Nat Johnson and the Figureheads will release the third single from their first album “Roman Radio” on March 8th. The A-side is “Wasted, and the B-side is an exclusive new song, “Padre Volante”, a song about the Brazillian priest who went missing during an attempt at cluster ballooning on April 20, 2008. The single will be released on limited edition 7″ and digital.

The video for the a-side is already available. It is produced by Alan Burchell and Rob Langley-Jones, and you can see it here:

I would like to recommend an album that I have spent many hours listening to the last weeks.

A while ago I pre-ordered The Abramson Singers‘ beautiful debut album from the label, and since it’s a digital-only release, I was allowed to download it at once. Just before the weekend it was officially released from the Canadian label White Whale Records, and if you like folky music with great vocals, you should get this. This is a really good indie-folk album, – lots of great songs and a wonderful atmosphere.

The Abramson Singers is in fact only Leah Abramson, and it all started when she as a member of Dyad developed tendonitis in her wrist three years ago. Unable to write songs on guitar, she borrowed an 8-track and started recording a cappella vocal pieces under the name The Abramson Singers. Now her wrist has healed and she has started playing guitar again, which we can hear on the album. The vocals on the album is sometimes layered in up to 8 part harmonies, and the opening track is an a cappella.

Here’s a track for you, “Fool’s Gold”:

The Abramson Singers – Fool’s Gold

Sharon Van Etten may have made my favourite song so far this year, with her amazingly beautiful new song “Love more”. I know it’s far too early to start with “best of’s”, but this song has really made an impression on me. The song is made for “Shaking through“, a music series run by the Weathervane organization (read more about this project here, well worth a visit).

I first heard it a week or two ago, when they premiered the video over at the Weathervane site. Since then, I’ve been back several times just to listen again. Finally, they have decided to release this as a free mp3, and I am so happy to be able to share this with you. “Love More” is sung and performed with so much feeling, and at least for me, this is music I listen to not only with my ears, but with the whole of me. It’s (in Van Etten’s own words) like a “river of harmonies”.

Sharon Van Etten’s music has impressed me before, – first with her home recordings and then with the wonderful 2009 album “because I was in love”, both highly recommended (buy from her website).

Here is the mp3 of the song, and below is the documentary video of Sharon Van Etten recording it:

Sharon Van Etten – Love More (from http://weathervanemusic.squarespace.com/)

Shaking Through: Sharon Van Etten from Weathervane Music on Vimeo.

Matinée recordings have had a wonderful start of the year, with an outstanding release from Northern Portrait, a very fine label compilation and an ep from Pale Sunday, but the one that I without doubt have enjoyed the most of these albums, is from the Swedish brothers in The Electric Pop Group.

Their second album is titled “Seconds”(!), with a large clock on the cover. This is also their second release for Matinée, who didn’t release their debut, but who gave us a wonderful “Sunrise EP”, in 2008. The title “Seconds” should be fitting for this band, I guess…

“Seconds” have 10 very strong songs, and I really can’t find a single song that I don’t like here. Beautiful pop all the way through.
Songwriter and singer Erik Aamot has a voice and a sense of melody that touches me deeply, – and I guess that is quite rare these days. His singing can maybe be compared to the melodic and jangly (but very clean) guitar-playing, – it’s always moving and always changing, but very, very smoothly, – almost floating through my ears.

The strong melodies have always been a part of the Aamot-brothers’ music, also on their 2006 debut, but the 2010 version is much more confident and consistent. Their influences are still easy to point out, but not as obvious as on their debut. People who like bands like The Field Mice, Brighter, Harper Lee and The Smiths will clearly hear references in the sound of EPG, but in 2010 the band sound much more like a band with their own style and their own sound.  I guess more young bands today easily could say that they are inspired by “The Electric Pop Group-sound”.
It may be pointed out that more variations in the guitar-sounds could have made the album more interesting, but in a way I feel that it also would have destroyed much of the strong feeling they have managed to create on the album. I’m very satisfied with it as it has become.

Brothers Martin and Erik Aamot have a very special way of sharing their band-duties between them. Erik writes almost every song, while Martin plays almost all the instruments (guitar, bass, keyboards, tambourine, drum programming and additional vocals). I guess this is a time-consuming process, but it also gives the album a very worked-through feeling.

“Seconds” is available to buy from Matinée’s own webshop, and also digitally on most digital music shops + spotify.

Here are a couple of good ones from “Seconds”:

The Electric Pop Group – Not by another

The Electric Pop Group – The way it used to do

The Swedish label Songs I Wish I Had Written informs us that MotoBoy has released a new single, “The Heart Is A Rebel“. It’s the first song to see the light from the forthcoming album “Lost In The Call”, released March 3.

The new Moto Boy single can be downloaded for free (which in the new world of promotion equals your email-address) at MotoBoy’s website.