It’s hard to find more summer feelings than in Crying Day Care Choir’s sunny folkpop-vibing song “Wedding Song”. The pair Jack and Sara Elz sang the words to each other when they married five years ago, but thought it was a good time now to record the song together with the band mate Bill Nystedt and release it as a single.

Crying Day Care Choir on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

Now Låtsaspoeten, aka Jon Rinneby, has released his third album in a year, an accomplishment in itself. It’s even more impressive with the high quality of the albums, and how he constantly evolves his sound and seems to be able to pick up anything around him to write a song about. I really enjoyed the first two albums, maybe the second “Nattmusik för människor” the most, where he started blending the acoustic poetic songs with vibes from dreamy folkindie into a more colourful mixture.

“Två steg fram” continues in this direction, but adds even more shades, playfulness and variation. He begins with his specialty, one of these melodic figures that refuses to leave your head afterwards, in “Hösten är vår”. Yes, it was so sticky that I found myself humming the melody in the supermarket when I was reminding myself what I had to buy: “We’re out of milk”. At the same time he throws us into a feeling of fellowship which sticks with us through the album as he digs into personal reflections, everday life and human delusions. I even smile in recognition when he sings about dyscalculia, even though I’m not afflicted by this term myself. He is quite a nice chap to hang out with this Jon, and wise as well, and poetic. The ability to make the songs soar with beautiful melodies, soft vocal harmonies and echoing riffs are there all the time, but it’s also down to earth and full of rough edges which makes it all land in a tousled folksong indie. In this trilogy of strong albums, this was the most fun to listen to. But I suspect that he won’t stop there, and that the next one is already on its way.

Låtsaspoeten on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

Soil Collectors turn out to be a quite descriptive name of this quartet of free-thinking musicians: Hannah Tolf, Jonathan Albrektson, Isabel Sörling and Martin Öhman. They dig deep down into the musical soil of native cultures around the world. From the inuits of Greenland, Mexican indians or desert nomads they fetch rhytms, voices, myths and tones on which they build something new and unique. Rhytmic rites build up to electronic, grandiose spaces, chanting voices and shouts are mixed with melodic vocal harmonies and ambient soundscapes are coloured by ancient cultures.

It’s music that keeps moving and changing and which is totally unpredictable. I dare to say that their new album “Tah-Tay Leet’ Kah Lah” doesn’t sound like anything else. It’s a fascinating blend of world music, art and pop, which is impossible to categorize. The song here below, the beautiful and powerful “Windbird”, is based on a legend from the inuits of Greenland. It’s the song that comes closest to our expectations of a pop song, but I recommend to listen to the entire album to experience what I’ve tried to describe above.

Soil Collectors on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

Victor Håkansson and his The Culture In Memoriam are back with a new single, which is also the first peek at the upcoming album “History’s Dust”. It’s an impassioned strike at the hollow values of the adult world, that builds up to a grandiose final where I immediately join them in the chorus. We also get a bonus track in the shape of “Foggy Days In Malmö” where Victor is left alone with his guitar and his intensity in a folkindie-vibing song.

The Culture In Memoriam on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

We’ve heard Sven-Holger Rosenvinge before in the alternative rock band Mandylon and solo with rock and pop in English. On his new EP “Ballader på svenska”, though, he’s changed language to Swedish and is fetching inspiration from the nordic folk soil. The result is brilliant when he lets these folk-vibing ballads grow into his own style of singer-songwriter-pop with tasteful and interesting arrangements. And he uses his fantastistic voice in the best way in this context as well, with just the right dose of fragility and blackness.

Sven-Holger’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music