Esaias Orchestra, with members from both Malmö and Copenhagen, released the EP “Words” in Spring. The title probably tell us something about how central the song poetry is for the singer and songwriter Esaias Grina. That doesn’t stop the band from backing up the lyrics with some carefully arranged music: an airy, playful, melodic indie with traces of folk, which with the beautiful strings and horns makes a quite unique mix.

Esaias Orchestras hemsida – på Facebook – på Spotify – på Soundcloud

Another Nation’s National Anthem has released another single, “Desdemona”. And even if there’s more forward motion in this song, compared to the last one “Caliban“, it’s impossible to avoid being swept into their dreamy indie fog this time too. And it feels quite comfortable.

Another Nation’s National Anthem on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

We wrote about Henke Wermelin a couple of years ago. Then his backing band was The Delinquencies and we listened to a couple of demo tracks, which were promising but felt somewhat tentative when it comes to the recording quality. Now his new band is called Nattskiftet and the new album  “The New Black Is Blue” is anything but tentative. Here he’s found his own formula for mixing folk inspired indie and seventies pop, with an emphasis on the latter where I hear Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, Ten cc and others.

The album is described as introspective and dark, but the music feels most of the time uplifting and sparkling with life, which adds a dose of gallows humour to some lines. Theres a pleasant balance between the calm and the energetic, and I find gems among both the uptempo tracks as well as among the softer ones. Here are a few of them:

Henke Wermelin & Nattskiftet’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Soundcloud

The post punk/shoegaze-band Principe Valiente have opened up the door to their upcoming second album by releasing the single “Take Me With You”. Great song this, which feels a little like Suede in an eighties’ constume, which I guess depends somewhat on the influence from Ed Buller, the mixer of this track, and also former producer to Suede. A new single is coming up in September and then, later in the Autumn, the new album.

Principe Valiente’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara – on Bandcamp

The unpredictable, but still fascinating Scraps of Tape, hailing from Malmö, released the new EP “Orka allt” in May. There you’ll find five songs that jumps between beautiful melancholic reflections, post rock, instrumental noise rock and more. Here’s the title track.

Scraps of Tapes’ site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara