Meadow Music

Honeymilk released this pearl of a song in the beginning of this month, “Psychrocker”, a duet with De Montevert. That they can make shaky, squeaking guitars sound this beautiful is an accomplishment in itself. It’s liberating with a band who doesn’t polish their sound as the audience and the ambitions grow. Honeymilk is in fact doing the opposite and doesn’t hesitate to push the boundaries further. Still, they are catchier than ever. With the song they also show that they have sense of humour and self irony:

Honeymilk wanted to write a song about “people with more arrogance than they merit. People with a bigger idea of themselves, than their talent can live up to,” the band says. When they had finished writing the song, they came to the conclusion – to their greatest disappointment – that they actually wrote it about no other than themselves. “Psychrocker is simply a tribute to Honeymilk.”

Honeymilks site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

MANKKU surprises us on his latest single “Stick & Brinn” by throwing out his guitars and get out into the electronic soundscapes. And it’s a move that works amazingly well as he finds various ways to enhance the drama in the song. Here’s a number of ideas, like if he put his hand in an electronic goodie bag and decorated with effects, rhythms and pads, still in a way that feels tasteful and a bit minimalistic. Like if he’s done it all the time. Certainly among the best I’ve heard from him.

MANKKU [mancko]’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Missa is an artist and a producer who released her debut EP “Genesis” a little more than a week ago. It consists of four pop tracks which give me quite some vibes from the eigthies, where she with meandering melodies dives into grand, dreamy choruses wrapped in shimmering synth pads. Listen to two of the songs here below.

Missa on Facebook – on Spotify

Here’s an excellent single from the Oakland band Catholic Radio. They fool us a bit with the band name, since the music has very little to do with religion. Recently they released the single “Rain Is Done”, which is taken from the album “The Last Summer, Vol. 2”, launched earlier this year. They start out with a laidback, dreamy indie rock which lands in a “Dark Side of the Moon”-sounding chorus and then opens up in an atmospheric soundscape with shimmering layers of guitars. Beautiful, different and with a quite pleasant sound full of retro vibes. If you like dreamy, melodic indie rock with progressive tendencies I recommend you to check out both of their “The Last Summer”-albums they released this year.

Catholic Radio on Facebook – on Spotify – on Bandcamp

I have a premiere for you today as well. The producer and songwriter Joakim Persson has created the project Sagan om Alltings Förträfflighet and is releasing the 18 minute long piece “6 år” today. If you follow this blog you have heard Joakim before in the bands Tiny Union and  Century Of Ecstasy, but this is something completely different, and I recommend you to read the background story below before you listen.

This “instrumental lofi-monster with elements of poetry”, as he describes it, was created after he had browsed through 10 year old notes from a very dark period of his life. He continues:

“I was tired of everything and I decided to give myself 6 years to sort out my life and my feelings. During that time I scribbled down cryptic fragments of texts in my notebook. The music is an interpretation of the various phases of depression and in the end the idea of the 6 year period gets a bit blurred, and you can sense that the mist finally disperse and disappears.
The song also comes with an instruction of how to experience it: in solitude, standing by a window. Then the music becomes a dystopic soundtrack to everyday phenomenons and twist them into something very disturbing.”
(transl. from Swedish)

This is hardly some easy listening, but a fascinating and naked characterization of something hard and difficult in the lives of many people. Earlier this year Joakim released a debut album under the same project name, with songs of a totally different character, and next year he’s planning to release an electronic pop album, he says.

Site – på Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music