I’ve kept my eyes and ears on everything Sweden’s Ella Blixt does as an artist ever since I started this blog over 3 years ago. Actually, I think one of my first posts were about her solo-project Ella Glockenspiel, which later evolved into Bobby Baby.
She’s always been a true musician, who lives for creating and experimenting with new sounds and new ways to make her wonderful creations come to life. Ella has also been one of the artists who really early understood the power of the internet, and she has released eps and given away free songs on her website for a long, long time.

Early this year, Ella released one of my favourite albums “Everybody loves…” together with German artist F.S. Blumm in the project Bobby & Blumm on Morr Music, and now she’s ready with another interesting album and another project. This time she has teamed up with Robert Kretzschmar from the band Lady Boy, and together the duo calls themselves It’s a Musical.

In Bobby and Blumm, Ella did all the singing, but in It’s a Musical, Robert also sings, which is really good. Two great voices, two great musicians, a lot of playfulness, really good songs… Could it be better?
It’s a Musical’s debut album “The Music Makes me sick” is a wonderful pop album, sometimes laid back, sometimes upbeat, sometimes slightly electronic, sometimes almost acoustic. Always beautiful.
The bad thing is that you will have to wait until October to get this one, but I can assure you that it’s worth the wait.

A nice detail for people who know the label Morr Music, is that the cover is made by Julia Guther, – the main woman behind the Morr-band Guther. It’s a Musical and Guther’s music is not very far from eachother. The album is recorded in Villa Qrella, which is Morr-related artist Masha Qrella and her band Contriva‘s studio. In other words, a real Morr Music-project, and a great one.

Here’s a nice bikeride of a video from It’s a musical’s debut album. The song is called “Bad Day”.
You can also download several demos from It’s a Musical on Bobby Baby’s website.

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About a month ago, I first heard the music of Smile Down Upon Us, an English/Japanese trio comprising Keiron Phelan, David Sheppard and moomLooo. The music struck me instantly with its beauty and “differentness”. It sounded like nothing I’ve heard before, yet it wasn’t strange or unfamiliar. I’m in some ways reminded of the sound of some modern, experimenting pop artists like Björk, Múm, Deerhoof or Tenniscoats, – but this is at the same time very different than all of them. Now, their self titled debut album is released through Static Caravan, and it has become a fantastic album of otherworldy qualities.

At first, I didn’t know that two of the three members of the band was the people behind one of my favourite albums, the beautiful “Harps old master” by Phelan Sheppard.
Together with moomLooo, the two make wonderful, interesting and at the same time quite accessible music. Half of the songs are in Japanese, the other half is in English.

The band came about when Keiron Phelan came across moomLooo’s myspace page and her recordings for the Japanese Clay label. He sent her a myspace-message, and she responded saying she admired his work too. Soon, they started sending ideas back and forth on the internet between Tokyo and London. Phelan Sheppard recorded guitars, banjos and ukuleles into ProTools, and moomLooo recorded electronics, field recordings and her wonderful vocals.
Phelan Sheppard and moomLooo worked together on the recordings for 14 months, but they never met eachother during the recording-process.

“It’s been a very mysterious process,” says Phelan. “I email moom all the time, but I know very little about her. I’ve never met her, never spoken to her. I don’t know how old she is or what she does for a living. None of the usual things. And I think we all found this an intriguing situation.”

Here’s a video for the Smile down upon us-song “Girl of a skin coloured blanket no. 2″, made by Hans Appelqvist, one of my favourite musicians and artists. More about the band + an mp3 after the video.

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The preparations for the Smile Down Upon Us concerts are equally interesting as their recording process. In Japan, moomLooo has been working with musicians to recreate the recorded songs into something that will work live. This will be the eastern version of Smile Down Upon Us. Phelan Sheppard and moomLooo will meet later this summer for some concerts, which will be the western version of Smile Down Upon Us…

“It would be quite something to have a Smile Down Upon Us (East) and a Smile Down Upon Us (West),” says Phelan. “Dave and I have never met or spoken to these musicians, don’t even know their names. But soon we’ll be able to look on YouTube and see them playing our songs! It’s a weird but pleasant feeling.”

The debut from Smile Down Upon Us (as well as Phelan Sheppard’s beautiful album) is highly recommended!

BTW: If you have read this far, and think this sound interesting, I have an extra copy of the album (bought it just before I received the promo). Send me an email with your address, and the first one who send me an email gets one.

Here’s my favourite song at the moment. The song is “Walk the Shame” by Pony the Pirate. The band contains eight members from different parts of Norway. Frontman and vocalist  Joakim Johannesen and rest of the band is moving to Oslo this autumn, and their goal is to release their debut album as soon as possible.

It took seven days from Pony the Pirate shared their little jewel – “Walk the Shame” on the radio program Urort on NRK, until it was listed for airplay on national radio. That’s quick!

Pony the Pirate – Walk the Shame (from NRK)

The Swedish glockenspiel´n´accordion trio Detektivbyrån has just finished their new album “Wermland”, which they call their debutalbum. I wondered a bit about this, because I already own an album called “E18″ from this band, but then I noticed that E18 was a compilation of all their eps. So, it probably is right to call Wermland their debut.

The album is recorded, mixed, mastered, financed and released by the band, and it will be out on their own label Danarkia on September the 3rd. You can pre-order now from their website, and all preorders will be signed by the band. Here are two mp3s from the album + a cool video of another track, “Generation Celebration” (It looks like it’s recorded in high speed, but it’s not, – it’s just Detektivbyrån…).
BTW, Värmland is an area in Sweden, and Wermland is the English word for the area.

Detektivbyrån -Om du möter varg (translated: “If you meet wolves”)

Detektivbyrån – Neonland

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(Even more videos from the recordings can be found on Detektivbyrån’s youtube page)

I don’t feel much for writing lots of words today, so I’ll just try to be very quick about these things:

The Morning Benders has made a free cover album with very nice cover songs of bands like The Smiths, The Cardigans, The Ronettes, Paul Simon, Velvet Underground and several more. You can get “Bedroom Covers” here.

The Morning Benders – I won’t share you (The Smiths)
The Morning Benders – Lovefool (Cardigans)

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Series Two Records has a new release from The Pristines out now. Sounds really nice!
the pristines – who to trust

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Calexico is a band I’ve liked and not liked, – both at the same time…. I really like this new song from their upcoming album “carried to dust” (september release).

Calexico – Two silver trees

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That’s about all I had to say today…

Oh, I almost forgot:
Get the new album from Ron Sexsmith. It’s great!!
Get the new album from The Smittens. It’s great!!

Now I’m finished! Have a nice day!