The artist Olof Svenblad calls himself Teleskop when he turns on his synths and produces a pop-electronica with some retro vibes.

TELESKOP may sound like as when you have been spending too much time thinking about the depths of the universe and have a hard time letting the thoughts go away, and at the same time you miss someone you like very much and it’s summer, a warm and fantastic summer and it’s in the middle of the night or early in the morning because the sky is not black but red, pink orange, blue and turquoise.
(translated from Swedish)

You can find Teleskop on Myspace. Here are two songs:

Anything
Horrible

The last couple of days I’ve been enjoying Hillström & Billy’s second full length album, “Outtakes and Remakes of Heartaches, which was released in July. It’s a record that has grown stronger and stronger everytime I’ve listened to it, and keeps doing so. If the debut album was good, this follow-up is brilliant.

The base is a nice retro-seventies sound from where he explores some soul, classic 70s-rock, ballads, 80’s pop and modern indie and more. The beatlesque feeling is there, 10 cc’s playfulness, grandness side by side with nakedness and a whole bunch of great melodies.

On the album members from Perssons pack, Hovet and Diamond Dogs participates. It’s only released on vinyl and also on the net of course.

You’ll find Hillström & Billy on his site and you can listen to the album on Spotify

It was hard to choose a couple of songs for this post, since all of them are great songs and have their own character, but in the end I selected these two:

What Times Become
It’s Over

A priest’s daughter born in Mexico, brought up in Lit 20 km from Östersund, now living on Gotland, a municipal official specialized on the EU, a mother and now also a rock star… That’s how I’m On TV, or Sofia Nordström, presents herself.

She’s recently released the three-track debut EP, “Efforts Made” and later this fall the debut album “Plastic Paradise”, will be released.

They say it’s Popsicle meets Bangles which is a very good description of how it feels. On the recordings she gets help from Kristofer Åström and Annika Norlin.

You’ll find I’m on TV on her site and you can also listen to “Efforts Made” on Spotify.

Efforts Made

Efforts Made:

Even if Jesper Norda has named his latest album “April Archives Collection No 1” I feel that it was perfect for me to get into his music now, in the beginning of the autumn. Beutiful, safe, a little lonely, disquieting, calm but yet dramatic.

The first track “Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven…” is magic to me. A Satie-sounding minimalistic piano figure, a simple, but beautiful song melody, Jesper’s dark, low-voiced vocals and “…but tomorrow you will have your teeth knocked out” which feels just like a hit right in the solarpexus, in the middle of the warm safe ambience.

“April Archives Collection No 1” is a compilation of three of Jesper Norda’s earlier EP:s, 12 songs with only Jesper and his piano and sometimes a simple drum machine. No excesses, as simple as possible, but it never gets uninteresting. The melodies are not revolutionizing but set inside my head, both from the vocals and the piano figures. I hear David Sylvain, Leonard Cohen, Roger Waters in different contexts, but in the end his own unique character.

You can find Jesper Norda on his site or on Myspace. You can also listen on Spotify.

Tomorrow you´ll be forgiven but tonight you will have your teeth knocked out
Lets go to a place infected with truth and resist with all our hearts

Last week Chris Michols Band released their first official album, “Scar Trek”. Two years ago Chris Michols solo released the album “The Long Road”, only digitally, which was downloaded more than 100 000 times on different sites. Parts of that album was later released officially on the EP Fade In in 2009.

The new album continues where the former albums left us, with singer/songwriter with a postgrunge feeling, strong melodies and of course Chris special voice in the foreground. But it contains much more than this. The melodies are there, the hooks, and the postgrunge vibes too, but these vibes have left more and more space for other influences, like folk music, the sixties and indie rock, which is all nicely blended with the rest.

If you’re already a fan you will recognize Chris Michols, but at the same time experience a more varied, strong album. Listen more on Chris Michols Band’s site. Here are two tracks from “Scar Trek”:

Killer
Loser