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Remember to change your links to:

Swedesplease (http://www.swedesplease.net)

This may be your last chance

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Fancy Fruit is a newly formed ultra lo-fi band (with a sick sense of humor). "All I Need" is the most NSFW song I've ever posted, I'm blushing just sitting here. I was wondering how I could possibly describe it. Then I gave up.

"Kvarnen Vs. Carmen" is a more along the lines of the lofi twee that I'm familiar with. The song seems to be about which pub to stay at and it has a funky little keyboard part as well as plenty of guitar strumming.

[mp3] Fancy Fruit - "All I Need"
[mp3] Fancy Fruit - "Kvarnen Vs. Carmen"

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments

Anna Frank is a state sponsored, hermetically sealed, "experimental" artist. She's been given a push by both Export Sweden and P4 (Swedish Public Radio). Her 2006 album Discovery is in the vein of Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. I know it sounds like I don't like it, but I'm much more ambivalent than that. I can't find anything in these songs to hang my hat on; not a turn of phrase or a piece of music.

Anna Frank is working on her sophomore effort as we speak. This is an artist that with the right production and the right material could be a an important part of the Swedish scene.

Orchids

"Directions" video



MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

(Stockholm based artist Marcus Nyblom)

The big announcement is I got fed up with blogger and have moved the site to Wordpress and my own server. The new URL for Swedesplease is:

Swedesplease (http://www.swedesplease.net)

I'm still working on a few things but in general everything works.

SO PLEASE CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS - SEE YOU OVER THERE!!

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Lots of the same old same old on the Swedish intertubes this week. Lots of Jens, Club 8, and PB&J. Very few blogs went out on a limb to discover something new. Here's a couple that did.


Here Comes The Flood has a couple of songs from the new Penny Century record on Letterbox Records.

Ederblog has some tunes from Sweden's most accomplished slide-guitarist Richard Krantz.

Gutterbreakz discovers skweee.


MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's been a little over a week since my last swede-influenced-by Neil Young post. But with the impending release of Happiness by Markus Orn it's time for another post about a Swedish singer-songwriter clearly in love with The Band, Neil Young, Magnolia Electric Company and even artists American(a) acts as obscure as J. Tilman and Damien Jurado.

"Sunday, 2 AM" was literally recorded this past Sunday (the 16th) and posted to the band's MySpace page on the 18th. It's rough with a bit of distortion peaking around the edges, but the vibe is supposed to be loose. The guitar solos ring true as do Markus' upper register vocals.

Sunday, 2 AM

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments

Ever wonder what Jens Lekman would sound like as part of a thumping club track that mixes the c64 skweee sound with solid bass and punctuated with cascading electronics. Wonder no longer, as Jens has collaborated with Swedish producer/hip hop artist Kocky on the song "Be Part" off of Kocky's new record Kingdome Came (buy it here).

Be Part

Kocky Feat. Roseanne



MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments

Parker Lewis is an all time Swedesplease favorite (here and here). That's based on an output of about 5 songs over the past three years (not the most prolific bloke). Parker Lewis has a new 3 song ep coming out on Cloudberry this week (Sept 21). It's a 3 song affair featuring the year old track "Dirty Dancing".

Parker Lewis fits the mold of some other Swedesplease favorites noticeably Kalle J, Montt Mardie, Don Agbai and Pelle Carlberg .

There will be an even newer, "real" ep to be released in the next month or so on the new label Mad For It. Here's "Dirty Dancing" from the Cloudberry ep. The song's a breezy tale of longing for that special someone, with a tinkly toy chime interspersed between the soft layered indie pop.

Dirty Dancing

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I don't know what the hell he's saying on his blog Emodreng & Indiepige but the quality of his selections are second to none. E&I's been going for 9 months but I just only now found it, I hope you don't wait as long as I did to discover this great blog. They've also great a great t-shirt for sale which brings me to the Swedesplease shirt situation. It's been a while since I sold one and frankly I'm not even sure the link is working. So buy a shirt today and I'll throw in a new cd to the first 5 orders. The t-shirt ordering info is all the way at the bottom of the site (sorry blogger's still f***ed up).

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

Testbild! have announced the title and the concept behind their new record, Une Teinte Intense. The record has the unifying theme of addressing the life of Isabelle Eberhardt (a fascinating revolutionary woman who lived in Norther Africa). "In the Moorish Cafe" is a deceiving song that comes on like a breezy pop tune but then is undercut by ominous bass, Northern African guitar accents and Moroccan drumming. What seemed for once to be conventional song from Testbild!, turned out to be a decidedly different venture with the song at times moving in three different directions at once.

You can pre-order the new record directly from Friendly Noise here.



In The Moorish Cafe

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

Swedesplease is going to take a one day holiday from posting to soak up this excellent piece of press about us in The Guardian. "Influential" Swedish music blogging to continue tomorrow.

Here's an excerpt:

"Only in this weird and wonderful digital age could a village in Illinois provide one of the most influential (lol) players in the Swedish music scene. But that's exactly what US blogger Craig Bonnell is becoming, thanks to his Swede-centric MP3 blog (http://www.swedesplease.blogspot.com). Bonnell's ear is so close to the far-flung Scandinavian ground that he's usually among the first to write about hot Swedish acts."

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

(Art by Ahren)

if:mv has the new video of the song "Test" from Little Dragon (oh I'm jealous they beat me to this one?!)

What Became Of The Likely Broads has the Pipette-like all girl group Those Dancing Days!

Familjen has done a new video for his song"Det Snurrar i Min Skalle", Panda Toes has this great electro nugget for us today.

Mp3Hugger has the new Cloudberry single from Hari and Aino.

And last but not least Discobelle has the new single (and the remix) from Matt Kats (formerly Cat Burglar). It's called "No Sleep Until Shoreditch."


MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments

Fiktion straddles the border between organic electronic music and something more experimental and avant garde. This is far from the electronic dance music that I often post about here but not that far removed from something like Detektivbyran. You can download the entire record on the excellent netlabel on Frukt.

Ruddalen
Det Ar Lungt

P.S. I have not changed the layout of Swedesplease, in fact I haven't changed the settings for weeks but I woke up this morning with an all new layout in both Firefox and Safari. I actually don't mind the new look, what do you think? Needs some tweaking though. It'll probably revert back to the old format soon. Right? I hope.

MP3, Music

Posted by Craig at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments