There’s been too little blues on meadowmusic.se, no doubt about it. At least if we’re talking about pure blues in it’s basic form. Of course the blues is present in a lot of the music we have presented, as an inspiration, a base and an origin of many of the different styles of music that have been presented here. But to dig down to the true soil of the blues isn’t easy; to expose this naked, dirty ground of yourself so we can feel it and also to add something new to this is limited to a few people.

How happy I am then, that I bumped into Slidin’ Slim. He digs down into the swamps like he’s done done nothing else and howls with his blues-vibrato so I can feel it. Slidin’ Slim feels for real! But does he add something new?
The answer is definitely yes! There is a weight and a play with new modern beats and sounds that I haven’t heard before in blues. And the way that he does it, without leaving the dirt and the swamp for one second, while his slide guitar cries out it’s moaning.

Enjoy and download Slidin’ Slim:

They Call Me Mr. Misfit
Devil In Disguise
God Knows I Tried

Visit Slidin’ Slims site and his Myspace page

I like the close acoustic feeling when I listen to Ulf Ljusberg. My thoughts wander of to a small jazz or blues club, where people in a relaxed way are sitting down, sipping their beer, with their attention on Ulf and his collegues performing on stage. It feels familiar in a way.

It’s hard to directly put Ulf in a single genre. I would say that the base is the blues that often marries folk music in the songs, but there is more than that. There is a nice jazzy playfulness, which surprises me and catches my attention, and an experimention with rhythms that I seldom hear with other artists. Maybe it’s this last thing what makes me sense the uniqueness in Ulf’s music. That he can take an apparently common style and make something new out of it, with a different accent.

Ulf has released a number of EP:s, some of them under the name “Something From a Forest”, but since 2005 in his own name. Read an interview with Ulf on It’s a Trap.

On Ulf’s Last.fm page you can listen more and download songs. You can also visit his Myspace page.
Here’s three songs to enjoy:

Whatever Was
Caught In This Skin (acoustic)
Puzzle

Music through the fingertips

Intrumental music talks to me in quite a different way than when it’s accompanied by vocals and lyrics. It flows more freely through my ear canals and creates a contact with my emotional self. And Tomeu’s music makes my argentinian blood swell in lustfulness and makes me homesick. ‘Cause deep down, there lives an acoustic guitar.
In Tomeu’s music I can hear influences of flamenco, classical music, jazz, blues and world music. Originally he’s from Mallorca where he started his guitar lessons with Damià Timoner.

After a short jump to Barcelona he continued his education with the grammy winner David Rusell, and with the highly regarded Manuel Granados, and his assistant David Leiva. After this he travelled to Sweden, where he’s now working on his upcoming album with the drummer Robert Ikiz and the bass player Kristian Lind. The producer is Josep Umbria.

Solely for Meadow Music he has mixed down two tracks, but tells me to point out that these are not finished tracks, just a taste from the upcoming record. The album will be finished by next summer.

Leia’s Song
A Time In Barcelona

Listen more on his Myspace page

The band Half a Grape from Gothenburg released their first album “Life and George” a couple of weeks ago. They offer a soft, often relaxed, slightly melancholic music in a jazzy setting with drums, double bass, piano with organ or Rhodes at times. And it is within the jazzy range I usually find them – from pure cool jazz tunes to slower jazz rock and blues. Add the expressive and varied vocals by Roger Gunnarsson and it is a perfect blend to sink into, close your eyes and forget about the troubles of your day.

Visit them on Myspace where you can listen to a couple of songs from “Life and George”

On Last.fm you can also listen to some earlier recordings and download more songs.

Listen, download and enjoy two songs here:

Going Home
Cold Inside

The word master

Hello all publishers! I SAID: -HELLO ALL PUBLISHERS!!!
You have missed a sweet little pea here. A lyricist of absolute world class. Niklas Aurgrunn is his name. Remember that name, or pick up the phone right now. I say it only once, read my lips: – Niklas Aurgrunn is one of the best Swedish lyricists.

In this post I will try to emphasise the importance of writing good lyrics. Many tries, some have the gift, and others like Niklas are outstanding. He’s not only shaping some words, ready for delivery. His words reaches a dimension within you didn’t know existed. He hits the target and twists and turns.
When you have finished listening, you are no longer the same person. A good text transforms the listener to new heights. You learn something from a good text. A good text is like the sun in the sky. It warms you and carry you on further.

A few words from the author himself:

“Maybe it sounds like and maybe it is some kind of self legitimising incantation, but I do like it when it sounds a little off pitch and off beat, when I have to strain my voice to go up, I even think it’s fun when have to violate the melody to be able to sing the piece, ‘cause it is like that and have always been like that – I’m not a singer by any definition and certainly not a musician, but it took me a few decades to learn to like what happens when I sit down and with a poor ear, tune in randomly, it’s the way it should be, at least it’s how I should be. And they are fantastic songs in any case…”

Listen to Aurgrunn’s “Gare de Lyon Blues”:

Gare de Lyon Blues

Aurgrunn has collaborated with a lot of musicians, among them Tobbe Möller, whom we wrote post about before.

Here is a taste from another interesting collaboration with Miss Allena, “Vind” (“Wind”):

Vind

And this is how powerful it can sound when the producer Jonas Wickman takes on Aurgrunns work in “Bil på berget” (“Car on the mountain”):

Bil på berget

Aurgrunn is also a frequent blogger and also the author of several books. Unfortunately only available in Swedish so far.

Visit Aurgrunn on Myspace
and Last.fm