Pal is Albin Johansson hailing from Malmö. In December he launched the 7-track debut album “Weeks”. It’s about a rather soft, dreamy pop, a bit minimalistic. The mix of analogue synths, guitars, old drum machines and often a nice rolling bass give a special feeling to the sound. It feels a little retro and I can’t help thinking of Air when I listen to the harmonies and the bass figures. A very nice new acquaintance and you can listen to the entire album on Pal’s Bandcamp page.

The name Pal, Albin invented in 2007 when he uploaded his first home recordings to Myspace. He wanted to be anonymous and he liked the combination with the hint to his first name and the meaning of the word.

You can also find Pal on Tumblr, Facebook and on Spotify.

Anything

Four years after the last album The Culture In Memoriam released the third album, “Rest In Pieces”, in the end of last year. Behind the artist name we find Victor Håkansson as the only permanent member together with a range of musicians in what Victor calls a music collective.

Pavestone pop he calls the music which in more than one way symbolise the music, also in a way like two opposites meet. The beautiful melodies, the string and backing vocals arrangements that give an air of classic bombastic pop from both the sixties and the seventies, and at the same time the distortion, the unpolished and fragility in Victor’s voice that give everything a raw indie vibe. Together with the critical lyrics it all ends up as an urgent message.

I haven’t listened to the earlier albums, so I can’t compare, but to me “Rest In Pieces” feels like a solid album that grows after time, with no in-between tracks at all. Listen here below to the first song of the album, “Run Emelie”.

You can find The Culture In Memoriam on the home page, on Facebook and on Spotify.

Run Emelie

Charlie Persson has released a couple of songs from the upcoming EP “Re:cycling”, which is to be released next week, on January 26th. “Den Stora Kärleken (Tur & Retur)” is a beautiful and sad song, sparsely arranged yet grand, and it feels like Charlie has taken a step back with his mic, if I compare to the earlier closer productions. A new sound coming up maybe, and it’ll be interesting to listen to the EP.

There is another song to taste from the EP, which you can listen to on his site. For news about the album I recommend following Charlie Persson on Facebook.

Den Stora Kärleken (Tur & Retur)

Klifton Filente released the new album “Breaking the Clouds” in the end of the last year. It’s a good album with nice melodies in the same spirit as the last album “Common Ground”. I don’t think, though, that “Breaking the Clouds” reaches the same heights as the predecessor, but if you’re a Klifton-fan, you won’t be dissappointed.

The artist name Klifton Filente is, according to the man behind it, Jonas Lundvall, a play with words. In french you say “un étoile filante” (a falling star, a meteorite), and this frase stuck with him a couple of years ago when he started the project, and was transformed into Klifton Filente.

You can listen to and download the album for free on his Bandcamp page. It’s also available on Spotify.

Foremost of the Westeners

In November Black Guillemot, hailing from Göteborg, released their first EP, “Knut Hamsun”. The band consists of members from Jet Link and Since Our First Guitar, two bands I have presented here before. And it’s also easy to recognize Josef Wikström’s characteristic vocals in these indie pop vibing songs.

You can listen to three good songs and download them on the band’s Bandcamp page. You can also find them on Facebook and on Spotify.

The band name comes from Josef Wikström’s fascination for birds and especially bird legs. He says that he would like to try to have bird legs one day, preferably thick and resilient ones, like ostrich legs.

He was looking for bird names that sounded good, found that Red-Footed Falcon didn’t work as a band name, and finally found the bird Black Guillemot, which sounded cool (tordmule in Swedish).

Here’s the title track from the EP:

Knut Hamsun