Zeonlight is a music company that focuses on cassette releases, a trend that’s clearly growing, although not as strongly as the vinyl revival. They represent quite a few very interesting artists, and have jumpstarted the year with with a number of releases which I thought I’d give you a taste of here below. It’s about the artists Testbild!,Folkmun(upcoming release),Tidlös and Heat and White, and more cassettes is coming up. When it comes to me, I don’t have any cassette players left, if I don’t count the one in the car, but luckily the albums are also available digitally, on Zeonlight’s Bandcamp page.
Today we continue with the series The Artist’s Story, which was started in the end of last year. It’s Jeanette Sollén who grabs the relay baton Jon Rinneby left her in his post. Jeanette is now right in the middle of a project with the Italian graphic designers Simone ”SketchThisOut” Massoni & Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini; a calendar is being created month by month, containing a typeface accompanied by a girl, a story and then music created by Jeanette, music she calls Font Pop. Read more about it here below.
Jeanette Sollén and Stuart Dahlquist
There are musicians who have urged me on and on all through their astounding sound universe, and there is music that has taken me out to or maybe rather into emotional spaces I didn’t knew existed before. There are beautiful melodies, ingenious compositions, unique sounds and free thoughts. They have all been important, and I’ve loved to experience them all.
But then there is that music, those musicians, who cut through all your senses. Those whose first fingerings touches your nerve threads, whose first beat make your pulse succumb, those whose language is your language, though it’s full of completely new, lovely and so far unheard words. Those that take you home. In to your inner core, out to the uttermost particle of the universe.
Thankfully there’s a lot of them, as I prefer polytheism. The music may in this context represent a single creational god, but I praise all it’s shapes. I can’t choose, I need them all. Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Robert Fripp, Meredith Monk, Kate Bush, Steve Reich, Esbjörn Svensson trio all belong here. Each one of these, and many more (from the classical music, flamenco, punk, jazz, rock and world music) has a chapter in my bible with more or less clean and transformative stories from my reasonably long life, which I would have liked to share with you.
But now I’m going in a somewhat different direction. I’d like to share my joy that gods are still being created, that they’re not only something of the past, but that they continue to stream into our blessed world. That is, unless you’re a fanatic who decide that you’ll stick to the first god that turns you over with it’s creative force. But, as I said, I’m a polytheist, and I have the honour now to present a quite new member of my Pantheon of soul guides, path finders and power sources: Stuart Dahlquist, Seattle, USA.
When I first meet him it’s as a songwriter and organ player. It’s on a music site where they had started a competition for ”low-track pieces”. I had uploaded a piece myself, “Ripe when yields to gentle pressure”, most for fun, probably because I was restless some late night since I couldn’t play and wake the neighbours, and too lazy to take a walk.
With half an ear I listen through some of the other contributions, still restlessly stomping the floor with my foot, and I click on a track which is called “Thine V 1”. It starts as a simple walk down a G major scale and I become curious. Like Kristian Luuk would have said: “Where are we going?” Who has the guts to start so clean and simple, besides Pärt then maybe, and the power to open up new undanced grounds? Stuart.
I was totally happy. I looked up more about Stuart and found several albums and projects, and the night went along well into the morning in the company of brave, mature, pesonal, unpretentious, playful and generous music from Stuart’s world. Extraordinarily nice.
It shows up that he has made quite a journey through music, especially as a bass player. Some bands/projects from his resumé are Brokaw, Zigenort, Sunvata, Sky Buriel, Sunn, Goatsnake, Burning Witch, Magnaflux and Hungry Crocodiles. At the moment it seems like he’s working primarily with the band Asva and the new project Thine. So here’s a video from Asva, “Birds”, from the album “Presences Of Absences”. Enjoy…
I met Evelinn Trouble when she was only 13 years old when we did a couple of jazz concerts together. Her amazing musicality and and voice made a strong impression on me already then, and I understood that she was a musician to be reckoned with in the future. A few years later she hit the music scene in Switzerland (she moved there with her family) and album after album and song after song has astounded me with uniqueness, creativity and musicality. Just recently she released her new album “The Great Big Heavy” (Bakara/ 2013). Here’s a new video with the song “Flowing” from this album.
Check out also the video “Warface”, which you’ll find on the tube. Heavy and cool.
One of my own songs to give some attention to
I started quite early to write music and then started my own pop/rock bands, later turning my attention to more experimental constellations also exploring avant garde, world music and jazz. But my main efforts in music have been focused on various contemporary music dramatic compositions, choir stuff and EAM. During many years the boxes and folders was filling up with sketches of songs; I didn’t have the time to finish them as I was working on these other large projects. But then last year I got the desire to to do it again: songs. And I was invited to join a fun collaborative project, Chicks & Types, with the two Italian graphic designers Simone ”SketchThisOut” Massoni & Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini.
Simone makes a calendar where each month features a typeface accompanied by a girl; Cosimo then writes a story about the girl and I write a song to each image and story from the girl’s point of view. I entered the project during the Autumn and now we’re going through the entire calendar from last year, which eventually will be published both as a book and an album with my Font Pop. Here’s my latest contribution, “Patricia”. Mix & mastering Jon Rinneby, Sound of Wool.
Besides Chicks & Types I’m currently working with the music to a dance movie I have made together with the dancer Sara Ekman, and I’m also collecting material to another album with my own music.
It’s been rather quiet here this week, but I’m going to start it all up again. There’s loads of good Swedish music pouring into my inbox this year, and during the five years I’ve been posting here on Meadowmusic, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m starting today with the excellent new album from Mackaper, “Mot ljusare tider”.
I wrote about this organ duo, which now has become a quintet, in November, when they tempted us with the song “Staden vaknar” from the new album. In the end of December the record was released, and it was just as great as I was hoping for. With the new members and where the drum machines have been exchanged for real drums, they feel even closer to their roots in music, to the progressive rock with influences from Swedish folk music from the early seventies. It feels inevitable to think about Bo Hansson as an inspiration while listening, and with their exploration of different ambiences in songs with titles that speak for themselves, I get a certain feeling of listening to a soundtrack, just like in the works of the predecessor. Great folk psych, as they call it themselves. Here below, you’ll find the starting track, “Dimma”.
The duo Henrik von Euler and Rickard Jäverling released the single “Det står skrivet” in December, under the band name Dödens dal (“The Valley of Death”). Instrumental electronica which makes me think about Alan Parsons Project and TV-dramas from the eighties. An album, “Gå ensam förbi horisonten”, will be released on February 20th, an album they describe as a mourning process.
Here’s a song and a video from Elias Krantz, “Young Ends”, taken from his album “Night Ice” which was released in 2011. As the album now is available on vinyl he took the opportunity to draw some attention to it by releasing this video, made by the Mexican artist and illustrator Derzu Campos. They found each other when Elias was traveling around Mexico a couple of years ago, and Elias asked Derzu if he would like to make a video to “Young Ends”, a video that later was recorded in the Mexican mountains. A beautiful illustration of Elias’ instrumental, slightly suggestive progressive rock. Elias is also involved in Mackaper’s new album, which was released on December 19th, an album I will get back to in a little while.
Meadowmusic presents new music from many corners and edges of the world, but with a strong focus on Swedish music. Listen, read, watch, comment and share the music. All songs you find here on this page have been approved for publication by the artists and labels.
Go to the contact page if you want to suggest music or if you have anything else to discuss.
But now I’m going in a somewhat different direction. I’d like to share my joy that gods are still being created, that they’re not only something of the past, but that they continue to stream into our blessed world. That is, unless you’re a fanatic who decide that you’ll stick to the first god that turns you over with it’s creative force. But, as I said, I’m a polytheist, and I have the honour now to present a quite new member of my Pantheon of soul guides, path finders and power sources: Stuart Dahlquist, Seattle, USA.
I started quite early to write music and then started my own pop/rock bands, later turning my attention to more experimental constellations also exploring avant garde, world music and jazz. But my main efforts in music have been focused on various contemporary music dramatic compositions, choir stuff and EAM. During many years the boxes and folders was filling up with sketches of songs; I didn’t have the time to finish them as I was working on these other large projects. But then last year I got the desire to to do it again: songs. And I was invited to join a fun collaborative project, Chicks & Types, with the two Italian graphic designers Simone ”SketchThisOut” Massoni & Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini.
