Admirably independent Swedish singer, Jonas Oakland, has concocted another perfect piece of pop in his own personal hit factory. This time he’s created a much darker sound for himself, although still very much poptastic. ‘Point Of No Return’ sees Jonas play around with more electro beats, and as a result, it’s got a mesmerizing and industrial electro riff going all the way through as a dominant bassline. Said electro beats are joined spectacularly by a much brighter synth riff in the second verse, which lifts the song to a new dimension, and turns it into quite an interesting piece of music – dark and light juxtaposed. And all the while, you’ve got a basic, yet catchy vocal melody going on, into which Jonas has entwined intricate changes of key. To top it all off, there’s an ‘’oh-woah-oh-woah-oh’’ line that’s repeated throughout the song for that extra familiarity, AND he’s even recruited an actual robot for backing vocals! Ok, that’s perhaps just some studio wizadry, but still – it sounds like an actual robot is doing backing vocal duties! It’s all very addictive.
‘Point Of No Return’ is released on iTunes all over the world later this month. But coming this Friday morning, we’ll be uploading a clip of the track for you to listen to. Marvellous!
If you want to know more about Jonas Oakland, you can read our interview with him from last year, here. And on top of being a regular interview with Jonas, it’s also (if we may say so ourselves) quite a fascinating insight into the workings and mechanics of the totally independent artists of today.
This is quite a nice shot from yesterday’s Polar Music Prize ceremony. Simply because it’s two of pop music’s finest ever contributors. Ulf Ekberg and Alexander Bard. Pause for a moment and think about the now legendary pop music they’ve given us in the past, and the exciting new music they continue to give us to this very day.
Eric Amarillo of genius Swedish dance duo, The Attic, has uploaded online a sample of a solo track that he’s been working on, ‘Sun’. And it’s a rather fantastic piece of commercial trance. Regular readers of this site will know that when we hear a dance track, we usually want it to contain what we refer to as a ”hands-in-the-air” element. This does. And it’s actually one of those instrumental pieces of music that is so good, that you actually don’t mind a vocal topline not being present.
Our favourite part though, is the inclusion of an eerie church organ. It’s very closing-bars-of-Elin-Lanto’s-’Funeral’!
Our third Christmas 2010 post this summer, we know, but this is important!
Last year, Sweden was treated to a Christmas concert tour from Måns Zelmerlöw, Sanna Nielsen, Shirley Clamp, and Sonja Alden. The four of them went around different cities singing Christmas hits, and generally giving everyone a magical and festive evening out. Well, this year they’re going to be doing it again. And they’ll be joined by Brandur and Björn Kjellman. And of course, since we’re living in Sweden now, we’ll be attending this time around!
It’ll also be good to hear Sanna, Shirley, and Sonja sing the songs from their second Christmas album which is due out this year – the follow up to the much loved ‘Our Christmas’ album of 2008. We’re looking forward to that album far more than we suspected was capable!
Visually it’s the head fuck you would hope and expect from a Gravitonas video. Especially for a single named ‘Religious’ – composed by a famously outspoken atheist. In it, Alexander Bard plays two parts – a therapist guiding a confused patient, and a new age deity out with his muse. Andreas portrays said patient and muse, and as with the last video and Gravitonas’ live performance at Love Stockholm earlier this summer, he’s an utterly striking presence. There’s one certain sequence where he excels in particular – his evil glare turned gurn turned growl from the 3:05 mark until the 3:10 mark is possibly the defining shot in the vid.
But our favourite scenes are two wonderfully twisted moments near the end. Firstly, as Alexander and Andreas are walking towards the sea, there is a moment when their hands almost touch and hold each other, only for them to turn away at the last second. And then there’s the part where we see why they’re walking towards and entering the water – Alexander in the incarnation of a priest baptises Andreas! Brilliant! Religiously so.
In what is far too much of a rarity these days, here’s Velvet doing a televised performance. It’s from her participation in a music festival/contest in Poland at the weekend, and it’s the first time we’ve seen her sing ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’, the Hi-NRJ Ultravox cover from her second album, ‘The Queen’.
It’s a competent vocal, and the whole thing is made all the more fabulous by the fact that she’s DRESSED AS A BRIDE! Mini-dress and funky veil ahoy. And as an added bonus, she looks like she’s having the time of her life too – our favourite part is at around the three minute mark when she has a triumphant club to her own song!
Our love for this woman and her music is well documented on these pages. But if you’ve ever wondered why, just take a look at the below;
Today’s Polar Music Prize ceremony saw Björk as the recipient. And to mark the occasion, Robyn was called upon to perform a cover of (our favourite) Björk hit, ‘Hyperballad’.
Few would be able to rise to such a challenge, especially with Björk sat right there in the audience. AND the Swedish royal family! But Robyn put in an absolutely killer performance. It’s stunning, and just the sort of moment in music that we, quite frankly, LIVE FOR! She gets it all right. The tenderness at the beginning and the emotional spazz-out at the end. Remarkable.
And on a side note, weren’t both Robyn and Björk wearing lovely frocks too?!
A disgruntled reader, doubling as a Tove Styrke fan, has kindly alerted us to a remix of ‘Million Pieces’, in the hope that we’ll finally catch up with the rest of the world and start liking the song.
And it’s worked! The Familjen remix is now available to stream on Spotify (as always though, we can’t confirm if this is the case outside of Sweden, but we hope for your sake that it is!). And we’re liking it an awful lot. The remix takes all of the quirky instrumentation of the original, and fuses it with dance beats. And it all works SO much better as a dance track. The music and vocals which (to our ears) sounded irritatingly jarring in the original, sound absolutely smashing in the remix. So good in fact, that it doesn’t sound like a remix – it sounds like it could be a standard radio edit of a single (if that makes sense). It’s now firmly in our ‘gems’ playlist on Spotify!
Phew!
We’ll post a link on here as and when it appears on youtube/soundcloud/online.
The delectably different Björk is back with a new song recorded especially for the soundtrack of the forthcoming film from The Moomins.
We have a love/hate relationship with Björk. We used to absolutely love her, and the majority of her music. The likes of ‘Hyperballad’, ‘Batchelorette’, ‘Pagan Poetry’, ‘Joga’, ‘All Is Full Of Love’ and ‘Unravel’ are all absolutely spectacular moments. And albums like ‘Post’ and ‘Homogenic’ are still enjoyable listens. But she hasn’t released anything that we’ve liked for almost a decade. A WHOLE DECADE. The last time she released something that made us go wow, was ‘Pagan Poetry’, from the ‘Vespertine’ album. But practically everything since then has been……..well……….just NOISE really. Incoherent, unenjoyable, and dare we say self obsessed, NOISE! There isn’t actually a single ”song” on either of her last two albums, ‘Medulla’ or ‘Volta’. As a fan, patience does tend to wear a bit thin where Björk is concerned. But her past glories have been so amazing that we still clas ourselves as one, and still get excited whenever any hint of new music is announced.
Which brings us to the new song, ‘The Comet Song’. Well unfortunately, it’s firmly in the ‘Volta’ camp. There ain’t a melody there no matter how hard we listen and strain our necks! Not a single one. But it’s fine, it’s just her doing her current thing we guess.
Great Björk will be back one day, we just know it!
This is released on UK iTunes on September 5th.
Oh, and incidentally, Björk will be the recipient of the Polar Music Prize on Monday. And at the ceremony, Robyn will be performing ‘Hyperballad’! *scream*
So, it’s time for a new single from Jenny Berggren. She’s following up the spectacular ‘Here I Am’ (still love that song) with ‘Gotta Go’. Released on September 15th, it preceeds the album ‘My Story’, which will come out on October 13th.
And what does it sound like?
Well……it’s quite pop/rock, but then it’s also quite dance too. At times it sounds like a Max Martin produced Kelly Clarkson song, and then it sounds like an electro house remix from a European dance floor this summer. It works very well though, and the prospect of an album from her is even more exciting now that we’ve heard how great the first two singles have been. And we’re still in love with that voice of hers, even after all these years!
Follow @scandipop for the latest scandipop updates.
@JLucas86 A 'hit' in Sweden is too difficult to define these days! In AOB's case, it's too early to guess until seeing their promo schedule. - posted on 10/09/2010 16:20:22
Ace of Base have revealed that a UK release of their new material probably won't happen until next year, and a US release until next summer. - posted on 10/09/2010 16:06:49
*scream* Just been sent the Ola album! Will listen and review over the weekend. - posted on 10/09/2010 15:49:35
Annikafiore goes through her Alcazar wardrobe in her blog at http://www.annikafiore.com Nice to hear she has fond memories of her time with them. - posted on 10/09/2010 14:08:28
