Aaaaargh! I have just spent an hour writing a very good review of this fantastic album from swedish Punk of Country, and just when I was about to publish it, it just disappeared. “Log in”, it said. Aaaarrrgh! It helps on my angry mood to listen to the album once again, I guess, - because this is music that helps to wash bad days away. When I first opened the envelope from the band, I thought “weird name, cool cover”, but after listening to a couple of songs, I thought “Wow! I like this one!!!!”. Punk of Country’s music is not punk nor country, but it sure has the energy of punk… and maybe also the feelings of country? I’m not fully sure about the last one…. Anyway, - it is highly melodic guitar-pop with youthful energy and a confident attitude that we rarely hear from debutants.

I especially like the way they dare to mix genres and styles. Most of this album is upbeat pop, but there are also some really interesting downtempo songs in here. The melancholic “to never be truly happy” and especially the amazingly beautiful piano-track “you are numb” shows the calmer side of the band. My favourites are the naively nostalgic lookback at an 80s childhood in “my happy days”. Very simple, but so effective. I am also fascinated by the ending track “there’s no pollution in sight”, where the band has made an arrangement where three totally different parts work perfectly together, - from the high energy start, via the chord-based slowrock mid-part to the ambient ending. They are even polite enough to say bye-bye, sleep well…

I can’t find any bad songs on this debut, - some are more anonymous than others, but all in all every song is of great quality.

This is a great album. Buy it. Support the band. Make them huge! (they are in my eyes and ears already…)

Here’s a couple of songs from the album and a link to the band’s website.

Punk of Country - my happy days
Punk of Country - stop talk just fall
Punk of Country - yes I go away

Fans of Bristol’s Gravenhurst will have a lot to look forward to these days. Nick Talbot and his band will release a new album in October and a single in september, and the sound is said to be different than on his previous releases. His former bandmember Paul Nash, who recently quit Gravenhurst, is spending much of his time with his new band North Sea Navigator. NSN will release their debutalbum “make the blacklist” in November, and I am sure that this music will be well received by people who like his old band. Beautiful, calm and ‘autumny’ music. North Sea Navigator is a trio with a quite unusual instrumentation: Paul (guitars/vox), Chip (cello/vox), Tim (harmonium/drums/vox). (The picture shows Paul, I think)
North sea navigator has a website here. They have four songs available on their myspace site.
Gravenhurt has a website here and a personal blog for Nick Talbot here.

North Sea Navigator - make the blacklist
North Sea Navigator - sway to the drone
Gravenhurst - The diver

This is so beautiful…
Mugison - What I would say in your funeral

“Quit +/or fight” is the strange title on Floridas indie/folk/rock/country-band Holopaw’s new album on SubPop records. As with their first self-titled album “holopaw”, this is a collection of delicate and intimate songs, but as where I found the first album a bit up and down in quality, I find this one very consistent.
“Quit +/ or fight” has become a poetic record, both in words and music. The lyrics are especially worth mentioning, - nothing has been done fast and easy here. This is like reading a collection of great poems. Musically, nothing disturbes the atmosphere the band starts to build up from track one. Although they often vary from acoustic ballads to almost uptempo folk-rock tracks, it all fits together. On “holopaw”, their first album, I felt that the feeling of melancholy was dominant. On this one, there is a more optimistic feeling, - not exactly happy, but never sad.

The instrumentation is kept on a minimum, - only what is needed are used. Most songs are built around John Orth’s distinctive half-trembeling vocals, some sparse drum tapping, the plucking on an acoustic guitar and a very melodically played bass guitar. These instruments are rarely played all together, but comes in and out through the song. Only bass and vocals together works fine! I also like what Holopaw does with rythms and dynamics. The songs builds up almost unnoticable, but all the changes inside the music seem very thought through. - Clever!

There are lots of highlights on this album, but I have to mention “Curious”. It comes like a blessing with all its beauty. Other favourites are the uptempo “3 shy cubs”, the lovely folk-pop opening “Losing light”,the Red House Painters-like “holiday” and the minimalistic “Needle in the sway”. Well done!

Just found an interesting mp3 and an interesting artist: Marc Hellner. His music can be described as a mixture of electronica and organic, acoustic music with beautiful hushed vocals on top of it. Hellner will release his new album ‘marriages’ on Peacefrog in the middle of this month, and from what I’ve heard on his website, this is really interesting music. Marc Hellner’s name may for some of you be familiar as one half of the Chicagoan audio-visual artists Pulseprogramming, or as a touring member of L’Altra. He says himself that he “writes too much music for just one project”. Marriages is Hellner’s debut solo album.
Marc Hellner’s website
The Pulseprogramming project
Peacefrog labelsite

Here’s a track from his album for you to download:
Marc Hellner - handshaking
and on the website, you can listen to several other tracks as streams.