I wrote earlier about Shotgun Crackers here on Meadowmusic, and I have listened a lot to their songs. I get a real feeling of joy when I listen to them.
The band has just completed their new EP “Kpptsch” (is it maybe the sound of the snare and the cymbal?) and they release it here on Meadowmusic first, for everyone to download!

It’s just as playful as before but it sounds more “mature”. And I mean that in a positive sense, the guys in the band are incredibly musical and play well together. That was a fact also before, but now it feels like they really have found eachother and feel more secure with what they do.

In the songs you can listen to here, Shotgun Crackers are not afraid to try new directions and play with the music and the result is so nice and liberating.
The singer, Fredrik, is really good and in the only song in Swedish, he sounds startingly like Håkan Hellström!

Congratulations for being one of the first who can download the new EP from Shotgun Crackers!

Khpptsch:

1. Trevor
2. Happiness of Flowers
3. Runner Runner
4. Allt va vi vill ha

Shotgun Crackers on Myspace

Keep cool,
Jeppe

About voices then. There are singers you admire and who impress you by their sheer power and/or range, and/or technique – the vibrato, that awesome wailing…but whom you never quite manage to embrace because they lack something else, something less easy to define, if it’s not simply enough the feeling I’m fumbling for, it’s as if they know better than most how to do it but never really grasped the why, so to speak (Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Carola, Tommy Körberg, although these examples are only generally valid and are of course based entirely on my own personal listening; the listener not being altogether unimportant in the field of song and music, after all it’s in hers or his ears and head it’s all happening, or not happening if you will…)

Anyway, on the other side we find those singers most voice coaches would regard hopeless, or “storytellers” rather than singers, but who according to their fans are the really stylish ones, because they sing with so much more than diaphragm and lungs and vocal chords, artists that in an instant can lose themselves in the words and almost mystically make them live. No matter where they went the night before they always instinctively know why they’re singing and therefore can’t ever fail (Dylan, Björk, Lundell, Hellström; well yes I know they too stumble every now and then but allow me some generalization, footnotes are so dull).

Then a few rare voices just are all nice and natural, voices to somehow lean back and heal in, more about hunches and identification than power or impression; it’s not as if you know them – you are idiotically sure that you do.

There it is, I believe I’ve managed to nail some small part of the fascination I’ve felt ever since I first heard Miss Allena a few years back. We’ve never met but she’s my best friend and my sister. Welcome to the family!

Here are two of my favourites, one in that inimitable missallenish swenglish, and one with lyrics by Nobel Prize winner Pärre Lagerkvist, who in my mind finds his final interpreter here. And don’t forget now to enjoy those ingenious minimalistic arrangements as well!

Var är den djupa glädje som jag söker?
By the Water

Visit Miss Allena and listen some more:

Miss Allena on Myspace

Joshua Homme, from Queens of the Stoneage, has run a music collective called “Desert Session”, since 1997. Musicians, mostly rock musicians, gather in the desert for a few weeks at Joshua Tree, and make music together. The results are published on a record named “Desert Session”. Among the bands and artists that have participated you’ll find Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Soundgarden and many more! A band that Joshua should invite is Dollface!

The music that Dollface delivers is a well composed rock music, that attracts me using nice Les Paul carpets and guitar melodies that floats on top of it. The vocals are very professional and with a great presence.
Listen to “Bad Boy”, which presents some kind of arranged chaos, and the first time I heard it I thought that they wouldn’t be able to sort it out…but what a great song it is!

I don’t know if it’s the band that’s behind the arrangements or if it’s the producer Henryk Lipp.  Lipp, a producer that, among others, has worked with Thåström, Sator and Håkan Hellström.

Some songs to enjoy and download:
Bad Boy
Anything Goes
Life

Visit the band:

Dollface official site
Dollface on Myspace

Keep cool,
Jeppe

(translated by Pär/Blindmen)

Johan Paulson, or John-John as he calls himself, is a fantastic person in many ways. Musically he is found, among other places, as a former member of the Swedish grunge band Icke Lika Med, he has played with Håkan Hellström and performed at “Allsång på Skansen” (an extremely popular music show on Swedish TV) with his father, Mats Paulson!
It is now time for his own solo project under his own name and his own record company De las mercedes recordings with experimental, electronica/ambient songs.

To listen to the songs is like talking to or meeting Johan, it calms you down, and provides a comfortable feeling of love and warmth.

Now, here’s your chance to meet Johan, through his music. Here are three downloadable songs, and you can find much more on his web sites.

Destiny
Season of Hope
Goodnight Theme

Visit Johan:
De las Mercedes Recordings on Myspace
Johan on Myspace

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPXsjZqeWjA

(translated by Clint Hell)