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”.

Mackaper on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Dimma

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.

Elias Krantz’ site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

The band ie at Heart released the EP “We Will Win” during the Autumn. It’s about progressive rock, a rock with a lot of Muse vibes, but more experimental and a sound more aiming at the club than the arena. Listen below to one of the three EP tracks.

ie at Heart on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

We Don’t Belong

Back in Summer 2008, at the very start of this blog, we wrote about the band Salma Gandhi, hailing from Malmö. They said then that they were working on their debut album, but it took four years more, until “The Quest For Nonsense Never Ends” was released this Autumn. But it was worth waiting for…

What they call stoner jazz appears to me as wild instrumental journey into the world of psychadelia, also coloured by progressive rock, jazz, blues and other stuff. It breathes of the late sixties/the beginning of the seventies, and even more so from from the filmic vibe in the music, where it sometimes feels like I’m drawn into a hardboiled detective thriller with car rides, smoky nightclubs and drama. But during the 75 minutes they achieve much more than that, as they can travel from a flipped-out jam to blues to a beautiful melodic ambience.

It’s a solid connective album where also the crazy track titles have their own meaning. As I understand it, the band members have made it into a kind of game, coming up with titles which with word acrobatics in some way describe the songs. What about, for example, “Paranoid Cow On a Mushroom Lawn” or “Polish Rodeo For Drunken Teenage Midgets”? Listen for yourself here below in a couple of songs.

Salma Gandhi on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Dr. Steveroll I Presume

The band Cyan Marble, hailing from Västerås, say that they get inspiration from movies and old TV series like Twilight Zone. And that ingredient is quite obvious and makes their sound special on their new EP “Mirror”. There they present three songs, which first of all make me think about progressive rock, a rather intense one and then also with this old TV-thriller vibe, highlighted with organs and theremin-sounding synth figures with that classical horror trembling. Even if I haven’t been able to enter the lyrics at all, the songs overall feel filmic, where they pass through quite a few sequences during the rather short song durations (for being progressive music). An experimental album with a rather unique sound.

Cyan Marble on Facebook – on Bandcamp

Ankh