While Humfree Bug Art are working on their next album, several of the members are taking the opportunity to dive into side projects. Fredrik Forell and Sebastian Svensson Nylin express their newly won love for samplers in their electronica project Rööd, and in June they released the second EP “Segersånger”. Here they experiment with ambient soundscapes which feel playfully distorted in various ways, often with a vaudeville or cirkus vibe. Maybe is this what happens if you forget your collection of arpeggios in the sizzling, hot summer sun?

Rööd på Facebook – på Spotify – på Apple Music

The two composers and sound artists Stefan Klaverdal and Håkan Lidbo have put their minds together and created the album “Contemporary Composers play Love ballads vol. 1”. Here they take on some of the most popular love ballads from the eighties and the nineties, ballads that here come out with a completely different shape and meaning.

They write that they both have a fascination for bad taste and the cultural codes which mark the lines between pop culture and fine culture. Here they want to see if they can distill drops of darkness or artistic depth from these classics which we’ve heard som many times before. They have worked with the complete original recordings, which they have time-stretched, chopped, distilled, added effects to, well, in many ways transformed the songs into something different. And the songs do become interesting again. When they succeed they extract distinctive characteristics from the tracks and turn them into a completely new mood or ambience. Here are two of my favourites where Bryan Adams’ love declaration no longer sound that innocent, and Whitneys Houston’s long tones become a eerie and haunting. Listen to the entire album on their Soundcloud page.

Stefan Klaverdal’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify

Håkan Lidbo’s site – on Spotify

I’m starting this week with the premiere of the trio Nuaia’s new single “There Is No Love”, a beautifully built pop-track taken from their second album “Belong to the Moon”. This album will be released in two days, April 29th, and is one of the most fascinating album creations I have heard this year.

In a dreamy, soft atmosphere they bring oss on a journey that includes everything from pure ambience to strong, dramatic pop. The singer Sofie Norling has an intense presence which more than once jumps out of the speakers and seizes someting inside of me. It’s a dynamic, shifting journey, but which still feels like a natural whole. You can already listen to some of the songs on their Soundcloud page. Here is the new single “There Is No Love”:

I asked the three members, Sofia Norling, Mika Forsling and Michala Østergaard-Nielsen to tell us more about each song on the album, about the thoughts and the process behind the songs:

1. belong to the moon

“We are very happy about this song. We really feel that we managed to transform what we wanted to say into music, but still leave space for the listeners own imagination. As for the lyrics, it´s important for Sofie not letting the lyrics standing above the music but having the music flow freely through the lyrics. A sound in a word can be more close to the expression than the word it self. This song is very personal for us. Everytime we play it, we heal.”

2. don’t know where to turn

“In the studio at The Village they have an old Spinet witch we recorded really fast on a IPad. It’s nice to mix lo-fi sounds on the recording. One nice detail is the drone that comes in the middle of the song. It’s generated by all three of us, Michala playing a pianet, Sofie turning a Sherman filter and Mika working with a tape delay.”

3. where is your heart in this

“This is a good example of how we make our music. Before going into the studio we recorded some of the rehearsals in Mikas studio. “Where is your heart in this” was a first take of an improvisation on mbira, percussion and vocals. The energy was so deep that we kept that version for the album. The Mbira’s vibrations really spoke to me, Sofie says. It wrote the melodies and lyrics through me.”

4. there is no love

“This song is about having enough of adapting yourself in trying to be perfect. Everyone deserves to be loved for who they are. This is the song, we have most versions/takes of. Every time we recorded it, we felt something was missing. It’s a song we’d been playing for a while but somehow our old version of it didn’t work out in the studio. And we wanted to make something new out of it. After recording the drums, vocal and synth pad (that later become the final album version) we felt that the sound waves were giving the right vibration. On this song we’d been working with a lot of overdubs on vocals, synths and vibraphonette.”

5. seasonal

“We love to improvise freely without any defined frames and just letting the imagination float freely. This song is one of the jamsessions we recorded live in the studio. Sofie about Seasonal: at that time I experimented with different effects for choir harmonies and was meditating about big changes in life. The bells and string sounds are processed samples Mika recorded at a seminar house in Friebourg(DE).”
“They had some really amazing instruments there, made for music therapy, perfectly sounding for Nuaia’s music” says Mika.

6. follow Part II

“On our first album ”nauia” we have a song called Follow. Everytime we played it, the story in the lyrics and music evolved and over time it became a song on it’s own. A part II.”
Sofie: ‘When I work with the lyrics I often sing freely around a certain theme. Being free in this way creates a freedom for the stories and the characters to develop.’

7. leave it all behind – intro

“A friend of Mika builds his own drums out of gas cylinders called “hank drum”. This instrument makes the fundament of the sound for this song.”

8. leave it all behind

“Place your hand at my heart. No need to say it out loud.”

9. my role

“We were really happy about my new vibraphonette”, Michala says, “and we somehow wanted to make room for it on the album. We brought it along to Mikas studio and recorded a improvised jam session together with this charming instrument.”

Nuaias hemsida – på Facebook – på Spotify – på Wimp

Max Lilja is a Finnish cello player and composer, most known as one of the original members of the cello metal band Apocalyptica. He has also been a member of the thrash metal band Hevein and is a part of Tarja Turunen’s (Nightwish) solo band since 2007. His first solo album, “Plays Electronica By One Cello”, was released in 2013, and next month, on the 10th of April, the second one, “Morphosis”, will be launched.

All music on “Morphosis” is written on cello and you realize when you listen how much he’s stretching the limits of how a cello can sound knowing that all the voices in the arrangements come from his cello. I am already a fan at the first track when I listen to the powerful “Revelations”, where we’re reminded by his metal background by a distorted, pumping, dark metal riff which forms a base under a filmic soundscape of screaming, ominous sound winds as well as beautiful classic cello tones. The following song “Silent Highway” heads off in another direction as a beautiful, light cello melody is a accompanied by electronica-sounding, clock-ticking rhythms. And the album continues with another seven tracks that take us on fascinating excursions in the borderline regions where different genres meet and is morphed together, commanded by fair melodies. Listen to the first two tracks here below. There’s also a video to  “Revelations”, created by Janne Laiho:

Max Liljas site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Last year I wrote about the Norwegian/Swedish duo Lerin/Hystad and their album “Mount Buzhou“. There they combined their instrumental music with traditional chinese music, including field recordings from a large music summit in China. On the new album they have crossed the water and gone to Japan to get their inspiration.

Like before they have sampled field recordings in the tracks, but this time taken from arcade halls and subway stations in Tokyo and Osaka. This is mixed with vibes of traditional japanese music, jazz, electronica, progressive and experimental rock. It all becomes a fascinating melting pot where the past meets the present, east meets west, the finetuned organic meets the hard, machinelike. It can coexist at one time and in the next moment the other aspect takes over. Well, it is a bit like I can imagine what Japan is like with it’s deep roots in their own traditions living side by side with the modern society and the influence from the western world. An album with an amazing creativity, abundance of details and a large span of music. Here are two songs:

Lerin/Hystad on Facebook – on Spotify – on Bandcamp