First Love, Last Rites, hailing from Umeå, is underway with a new album, “Wasted Hearts”, which will be available December 5th. A little more than a week ago they released the single “Charlot”, as a first glimpse of how the album will sound. I do recognize them from the debut album, with a dreamy, melodic shoegaze. At the same time they announce a sound where they lean a little less on the massive guitars and noise and more and more on melodie, that is more indie pop and less shoegaze, which can be scented in the single track.

First Love, Last Rites on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Charlot

EP’s Trailerpark opens up the door some more to the upcoming album with another strong track, this time with the single and video “Last Night On Earth”. Erik Palmqvist wants us to think a little about what we’re doing, but leave us, I’d say, with a rather hopeful ambience from the music; “We will sort this out”.

EP’s Trailerpark’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify

Giuseppe Velasco is a singer/songwriter, based in Stockholm, who released his debut EP “Heart Away” this Autumn. It’s about four tracks with a stirring and uplifting pop where classically smooth pop melodies are lifted by playful arrangements. The song “Younger”, here below, stands out from the rest with it’s more dense electronica arrangement, but I enjoy the other songs just as much. A strong EP debut which I recommend to try out.

Velasco on Facebook – on Spotify – on Soundcloud

Younger

Colleagues is the name of a new band project from Stockholm. I don’t know much more about them than that they have released a song, “Parents’ House”, which you can listen to here below. Lots of party vibes from the eighties in this pop song with electronica and quite some indie feeling, which creates a special atmosphere.

Colleagues on Facebook – on Soundcloud

Parents’ House

Even if this blog concentrates on presenting Swedish music, I do get a lot of tips from artists and labels from around the world. So far I’ve chosen not to present anything here of this, but today I’m going to make an exception. And it’s about Squeeze, a band I listened to a lot during the eighties, with the duo Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook’s in the front, who seemed to be able to produce an endless stream of beautiful and playful pop melodies, which stuck in my head, and in a way defined what pop was then for me. “Cool For Cats”, “Tempted” (with Paul Carrack’s brilliant vocals), “Labelled With Love” and “Black Coffee In Bed” are some of the songs that have their given spots in my playlists with pop classics.

They then dissappeared from my radar during a long time, even if they continued in various constellations, but eventually broke up in the end of the nineties. In 2004 I watched a show on VH1, as a part in the VH1 series where they tried to reunite bands for an exclusive concert, but in Squeeze’ case the attempt failed. Then today I got a mail about Squeeze having released a single, written and performed by Difford and Tilbrook , and that they have started touring. The song may not reach the hights of the classics, but it’s a good song and unmistakingly a Squeeze song.

Squeeze site – on Facebook – on Spotify