The Courage is the name of Jesper Jonsson’s solo project. For two years he’s been working on his debut album and this April it was finally released.

About the album lyrics: “The lyrics for the songs on my first album describes my own metaphysical universe where I use symbols from eastern philosophy, Jungian psychology and noir movies, to tell the story of a small guy lost in a big city full of confused people.”

The music is an exciting mix, where I hear new wave, electro, soul and great pop tunes. On several tracks I can feel the vibes from an experimenting David Bowie. Here are two songs from the album:

Brave Enough
Everything Falls

You can listen to more from The Courage on Myspace and also on Spotify

Annika was born in Sweden, grew up in New York and started working as a kindergarten teacher. She met Jon Neufeld, they married and together they started the pop duo Jonka. This year they’ve released their debut album “Slow and Steady Wins the Race”, and you can hear the song “The Nana Song” from the album, here below.

On Jonka’s site you can hear the rest of the songs from “Slow and Steady Wins the Race”.

The Nana Song

Clemens, aka Claes Björnelius, is the topic today. It’s mostly about instrumental, beautiful music that has a nice peacefulness inside. Some parts symphonic, sometimes a feeling of Björn J:son Lindh-känsla or something like in the example below, “The Brick”, with Air-vibes. It feels many times grand, like it was taken from a movie.

He also presents several collaborations like for example with Michael Ehrnstén or with Karl in the Peter Gabriel-inspired “The Picture” below.

On Clemens site you can listen to his music and download it.

The Brick
The Picture

This week I thought I could start with The Broken Assembly and their EP “Emotional”, which was released in the beginning of the year. Lasse Thomasson has visited Meadowmusic before, with the rduo Strangers In Wonderland together with Åsa Girgensohn, and this time it’s also about a duo, now together with Helena Ahlbäck.

There’s a nice span between the songs which could be summarized with “The Broken Assembly makes it’s utmost to create something new and has firmly buried their strong roots in the underworld of the seventies and the eighties; where Patty Smith finally married Tom Petty to some AC/DC licks with Queen’s boy choir humming in the background” And all is glued together in the production and Helena’s colourful vocals.

Listen here to a couple of songs. The rest of the EP you can listen to and downloadon The Broken Assembly’s site.

Come Together
Miles In the Rain

Today it’s party time together with The Happy Hippo Family. Nice melodies and playfulness, ska, backbeat and pop and sometimes a dose of Madness. They have recently released a few songs to give a taste of their upcoming album. Here are two of them:

Anthem of the Universe
Undressed Melody

Visit The Happy Hippo Family on Myspace