New Music 2016 - Part 57 - Frida Hyvönen - Kvinnor och barn

I have posted about my forays into listening to music sung in foreign languages a few times in the past. On the other hand I don't think that Swedish (a language that I don't understand a word of) has ever before been one of them.
Frida Hyvönen the artist I was well aware of through her three English language LPs:

• Until Death Comes (2006)
• Silence Is Wild (2008)
• To The Soul (2012)

In addition to songwriting and singing her principal instrument is piano and this album is no exception. One thing I have discovered is that its title 'Kvinnor och barn' translates as 'Women and children'.

Frida Hyvönen - Kvinnor och barn (4 November 2016).

 The twelve tracks are as follows:

• Sjön
• Imponera på mig
• Balkongmannen
• Förlotat dig
• Alla vet att det är vakert i Paris
• Vänner i vardagen
• Kommer du?
• Drömmer om dig
• Min stad
• Kvinnor och barn
• Fredag morgon
• Amors förkastliga pilar

I have as yet been unable to divine the label by which it is released (on vinyl, CD and d/l) but it is available to stream on Spotify (here in the UK, at least at the time of writing).
Sometimes not understanding the lyrics allows one to appreciate the melody and structure of the music more easily. This was one of those times for me and I very much enjoyed it. It has also reminded me that I really must revisit all the earlier albums. 'Silence Is Wild' tackles some rather unusual subjects in popular music, if I remember correctly.

New Music 2015 - Part 57 - Sofia Talvik - Big Sky Country

When it comes to listening to new music (and also music that is new to me), both live and recorded, I am on something of a roll at moment. This is more Americana it is true, and this LP was released only a month or two back, but Sofia Talvik is not new to the scene as 'Big Sky Country' is her sixth full-length studio release. She isn't American either - she is from Sweden although, when not touring, she is currently resident in Berlin.
I'm only really just getting the measure of this album but I can see it will be around for a long time. Much of it comes from observations she made during a 16-month, 38-state road trip touring her earlier songs around the US. It is full of the kind of observations that someone new to somewhere recognises as special in some way but that those local either simply take for granted or don't even notice at all.
You see it put very simply in the title track and her response to Idaho, but the more I listen the more I am starting to notice the subtleties - not just in the lyrics but in the way that they are played out. Once I've got my head around this I shall be delving into her back catalogue, which also includes the 2013 LP 'Drivin' and Dreaming LIVE'.

New Music 2015 - Part 29 - Jenny Lysander - Northern Folk

To be honest it wasn't going to be long until Sweden reasserted its claim to producing some astonishing music. The Söderberg sisters - aka 'First Aid Kit' - may have seemingly crossed the ocean, and very successfully too, but that leaves a gap of kinds, I suppose. She might not like this billing, or indeed some of the other comparisons that have recently come her way, but the chances are that she can outflank that. She is Jenny Lysander.

Her début album 'Northern Folk' is released by Beating Drum Records on April 27 in Europe.

New Music 2014 - Part 17 - Vena Portae

This is what I was intended to write about yesterday. As it happens I seem to be in a blog-posting mood at the moment so that's not an issue. This is in part spurred by the abundance of interesting new music and also, just today, by the fact that my ticket for End of The Road Festival arrived in the post. That has somehow made the 2014 festival season seen real, even though it is (currently) the last one that I shall be attending this summer.

This album is a new project and is not released (vinyl, CD, d/l) until 18 August 2014. Recorded in Sweden in the winter of 2012/13 it isn't very summery. Indeed the lead track is 'Summer Kills' and it can be streamed below.

[post in progress --- to be continued soon]

New Music 2011 - Part 8 - Daydreams and Nightmares - Those Dancing Days

I mentioned yesterday that Swedish five-piece Those Dancing Days are back with their sophomore album and that it is in a different style to 2008 début 'In Our Space Hero Suits'.  Here it is:

Daydreams and Nightmares
UK release: 28 February 2011 [Wichita Recordings]

1. Reaching Forward
2. I'll Be Yours
3. Dream About Me
4. Help Me Close My Eyes
5. Can't Find Entrance
6. Fuckarias
7. Forest Of Love
8. When We Fade Away
9. Keep Me In Your Pocket
10. I Know Where You Live
11. One Day Forever

It has rather less of the pop-and-northern-soul 'girl group' inflection, if not exactly influence, of the first album and correspondingly, but again not heavy-handedly so, more of a sinister riot-grrrl electric synth-sound.  The contrast is more than interesting; a case of exploring rather than abandonment.
  
Those Dancing Days are far from over but the rhythm has changed.  You can also legally stream another track from this album - 'I'll Be Yours'.

Further posts on New Music 2011:

Part 1  ---  Esben and The Witch

Part 2  ---  Yuck

Part 3  ---  Duke Spirit

Part 4  ---  Low Anthem
Part 5  ---  Go!Team

Part 6  ---  Rhosyn

Part 7  ---  Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo
Part 9  ---  Some things I am looking forward to.
Part 10  ---  More things I am looking forward to.
Part 11  ---  New Heads On Old Shoulders?
Part 12  ---  Snowglobe - Jesca Hoop
Part 13  ---  Queen of the Minor Key

All Hallows Eve...

The traditional British late Autumn party-night, for kids especially, was the very obviously sectarian Guy Fawkes' Night, traditionally celebrated with fireworks, on 5th November. In the last decade or two it appears to have been eclipsed to some extent by another with which it, perhaps rather surprisingly, shares much in common.
You could advance many possible reasons for this, and with some justification, so here are two:

• Church of England and Catholic rapprochement.
• The creeping advance of (at least recently) US customs and celebrations.

I agree that the matter of Guy Fawkes and the grievances that Catholics harboured after the 'Reformation' makes it a sectarian issue and one that, after more than three centuries, still understandably touches a raw nerve. The interesting thing is that, if by adopting Halloween instead (adopted by the Church - long pre-reformation but banned by Cromwell during the 'Commonwealth' - as All Hallows Eve in early Medieval times), the differences have been smoothed over by celebrating something that was adopted, and carefully woven in, from Celtic Christian ritual that it in turn had adopted and were tenets of earlier pagan beliefs (and it is not the only one - Whitsun and Harverst Festival being others) instead. If that gets around the perceived problem then it is just fine by me and clearly time is a great healer.

So now we, or to use as an excuse the kids, have both fireworks and pumpkins!

Pumpkins are indeed something of a revelation: we used to have to make do with attempting to cut lanterns out of swede (called turnips in the north of England and Scotland). They are smaller, less colored and less translucent than pumpkins and they are, unfortunately, also industrially hard when uncooked!

So to the music that might fit such an occasion; as well as anything from my former suggestions in (2008) and (2007) here a few recent releases...

I've recently mentioned two 12" EPs by 'Demdike Stare', the shady side of Manchester's modern electronic witchcraft and, while they might be tricky to get before Saturday, this is the album and the track list is indeed most promising...

1. Suspicious Drone
2. Haxan Dub
3. Regressor
4. All Hallows Eve
5. Jannisary
6. Haxan
7. Extwistle Hall
8. Trapped Dervish
9. Nothing But The Night
10. Conjoined
    
11. Ghostly Hardware

I know that this is an even greater problem but, should you want to spend the whole day in what is, arguably, even more gloomy territory then James Leyland Kirkby is the one and I've alluded to this, the final part of the LP trilogy, already...

...don't imagine that only the kids will like the sweets and 'pumpkin hunt'.

There are two obvious trails through the darkness - the nu-acoustic/folk path or the ambient/ electronic path - and just take your choice but strange to relate they are not so different as you might expect. Less scary is the folk-orientated one and anything by 'The Smoke Fairies' would not go amiss.

Bring on the witches, fairies and the other forces of darkness and light any time... and how about a vampire or two?

If so then also add any 'Twilight' soundtrack that you can lay your fangs on and the latest, 'New Moon', features 'Death Cab For Cutie' and Ben Gibbard's haunting lyrics as well as many other highlights so what more can I say?

Enjoy!

The end of one thing is just the start of another.

This time last week I was in North Dorset at 'End of The Road 2009' and it has taken me rest of the week to really come to terms with what that actually meant to me. Lots of awesome acts, that is for sure, but also rather more than that and so I've already bought a ticket for EOTR 2010.

I've long thought that to be the first act on stage at a festival must be an invidious task and at EOTR 2009 that fell to Toronto-based Ohbijou on the 'Big Top Stage' shortly after mid-day on Friday.

This was my introduction to EOTR and "holey-moley this is just amazing" is merely to quote lead vocalist Casey Mecija at some point mid-set; and it could very easily have gone downhill from there but it didn't, there is no doubt about that.

In fact, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Ohbijou became only the second act I have ever seen perform a full live set twice within 24 hours!
There was no shortage of amazing acts...

At 11:15 pm on Friday night Beth Jeans Houghton conspired to take an absolutely packed 'The Local' stage by storm.
She has received good reviews but this was a truly awesome set. When 'The Horrors' were unavailable due to illness on the Big Top Stage Saturday evening she was game for a bigger venue and, while I didn't catch that performance, she was by all accounts more than equal to filling that stage too.

The one act that defaulted at Latitude 2009 I was able to see at EOTR 2009, on the Tipi Stage, and that was Sweden's 'First Aid Kit'. They were amazing, as I had been led to believe they would be, but I didn't expect them to play even one song with such a surprising pair of instruments.

Autoharp, six-string banjo and a judiciously updated cover of 'Universal Soldier' - written and originally recorded by Toronto's Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1964.

If these had been the only highlights, but they most certainly weren't, it would still have been a pretty good weekend.

Music I Want In 2009 - Part 10 - Infinite Light

Well we might not be getting 'the barbeque summer' that back in the spring we were promised would be ours to lift the mood, at least here in the rain-sodden UK, but not all is bad. August may traditionally be a quiet time for new releases, particularly of albums, but here are a few that I would like...
From Canada - and arguably where else - comes this.

Amber Webber and Joshua Wells - both also members of 'Black Mountain' - return with a second album release from their side-project 'Lightning Dust', the first of which was the self-titled album that I have mentioned before and, very importantly, still love to bits. Infinite Light is, as was the first album, released (yesterday in the UK and today in the US and Canada) by Jagjaguwar Records and is available on 12" LP, CD and download.

Now jump continents, and styles, as here is Sweden's First Aid Kit that was unfortunately a last-minute no-show at Latitude 2009. All is not lost on the live front as they are appearing at the 'End Of The Road Festival' in September, along with many other acts I want to see, and so I'll be there too.

Live at Puregroove Records, London. Better pictures soon I hope!

The 8-track 'Drunken Trees EP' (more of a mini-album really) is available on vinyl too and although in part currently best known for an act of breathtaking bravado --- covering Fleet Foxes' Tiger Mountain Peasant Song barely months after its original release --- they have thus been compared with Seattle's 'Fleet Foxes' and also their 2009 heirs and successors, Providence, RI based 'The Low Anthem' --- but they did more than simply got-away-with-it. Unlike the other two aforementioned, who are signed to Bella Union in the UK, they were snapped up by UK indie label Wichita Recordings.

Maybe, decades later, they still have somebody who can spot such things? I hope so...

I hear you singin' in the wire,

I can hear you through the whine

And the Wichita lineman

Is still on the line.

Whatever the truth this recording suggests that they could get along just fine in such company because the self-written tracks are also pretty special too, so now the surprise factor...

They are two sisters from Stockholm, with a combined age of thirty-five and a remakable world-weary take on music for two so young. In a truly inspired piece of booking, doubtless done months ago when what I have just written was far from obvious, all three bands are on the bill for 'The End Of The Road'!

I've plenty more to add, including more fascinating developments in the pipeline from Bella Union, but this post is getting long enough and unfortunately I have rather more important, but much less interesting, things to do just now.

Doubtful Comforts - luck can do you like a shotgun.

'Want To Listen' Music 2009 - Part 1: Hot on the heels of my recent post there is a début single from Blue Roses. 'Doubtful Comforts' is released on March 2, 2009 by Rough Trade. It is available for pre-order now and there is a limited vinyl 7". For an update on this artist see here.

If you want temptation, but don't blame me, then start here:
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/

An album that has very much become on my 'want to listen' list is by an artist who is well known, particularly for the band she once fronted; it is 'Colonia' and she is Nina Persson, formerly of The Cardigans, in her 'A Camp' persona for the first time since the eponymous album in 2001. After the passage of eight years it is, rather unsurprisingly, not quite the same beast and, arguably, it is an even better one. [See my update on this item - 6 February 2009]

Well that has dealt with Shipley and Stockholm, at least for now.

More albums I want - 2008, part 6.

Once upon a time, and not so very long ago, I couldn't find much enthusiasm for new music.

I knew that it was my fault but to appreciate it fully is to be faced with the opposite problem and now is the time to indulge in new music. Some things just have to be good and, right now, it doesn't bother me if that happens to be unashamedly reinvented retro-pop, but not either 'The Pipettes' nor 'Los Campesinos!', and the totally strange album title doesn't do any harm at all.

Sweden's Those Dancing Days - 'In Our Space Hero Suits'.

Positively post-Abba, Sweden is fun again, though if you have been reading here that is not always so obviously true. Without any doubt one of my most-listened-to albums of the last six months is by another Swedish band, Oh Laura, and the album 'A Song Inside My Head, A Demon In My Bed' seems to have gained very little recognition in the UK.

For the last six months or so I've been hard pressed to avoid falling for new music from America, so here is yet another one to add to the list. It was released in the UK last Monday (13 October) and in the US almost a fortnight earlier.

'Deranged' - Stacee Lawson is an album that in essence is very much in tune with much of the new-folk/pop/rock currently so popular in the UK. It should, if there were any justice, find popularity this side of the Atlantic but then, while I'm usually an optimist I often find that it is tainted by realism. If I had it my way Stephanie Dosen would be hugely successful here for 'A Lily For The Spectre' is a wonderful album that has become one my most played of the last year or so.
That's just two, and I can think of many more, but it is way past bed time!

If you get the chance, and want to see a band that is worth far more than the hype that is starting to gather around it, I'd choose The Joy Formidable; just watching their live set is exhaustingly wonderful so goodness knows about the performance aspects...

Back in April... a belated review of Robyn

I mentioned this self-titled album - Robyn - in passing in my post on 12th April and as I threatened to do actually bought it there and then. I really should have reviewed it promptly too because, out of all of the electro-pop albums released so far in 2007, it looks to be the one that might actually make the mainstream.

Last Sunday the single 'With Every Heartbeat' entered the UK singles chart at #5 on downloads alone.
For this kind of track and artist that is actually something quite remarkable. On the face of it her album, by an artist who has been around for some ten or so years but until now was rather little known, and that is the first released on her own label (Konichiwa Records) seemingly did not stand a chance in hell.
How quickly things can change! It certainly does now and it is due for a full UK release next Monday (13th August). Most of the tracks seem to be the same as the promo version of the so-called EP release that I have been enjoying since mid-April. The full UK CD has a bonus track - Jack You Off - that does not appear on the version I have and I believe that several other tracks on it have also been remixed for the new release.

What does it sound like?
If you have heard nothing of Robyn, then imagine Annie and Pink were somehow combined as a single Scandamerican singer-songwriting chimera. It might possibly sound as good as Robyn (who is Swedish, not Dutch as some sites have claimed). Now imagine, improbably, that other stations and sites championed it and then eventually even BBC Radio 1 loved it. The first bit is clearly a flight of fantasy - it is beyond current bioscience - but at least the rest, including the Radio 1 thing, is true.
If the full UK release sounds anything like the version that I already have, and I suspect it does in which case Gwen Stefani's solo material would be another point of reference, then I think it would be well worth giving it a very careful listen...