Barrett Elmore started out as a trio in 2008 and played from the beginning a raw, instrumental blues. Soon they moved over to psychadelia and music inspired by this and when the singer Mikaela joined the band they found the style and sound which is reflected in their music today.

This has resulted in their debut album “Woodlands” which was finished a few days ago. It’s obvious that Pink Floyd is one of the big influences, as they also state in the band name, but they bring more ingredients to the sound. Overall there is a soothing, nature-mystique ambience in the album, which reminds of the endless, eternal, nordic woods, which is the theme of the album, and the spots of swedish folk melancholy emphasizes this further.

An interesting album you can probe at their Soundcloud page. You can also find the band on Facebook.

The Nixie
Dusk (Dance of the Pixies)

Emelie Molin and Victoria Skoglund, also members in the band Audrey, form the duo Mire Kay. Recently they released their debut EP, “Fortress”, an EP full of folk indie painting their own, beautiful, slightly mellow, soothing atmosphere in the room.

No big gestures, but soft brushstrokes of first of all cello, guitars and vocals but also with banjo, slide and stripped arrangements, which create a special feeling in the music.

You can listen to the EP on Spotify or on Bandcamp. You can also find Mire Kay on their site and on Facebook.

Sea Monster

Behind the name Eremitapa we find Tim Pirfält, 19 years old, hailing from Jönköping. He has recently released the EP “Brev Till En Desillusionerad Vän” (“Letters to a disillusioned friend”). We meet a young man with a guitar, a somewhat uneven production and his search for an expression. And that’s what makes it real and honest too. Like it should be.

It’s mature without being premature, cautious but yet with attitude and he dares to experiment without overdoing it in his search. The EP, entirely in Swedish, is available on Eremitapa’s Bandcamp page. He also has a Facebook page.

En cyniker från början

A little more than a month ago, Sagabond released their new album “Easy Rhymes and Metaphors”. The band has now grown to a septet with a wide range of instruments: vocals, guitars, violin, cello, saxophone, piano, bass, drums.

If the recordings we wrote about before had a live-feeling in the production, this is more a skilled studio production. The folk vibes remain and are even amplified and altogether the album turns out to be a beautiful collection of five songs of indie folk-pop with nice melodies and arrangements where they really use all the instruments to colour the music.

You can listen to the album on Spotify or on Deezer and you can follow the band on Facebook. You can also find some tracks on Soundcloud. Here is “Echoes”:

Echoes

Daniel Rodin is alone with a guitar in his songs (accompanied by Johan Brännström, Heart-Sick Groans), and we end up in the early sixties’ folk where Dylan defined the genre. Daniel’s soft voice and playing, though, often make me think of Damien Rice.

In January he released the two-track single “Remarks”, which you can listen to on his Bandcamp page. Here’s the first track “I Guess We Are Free Now”, a song that really has caught me:

I Guess We Are Free Now