you have followed the blog you have met him in several disguises before, first of all as a singer and songwriter in Turn Off Your Television, and in the Autumn I made an interview with him about this new project. As Låtsaspoeten he has started writing lyrics in Swedish for the first time, and also tried to find his way back to a simpler and more direct way of creating music. He decided early on to work according to a principle where he gave himself one day to write and record a song and another day to mix and finalize the production.

The thirteen songs on the album form quite a varied journey that balances between simple fun and seriousness, and between the close, personal and his critical eyes on society. The Swedish folk song tradition and the progressive movement from the seventies form a base in many tracks, but he doesn’t stop there and often moves the songs on to indie pop and Americana of today, and I’m sure that Turn Off Your Television-fans will feel at home once in a while. Not least because of all the sticky melodies Jon has a notorious habit of creating. Listen to three of the tracks here below:

Låtsaspoeten on Facebook – on Spotify

The duo Polar Bear & King have launched a follow-up to their debut single “Holy Ground”, from the Autumn, with the equally beautiful second single “Roseship”. This song starts out in a much softer way with just a gentle guitar picking and is slowly built up to a grandiose finale. Like in “Holy Ground” there is a certain folk vibe to the melody and the arrangement, hymn-like I’d say, and we are not that far away from “Scarborough Fair” in the chorus. Again a great effort from the band which further increases my expectations for the upcoming releases.

Polar Bear & King on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Here’s an interesting debut single from a new duo who call themselves The Lola O. “Jolly” is the name of the song, a pop song with folk hymn vibes and which grows to epic proportions in the chorus.

The Lola O on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp