Meadow Music

Here’s a new track from the New York band Porcelain Raft, a track I immediately fell for. “All In My Head” is a pop song with a certain synthpop vibe and a wonderful, dreamy chorus, quite irresistible. The song is taken from the new EP “Half Awake”.

Porcelain Raft on Facebook – on Spotify – on Bandcamp

Here’s a new single from Little Children, “Song #4”, a song that precedes the new EP “Traveling Through Darkness” which will be released on the 2nd of June. It’s a beautifully sad story with a fateful, filmic ambience where we ride across the prairie on our bikes towards the sunset.

Little Children’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

It’s been seven years since the last album, but today the Malmö duo Moonbabies are releasing the new album “Wizards on the Beach”. Listen here to some of the songs from this fascinating album, which serves us dreamy pop, creative electronica, experimental indie, beautiful melodies and a lot more.

Moonbabies site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

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

I’m starting this week with the premiere of the trio Nuaia’s new single “There Is No Love”, a beautifully built pop-track taken from their second album “Belong to the Moon”. This album will be released in two days, April 29th, and is one of the most fascinating album creations I have heard this year.

In a dreamy, soft atmosphere they bring oss on a journey that includes everything from pure ambience to strong, dramatic pop. The singer Sofie Norling has an intense presence which more than once jumps out of the speakers and seizes someting inside of me. It’s a dynamic, shifting journey, but which still feels like a natural whole. You can already listen to some of the songs on their Soundcloud page. Here is the new single “There Is No Love”:

I asked the three members, Sofia Norling, Mika Forsling and Michala Østergaard-Nielsen to tell us more about each song on the album, about the thoughts and the process behind the songs:

1. belong to the moon

“We are very happy about this song. We really feel that we managed to transform what we wanted to say into music, but still leave space for the listeners own imagination. As for the lyrics, it´s important for Sofie not letting the lyrics standing above the music but having the music flow freely through the lyrics. A sound in a word can be more close to the expression than the word it self. This song is very personal for us. Everytime we play it, we heal.”

2. don’t know where to turn

“In the studio at The Village they have an old Spinet witch we recorded really fast on a IPad. It’s nice to mix lo-fi sounds on the recording. One nice detail is the drone that comes in the middle of the song. It’s generated by all three of us, Michala playing a pianet, Sofie turning a Sherman filter and Mika working with a tape delay.”

3. where is your heart in this

“This is a good example of how we make our music. Before going into the studio we recorded some of the rehearsals in Mikas studio. “Where is your heart in this” was a first take of an improvisation on mbira, percussion and vocals. The energy was so deep that we kept that version for the album. The Mbira’s vibrations really spoke to me, Sofie says. It wrote the melodies and lyrics through me.”

4. there is no love

“This song is about having enough of adapting yourself in trying to be perfect. Everyone deserves to be loved for who they are. This is the song, we have most versions/takes of. Every time we recorded it, we felt something was missing. It’s a song we’d been playing for a while but somehow our old version of it didn’t work out in the studio. And we wanted to make something new out of it. After recording the drums, vocal and synth pad (that later become the final album version) we felt that the sound waves were giving the right vibration. On this song we’d been working with a lot of overdubs on vocals, synths and vibraphonette.”

5. seasonal

“We love to improvise freely without any defined frames and just letting the imagination float freely. This song is one of the jamsessions we recorded live in the studio. Sofie about Seasonal: at that time I experimented with different effects for choir harmonies and was meditating about big changes in life. The bells and string sounds are processed samples Mika recorded at a seminar house in Friebourg(DE).”
“They had some really amazing instruments there, made for music therapy, perfectly sounding for Nuaia’s music” says Mika.

6. follow Part II

“On our first album ”nauia” we have a song called Follow. Everytime we played it, the story in the lyrics and music evolved and over time it became a song on it’s own. A part II.”
Sofie: ‘When I work with the lyrics I often sing freely around a certain theme. Being free in this way creates a freedom for the stories and the characters to develop.’

7. leave it all behind – intro

“A friend of Mika builds his own drums out of gas cylinders called “hank drum”. This instrument makes the fundament of the sound for this song.”

8. leave it all behind

“Place your hand at my heart. No need to say it out loud.”

9. my role

“We were really happy about my new vibraphonette”, Michala says, “and we somehow wanted to make room for it on the album. We brought it along to Mikas studio and recorded a improvised jam session together with this charming instrument.”

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