Sweden – Page 3 – Fingertips

Free and legal MP3: Centimeter (melodic, synth-pop-like guitar rock)

If Depeche Mode had lightened things up a bit and laid off the synthesizers, they might’ve sounded something like this.

“Motorhead” – Centimeter

Elegant and elegiac, “Motorhead” has the sweet sad momentum of an old synth-pop anthem and yet—it takes a while to realize this—there aren’t really a lot of synthesizers here. This is mostly guitar rock, even though that fact is skillfully disguised by the pounding of a piano-like keyboard and the strategic use of glockenspiel in the introduction. And then maybe the coolest misdirection of all is the human drummer here who mimics an electronic beat but is indeed an actual person (Henrik Holmlund, to be specific) with drum sticks.

Even though the lyrics are in English and are understandable word by word (if not thought by thought), I am not sure where the title comes from and whether it has anything to do with a) the old metal band Motörhead or b) the Hawkwind song “Motorhead” that inspired the band’s name in the first place or c) Lemmy Kilmister, who wrote the song while in the latter band but later founded the former band. I do know that the lyrical climax is at once jarring and potent, which is when the initial lyric “Before the time has come/And we end up in bed” (0:59) is altered one minute later to “Before the time has come/And we all end up dead.” I also know that singer Johan Landin has a wonderful, effortless baritone, hitting the elusive sweet spot between blasé and theatrical. If Depeche Mode had lightened things up a bit and laid off the synthesizers, they might’ve sounded something like this.

Centimeter is a Stockholm-based foursome who have been together since 2004. Their first album, recorded in Swedish, was self-released in 2006. “Motorhead” is from their first English-language album, expected out later this year. MP3 via the band. They haven’t gotten much attention yet in the blogosphere so spread the word on this one.

Free and legal MP3: Marie Lalá (smoothly integrated Spector beat)

A splendid little song, incorporating the seminal Spector beat, that’s somehow both more and less quirky than it might at first seem. Yeah I don’t know how that works either.

“Mrs. Sleepyhead” – Marie Lalá

I must first confess, or re-confess, that I am an absolute sucker for the Phil Spector beat, in just about any way it can sneak into a song. As is often the case, we hear it here right away, as the drum and bass in unison begin “Mrs. Sleepyhead” with that unmistakable rhythm: DUM! dum-dum; BOOM (or however one can best write that out; just think of the opening to “Be My Baby” and you’re there). It’s a mystery, where it came from, why it’s so perpetually affecting, and what on earth the world must have been like without it. All those thousands of years, without that beat. Staggers the imagination.

Anyway, so here we go again (DUM! dum-dum; BOOM) and in this case not ensconced in echoey melodrama, and therefore more intriguingly absorbed and defused as the song requires. The first shift happens at 0:20 when the bass breaks rank from the drumbeat, going on a little run that leads straight into the entrance of the electric guitar, the distinctively picked arpeggios of which distract the ear from the precise moment when the Spector beat gives way. As it clearly has by the chorus. The prickly guitar line remains but now the song around it swings and sways in a most luscious way, thanks to how the melody keeps waiting for the fourth beat in the measure to complete itself. The chorus is a marvel of smooth motion—me, I can’t keep my body still when I’m listening to it. All in all a splendid little song that’s somehow both more and less quirky than it might at first seem. Yeah I don’t know how that works either.

Marie Lalá (unused last name: Nilsson) is a Swedish singer/songwriter pretty much brand new to the world at large. According to her bio, she “is a former aerialist who now works with rope access on oil rigs in the North Sea.” Could be true, could be parody; we have so often rubbed out the fine line separating the two that I mostly give up trying to differentiate. “Mrs. Sleepyhead” is a track from her forthcoming debut EP, Search of Sound, which will be released next month via Platform of Joy.

Free and legal MP3: Theresa Andersson (splendid, haunting amalgam)

What makes Andersson’s music so potent is that she has by now been living in New Orleans longer than she lived in her native country. She has absorbed both environments and is coming out swinging here. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

“What Comes Next” – Theresa Andersson

With its unconventional use of brass band and snare drum, “What Comes Next” quickly announces its boundary-free musical identity, blending traditional New Orleans sounds with an outlier sensibility that attentive listeners may just be able to link to Andersson’s home country of Sweden. Not that Sweden–with arguably the richest and most significant rock’n’roll history of any non-English-speaking country—has just one way of doing rock’n’roll. But from the outside looking in, one can hear generalized ideas and sensibilities that feel musically Swedish. What makes Andersson’s music so potent is that she has by now been living in New Orleans longer than she lived in her native country. She has absorbed both environments and is coming out swinging here. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

I love how she works the martial drum work into a song that glides and swings so smoothly. I love the eccentric punctuation provided by the loose/tight horn section (very NOLA). And I love the swaying hook of the romantic chorus, which sounds like nothing the introduction or the verse of this song has prepared us for, musically, and yet once heard, it’s exactly where we should be. Peter Moren, of Peter Bjorn and John, provides some multi-faceted backing vocals here, often of the fetching octave-harmony variety.

Andresson has been in New Orleans since 1991, when, at 18, she moved there to be with guitarist Anders Osborne both musically and personally. To date she is probably best known for the one-woman-band video she made for her song “Na Na Na,” which to me better shows off her appealing personality than her songwriting. You can add to the more than one million views it’s gotten if you haven’t already, below. (Note that she made the video for potential venues, so they would know what to expect from her loop-oriented performances. She was not trying to go viral.) “What Comes Next” is the first available song from Andersson’s forthcoming album, Street Parade, arriving in April on the New Orleans-based Basin Street Records.

Free and legal MP3: Johan Agebjörn (with Sally Shapiro) (nimble, ravishing neo-italo-disco)

Tasteful, exquisitely crafted, melodic, and pleasantly melodramatic, “Casablanca Nights” plays like the soundtrack to a movie made in the near future about the fading past.

Johan Agebjorn

“Casablanca Nights” – Johan Agebjörn (with Sally Shapiro)

I have no particular feelings either way for the sub-genre of italo-disco, but I do have a huge music-crush on the exquisitely crafted, pleasantly melodramatic neo-italo-disco work done together by the Swedish producer Johan Agebjörn and the singer known as Sally Shapiro. (They have been featured here twice previously, both for songs credited to Sally Shapiro, which has also been the name of their duo.)

“Casablanca Nights” plays like the soundtrack to a movie made in the near future about the fading past. Agebjörn specializes in melding a shiny, club-like expansiveness with a bittersweet sort of introspection. Some of this effect is due to the airy brilliance of Shapiro’s vocals, but a lot of the music’s depth of spirit comes from Agebjörn’s deft arrangement. In what is almost an aural illusion, he here crafts a driving dance beat out of nothing that’s actually moving with any particular drive or power. Many of his individual motifs are slow, even tentative—a compact, haunting synth line here, a desultory guitar line there, and to cap it off a jazzy noodle of an electric piano solo. The only sustained, powerful drumming we hear is the in-retrospect-ironic pounding that opens the song and lasts all of three or four seconds. In many ways “Casablanca Nights” is a glittering mirage.

And what about that chorus? Almost breathtaking, it effects its magic in large part via a shifting sense of tonal center—each new lyrical line, every four measures, starts from a place either a half step below or a half step above the previous line’s start point. A half step change in this context sounds ravishing and theatrical. Don’t miss also the marvelous effect of the male vocal singing the same note as Shapiro (might be Agebjörn, not sure), blending so nimbly as to sound more like an aural shadow than a separate voice.

“Casablanca Nights” is the title track to first album Agebjörn has released under his own name. Shapiro (alas!) does not sing on every track (just four of 11); he has brought in a variety of other artists to help him with the others. The album came out last week on Paper Bag Records. MP3 via Paper Bag.

Free and legal MP3: Niki and the Dove (dark yet resplendent synth pop from Sweden)

At once sludgy and resplendent, “The Fox” thunders and sparkles, blending darkness and light in a most uncommon and indelible way.

Niki and the Dove

“The Fox” – Niki and the Dove

At once sludgy and resplendent, “The Fox” thunders and sparkles, blending darkness and light in a most uncommon and indelible way. Rock’n’roll advances rarely via the bolts from the blue most critics and bloggers seem to demand, much more often through absorption, and there is something in “The Fox” that reverberates with a number of classic influences, from Kate Bush (the fox reference is just part of it) and Siouxsie Sioux and Björk to David Bowie and Radiohead. This is good stuff. Theatrical too. Equal effort is paid here to catch the ear—to be “pop,” essentially—and to challenge it. Check out that abrupt segue between the lighthearted glissando that opens the song and the chunky, lagging, deep-voiced guitar (or guitar-like sound; no guitarist is associated with the band) it bumps into. That’s part of what the whole piece is about—interesting, off-kilter, carefully constructed musical moments, hung onto a sturdy framework of melodic and synthetic know-how. The song has great flow—it really pulls me in—and yet nearly any slice of it, all the way through, has its own singular DNA. Did I mention this is really good stuff?

Niki and the Dove is a Stockholm duo, featuring Malin Dahlström and Gustaf Karlöf, founded in February 2010. There have been no albums released to date; the band, furthermore, seems inclined to mystery and minimal information. What can be said is that they signed with Sub Pop in March, and “The Fox” is the first Sub Pop single. While the label is coy about it, there does appear to be an EP—also entitled The Fox —on the way in June.

Free and legal MP3: This Year’s Model (Swedish band w/ lean & worthy sound)

This Year’s Model is a Swedish band that does not sound like a Swedish band, even though there is no one way a Swedish band sounds.

This Year's Model

“No Miracles” – This Year’s Model

Brisk and anthemic, “No Miracles” launches into place via a Stax Records beat, all bass and drums (and yeah there’s a keyboard somewhere in there too). Within six seconds, front man Niklas Gustafsson joins in; he’s got that Martin Fry-like gravitas/melodrama thing going. His breathing is part of his singing. The melodies seem all tops and bottoms. “No Miracles” quickly and unassumingly establishes a presence, a central core of lean and worthy sound; we are paying attention; this is sneaky good stuff.

And then the chorus: pure pay dirt, with its descending-melody hooks, at once plaintive and powerful, and its mixture of blurred and concrete lyrics that both grab your ear and leave you guessing. This Year’s Model is a Swedish band that does not sound like a Swedish band, even though there is no one way a Swedish band sounds. The quintet seemingly takes its name from Elvis Costello but doesn’t imitate him in any apparent way; they make music, instead, that has learned from him—perhaps the truest tribute of all.

“No Miracles” is from the band’s second album, We Walk Like Ghosts, released in February on Marsh-Marigold Records. MP3 via the band’s site. Thanks to visitor Gustav for the lead.

Free and legal MP3: Jeniferever (complex & alluring Swedish rock)

A Swedish band that sounds more like an Icelandic band—that is to say, drifting and expansive versus kicky and ironic (and yeah, I know: generalizations; oh well!)—Jeniferever plays with a lilting sort of precision that seems well-suited to the grey icy whiteness that many of us have been looking at out our windows for the weeks on end.

Jeniferever

“Waifs and Strays” – Jeniferever

The song derives its elusive power from its hidden-in-plain-sight 3/4 time signature. The pace is steady and deliberate, like a 4/4 song, without any waltz-like clue that we’re in three. Blame drummer Frederik Aspelin on the seductive misdirection; after staying aligned with beats one and two he rushes ahead and then behind the third beat before the ear quite recognizes it, creating a hypnotic, syncopated flow where more typically we get the prosaic ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. The verse melody then works complexly in and around this already complex approach to the basic time signature; singer Kristofer Jönson here does not once sing a melody aligned with the basic beat (“Fight to find the balance in between,” he sings, at one point). And this is exactly why the chorus floods us with grace, beginning with that wondrous four-note guitar lead-in (1:18), which seems literally to launch us into another plain of awareness. In the chorus, the melody at last surrenders to the beat the song had otherwise resisted. It feels just about transcendent, all the more so as the chorus otherwise remains unresolved. The big moment is the moment that appears to be leading to a bigger moment but actually doesn’t.

“Waifs and Strays” is a song from the quartet’s new album, Silesia, only its third full-length in 15 years of existence. (Not to date them or anything but the band is named after an early Smashing Pumpkins song.) It will be released on Monotreme Records in April. Thanks to Monotreme for permission to host the MP3. And thanks to Largehearted Boy for the head’s up on the song.

Free and legal MP3: The Concretes (atmospheric indie pop, w/ a dance beat)

“Good Evening” – the Concretes

I am a long song skeptic; I don’t think there is often a very good reason for a pop song to be much longer than four minutes, in fact. Usually things are just repeating themselves at that point, or stretching on without apparent purpose. And yet I’ll admit I’m also a fan of music that might be considered atmospheric, and now that I think about it, atmospheric music almost by definition requires a certain amount of time and space to develop. Do I contradict myself? (My iTunes library is large, it contains multitudes.)

“Good Evening” is six and a half minutes. It takes its time. There is a groove involved. There are interesting sounds (try 0:34 on for size, or 1:22, or those background springy percussion noises at 1:28). A sense of tension is established—a combination of the beat, the restrained instrumentation, and a determination to stay focused on two chords—and extends well past the two-minute mark. This is not something that you can do in a three-minute song. Another thing you can’t do in a three-minute song is take a one-minute recess during which the rhythm and beat stop, most of the instruments leave, and the percussion reduces to something that sounds like swinging, amplified footsteps. Check that out starting at 4:00. Now, admittedly, longer songs are common when there’s a dance beat involved—the club ambiance requiring a totally different musical animal than, say, a radio, or even an iPod. That “Good Evening” manages to bridge that gap, bringing a bit of club-floor panache to something that works as an actual song, is a good part of its well-built allure.

An eight-piece band from Stockholm, the Concretes have been around in one incarnation or another since 1995, although didn’t start recording albums until 2003. “Good Evening” has been making the online rounds for a few months, but is actually from the brand new album WYWH, which was released just this week on Friendly Fire Recordings. It is the band’s fourth full-length. MP3 via Friendly Fire.

Free and legal MP3: Jenny Wilson (idiosyncratic Swede)

“Hardships (Gospel Version)” – Jenny Wilson

I am a fan of strange songs with hooks, which no doubt explains my fondness for Tom Waits, Jane Siberry, and They Might Be Giants, among others. Knowing how to be both weird and catchy is rare gift—it requires both smarts and humor—and surely weeds out both the uninformed and the formulaic.

No stranger to idiosyncrasy—her first band’s first release was named “worst album of the year” by a major Swedish rock magazine, according to Allmusic.com—Jenny Wilson sings and arranges with whimsy and determination and little concern for convention. While grounding her songs somewhere within an R&B-like setting, Wilson has no apparent interest in creating either an Amy Winehouse-style homage or a Dirty Projectors-esque deconstruction. Lord knows where the marimba came from but it works, as does the back-and-forth tension between the semi-minimalist verse and the (almost) sing-along chorus. The chorus is in fact one big inscrutable delight, both sticking in your head and continually running from it: there’s the hook-y moment at the beginning, with the words “If I…,” but see how it tails off into lyrics that are difficult to follow and the musical equivalent of a run-on sentence. It’s very engaging somehow.

“Hardships!” is the name of Wilson’s first U.S. release, which came out in late August on her own Gold Medal Recordings label. (The album was previously released in Europe in 2009.) This so-called “gospel version” of the title track is the only free and legal MP3 available so far; it has a slightly different instrumental accompaniment than the original and augments her multi-tracked voice with forceful, gospel-choir-ish backing vocals that replace a prominent violin that is now nowhere to be heard. MP3 via IAMSOUND Records, which is distributing the album’s first single, “Like a Fading Rainbow” (good song too); “Hardships (Gospel Version)” is the b-side.

Free and legal MP3: Sambassadeur (shiny, cinematic Swedish pop)

“I Can Try” – Sambassadeur

At first (aural) glance, “I Can Try” succeeds nicely as a sweeping piece of orchestrated twee pop. Which is almost just fine. Except for the fact that each time I go back to listen, things get more complicated and unusual-sounding. To begin with, what’s with the drumming? You’ve got the snare going full-blast, but delivering that shuffled up third beat—especially pronounced in the chorus, it happens throughout the song, and, in combination with that unrelenting double-time high-hat, creates a chugging rhythm that simultaneously barrels forward and hesitates.

Then there’s the melody, which is certainly as sweet-sad as the genre requires, and yet there’s something more to it. The melody in both the verse and the chorus is a nice long line, the verse melody resolving with an upward tilt while the chorus offers a steady downward release. But here’s an odd thing: the melody in the chorus extends for nine measures, which is not only unusual but difficult. Typically pop songs are constructed around sets of four measures or eight measures. It’s what the music often demands and our ears almost always expect. Here an extra measure sneaks in without causing the slightest fuss. And yet somewhere deep down we sense something’s off balance. That’s not very twee. The orchestration likewise isn’t quite what it seems. We hear strings near the beginning and think, “Oh, of course.” But it’s a string quartet, not a string section, and they spend more time stabbing staccato riffs than bowing maudlin flourishes. And when the horns arrive—the horns must always arrive—it’s a saxophone. Whatever became of the saxophone, anyway?

“I Can Try” is from the third Sambassadeur album, Europeans, released on Labrador Records in February. The Gothenburg-based quartet has been previously featured on Fingertips twice, once for each of its first two albums, in 2005 and in 2007. MP3 via Labrador.