Meadow Music

So it’s time again to pick up my keyboard fingers. For a while my inside has been trying to formulate som thoughts about the album “Run Amok” (Svedjebruk), which is a co-op between the MC Porno and his musical beat master Spunk. Before this, I had heard a few demo versions of the songs, which made me writhe inside, so it has been hard to even get started to listen to the album with my really selective ears.

But what a surprise it was as I finally started listening, finding my head bopping from the first beat to the last spin. I don’t know if it’s because of Andreas Tillander’s mastering efforts or if it’s because I was in a bad mood before, but this really has it’s place for a hip hop nostalgic like me.

Even if I think that the production of “Do It Like I Do It” should be reconsidered, in general this is real quality. From the jazz sound of “Sit Back and Relax” to the Pharcyde inspired songs “Keep Running” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed”. I sense that tilted lowrider feeling in my body and kind of glide down into my armchair.

The highlight of the album is the song that has the same title as this 11-songs-album. The song “Run Amok” really shows high quality. If you have the possibility, then you should buy a copy of this record, especially if you feel a little down and hip hop nostalgic in the autumn darkness.

Visit Porno on Myspace and Spunk on Myspace and both together in Amok on Myspace.

Here you can listen to and download a song with Porno in his band Contrahesive, consisting of Porno and Luuda.

Gutter Music

Contrahesive has recently released their debut album “Reflection Is Relative”. You can listen and download the entire album at Whoa.nu, the biggest hip hop-sajt in Sweden.

You can also listen to Porno at Sveriges Radio Metropol, spoken word

It’s fascinating how someone who’s born 10 to 15 years later, can catch the spirit of passed times and recreate it in his own music. Well, it’s exactly what the 18th year old Gusten does in the band Gusten & the Demens, even though he’s backed by a gang of older, excellent musicians. Among the demented you’ll find names like Peter Simonsbacka (lead guitar), Jan Lidström (bass) and Mita (backing vocals).

Gusten, the songwriter and band leader, is exploring the domains of the softer rock of the seventies, where a few parts of Jackson Browne is mixed with some part of Eagles, some showtime Rolling Stones a little bit of Springsteen and something from Jimi Hendrix. He is heading this with a voice that sounds surprisingly mature and that sits perfectly with the music.

The Someones

Visit Gusten on Myspace

Carl Beijbom, singer in Them Jacks, calls himself “Sometimes I’m Blue” as a solo artist. He is working on an EP project that will be finished this autumn, and you can follow his work, song by song, on his Myspace page.

As a contrast to the more lighter indie pop of Them Jacks, Carl creates more blue feelings here, as the name implies. Not always in the melodies, but in his vocals and in the sound itself. It’s dreamy and echoing and maybe longing. Sometimes it feels like Conor Oberst has married the late Beatles (White Album).

Here you can listen to the two first tracks of the project, and you are welcome to visit his Myspace page to follow the development of the project.

Lovers’ Church
Come Back to Me

Stefan Leoson delivers soft, soft pop, a genre where it can be difficult to stand out. The border between cliché, clones and nagging repetition on one side and personality, feeling and pleasure can be very thin. Especially since the big labels have released one boring mainstream artist after the other during the years, with a helping hand of the big radio channels.

So it really takes the right man (or woman) to create his own space here, and one of those men is Stefan Leoson. With a light, easy hand he creates melodies and sound spaces where it’s very comfortable to be. I really like his arrangements where he doesn’t stress the songs to score cheap points, and the variation and the sensitivity makes me enjoy the length of the songs. His voice is like it’s made for this music, like some kind of softer Elvis Costello and I can hear that he loves what he does. One of those voices I believe I would recognise in any song.

Stefan Leoson released his debut album as a solo artist, “Pennies and Heartaches” one and a half year ago, and below you’ll find two songs from it. The third song “Don’t You Ever Change” is a demo preview of his coming album, which will be released in the end of the year.

My oh My
No One Like You
Don’t You Ever Change

Visit Stefan and listen to more songs:

Stefan Leoson’s home page

Stefan Leoson on Myspace

Jonna Enckell, singer in Project Hate MCMXCIX, has released her solo debut album “Siren On” under the same name as the title. And she has travelled far from the death metal areas where her band resides.

This is music made of far softer tones. It is a grand, piano-based music, with classical influences and bordering territories where Sarah Brightman has been the queen for quite some time.

Jonna has a very beautiful voice and it is very easy to dream yourself away to the melancholic melodies. I get images of vast landscapes, maybe of green Irish hills or the whipping waves against high cliffs, and I feel that this might as well be the soundtrack to a big epic movie.

Here you have four beautiful pieces to take in, listen to and download:

Purple Heart
The Gift
Salitine
Alarm

Visit Siren On and Jonna on her home page
and on Myspace