Well, there’s too much to talk about to make one post for every story, so here’s another shorties-post for you.

Sweden’s The Radio Dept will release a new single called “Freddie and the trojan horse” on Labrador in june. This will be a 4 track release, and the first taster of their upcoming album “Clinging to a scheme”, due to be released early September. On the new single, The Radio Dept show their political views, and “Freddie” in the song is actually Sweden’s prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. According to the band, the song is about (quote) “the untruthfulness of the Swedish right-wing government and how the leading party seized power by portraying itself as supportive of the workers.” (unquote). The song itself does not impress me, and in my ears it sounds more like a bad demo than a single from the Radio dept. Not my favourite RD track at all.

The Radio Dept - Freddie and the trojan horse (from labelsite)

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There are lots of albums available free and legally on the web these days. Nine Inch Nails hasn’t been “my kind of artist” for some time now, but now I may have to rethink this and give him another chance. He has released another(!) new and free album on the web yesterday. It’s called “The Slip” and mr Reznor himself wants people to share it with friends, on their blogs or make their own remixes of the songs. The multitracks are made available on the site. “The Slip” is available in several formats, also high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. You can get the album and artwork here, for the price of your email address: http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

One of my favourite albums this month is also a free one. It’s a wonderful compilation album from Ghostly International, released in company with [Adult Swim]. The name is of course “Ghostly Swim” and it includes as many as 19 great tracks from innovative electronic/avant pop artists like The Chap, Matthew dear, Milosh, Dabrye and my new favourite electronic artist, JDSY. You can listen and download the full album here: http://www.adultswim.com/williams/music/ghostlyswim/index.html
I think this is the one that I’ve been listening to the most the recent weeks.

Kristin Hersh from Throwing Muses/50 ft wave is more than involved in very interesting project called Cash Music. This is an open source project with a goal to “get powerful yet intuitive tools into the hands of the artists who need them so they can better reach their audiences.” Kristin Hersh releases one new studio recorded song every month, free of charge, both as mp3 and source files. Fans and listeners can make their own remixes and artworks connected to the songs, and everything is made available for download on the site. There are several very good songs on the site at the moment, so check it out. Also check out Kristin’s official site (link on her name above), where you will find even more free eps and songs. There’s also a new, beautiful Daytrotter session from Kristin here.
Here is this month’s Cash Music Kristin Hersh-song:

Kristin Hersh - Krait

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And last but not least: A new single from Eardrums’ favourite label (at least ONE of them), WeePop! records has just been released. It is a nice 6 song mini-cd with the artist Wonder for All, a.k.a. Wendy Chin. She plays delicate pop songs with ukulele and acoustic guitars, and according to herself, her music is best listened to while taking bubble baths… Here’s a taster, and you can order the ep on weepop’s site. Be quick, there are only 160 copies made.

Wonder for all - Holiday (from labelsite)

I kind of liked my new way of getting the “things to do”-list shorter, with my fast-blogging post “shorties” last week. I will do it from time to time, when there is too much to write about and too little time to do it. Here are some of the interesting things that I just need to get out to you people:

Sweden’s [ingenting] is working on a new album these days, their third. The album has a working title, “tomhet, idel tomhet”, and according to their myspace, the band plans to finish recording by the end of the year. I am really, really looking forward to this one!

Here is a couple of good ones from their previous albums:

[ingenting] - här kommer solen

[ingenting] - släpp inn solen

(both from Labrador records)

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Twenty years ago, in 1988, Creation Records released a compilation album called “Doing it for the kids”. In 2008, 66 artists are doing it for the kids again, this time for the kids at Glasgow’s Yorkhill hospital. The compilation “Doing it for the kids 2008″ includes bands like The Orchids, Slow Down Tallahassee, Ed Harcourt, The Hermit Crabs, De Rosa, The April Skies, Scottish polis Inspectors, The Westfield Mining disaster, Daniel Wylie (Cosmic Rough Riders), Luxembourg and also people from older indiepop legends like The Jasmine Minks, BMX Bandits and Mr. Creation himself, Alan McGee are involved. Great music and a great cause. You can read more about the project here, here and here, and you can buy the compilation for only £ 6 on the resonance webshop.

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Under Electric Light is an interesting one-man project from Montreal, Canada with a dreamy pop sound similar to bands like New Order/Radio dept./Celestial. Some guitars, some electronics and a huge dose of good melodies. Danny Provencher is the man behind the music, and he has so far self-released 3 eps as UEL. His third is out these days, and it is called “After The Blue”. It features four tracks and you can listen to it all on MySpace or buy it through Bluetracks.

Here is one of the songs on the ep:

Under electric light - this moment

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We recently received this letter from Series Two Records:
On April 22, Series Two Records will be releasing a 4 CD compilation set which contains 90 songs from 90 different artists for a total of over 300 minutes in music. The compilations contain songs from the following labels: Sarah Records, Cloudberry Records, Anorak, Slumberland, Asaurus, Weepop!, Shelflife, AEIOU, ABCDEFG, Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records, Workaholics on Holiday!, Best Kept Secret, A TenderVersion Recording , Cosy Recordings, Sincerely Yours, Canarie Records, Friendly Noise, Music Is My Girlfriend, Hybris, and many other wonderful labels. Also these compilations contain notable Swedish artists such as The Honeydrips and Vapnet and numerous wonderful side projects including the side projects of Acid House Kings, Club 8 and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names among many others.

These records are handmade and limited to 100 copies (100 sets of 4 CD’s).These records are being sold for 25 USD (postage paid for in cost worldwide). For those interested in the 4 CD compilations a paypal in the amount of 25 USD can be sent to Seriestworecords@gmail.com

All proceeds from the compilations will go towards promotion costs on all up and coming full lengths released by Series Two Records in 2008 (over 20 releases for the year have been planned).
Full tracklisting can be found here.

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I got a mail the other day with an offer to download a promo of the upcoming album from Dub Pistols. This is not normally the kind of music I jump in my chair about, but I knew that one of my old heroes, Terry Hall from The Specials had been more than involved on their new album. I must admit that I use the skip button a lot on this new album, but I’m very happy about some remakes of Hall’s old ska-classic “Gangsters” and a very nice updated version of Blondie’s “Rapture” where Terry Hall sings. I hear Terry’s voice on several songs on the album, and that’s good enough for me. I recently also got the news that The Specials plan to reunite, and I feel kind of happy about that… and a little scared…
Here’s “Gangsters”:

Dub Pistols and Terry Hall - Gangsters

It’s been a while since I did the Thursday Tunes-thing, and this was supposed to be a new Thursday Tunes-post, but I never managed to finish it until Thursday was gone. Time flies…
That’s why this is a Monday Music-post instead… Hope you will enjoy these songs!

We start with some Norwegian songs. The first one is from a duo with the strange name Children and Corpse playing in the streets. The name is less macabre than it sounds. For those of you who know a bit norwegian, the story behind it was that the mother of one of the band’s friends was trying to explain in English how Norway’s constitution day is celebrated… The mother was not very experienced in the English language and said “Children and corpse playing in the streets”… Understand?
Anyway… Here’s the music:

Children and Corpse playing in the Streets - France (from NRK Urört)

We continue with a Norwegian energy-bomb from Teeny Grownups, who seems to like Belle and Sebastian:

teeny grownups - belle and sebastian

and here’s another Norwegian, this one’s based in the UK:

Campfire Kansas - Everything after (from NRK Urört)

…

and here are some other songs I like, all free and legal downloads from other websites…

Nat Johnson - Judy’s first beat (wonderful free song from the soloproject of Monkey swallows the universe’s singer, available on last.fm)

Funny Little Dream - It must be love (sugarsweet pop! From last.fm)

Housewife lovers - Out of School (new Swedish band gets some attention from Pitchfork)

Little My - All but the beep meeps (from their new, nice release at weepop! records)

The Little Ones - Boracay (from their new release “Terry tales and fallen gates”, - from Spinner).

El Perro del Mar - Glory to the world (a song from her new album, from promo agency)

The Breeders - Bang On (new song from 4ad)

Nik Freitas - Sun down (from promo agency)

Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists) - We both go down together (acoustic track from his brilliant new live-album. From labelsite)

Lykke Li- Dance Dance Dance (free track from last.fm)

Someone still loves you Boris Yeltsin - I think I wanna die (I didn’t think I would like their new album, but I did. It’s great! from labelsite)

Fireflies - Rearranged (free track from last.fm)

Borko - Dingdong kingdom (nice one from this Icelandic artist’s new album on Morr Music. I think you may recognize parts pf it…)

Anna Ternheim - To be gone (from promo agency)

Bobby and Blumm - In future present (one of the many fine songs on their debut album. From promo agency)

Champion Kickboxer - Clouds (from bandsite)

Did you like them? Want more? What did you like? Tell me in a comment!

I almost forgot…. Sorry… Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here are some lovely Valentine’s Day lovesongs for you, and I guess you don’t need someone to love to love these songs:

Scarboro Aquarium Club - It’s Valentine’s Day (from the album "A Very Magistery Valentine")

Would Be Goods - Dear St. Valentine (from their album "The Morning After")

The Explorers Club - Do You Love Me (their new single! Freebie from Secretly canadian)

The Postmarks - My little Heart (a Valentine’s day gift from their website)

The Sharp Things - Through With Love (a Valentine’s gift from the band, - also available on their brilliant 2007 album "A Moveable feast")

Roadside Poppies - Just another love song (from their wonderful Cycling and Crying-EP out on our favourite WeePop!-label)

The Free Design - I found love (I’m in love with this band! From a Best of compilation from 2001, available on both iTunes and eMusic).

 Another Sunny Day - I’m in love with a girl who doesn’t know I exist (a classic! This one’s from the sarah-records compilation "Shadow Factory")

What is your favourite love song?

I have a fondness for music that isn’t over-produced, - music that isn’t "perfect". I love hearing the noises that exists in the recording room, - the squeak of a chair, some hiss from the cheap recording equipment or the sound of fingers touching guitar strings. In most recordings these sounds are cleaned out of the finished product, or they don’t exist at all because of the  sound-proof studios or the hi-tech equipment.  For me, these sounds add a quality to the music. Call it warmth, friendliness, a human factor, - whatever. Everything is supposed to be so right these days, - in every aspect of the world, even music blogs, - and I’m really enjoying to hear people just playing MUSIC, - having fun while they are recording, and not spending too much time thinking about doing it right. I might be wrong, - maybe this is "the right" among some people, - I don’t know.  For me, it is a refreshment.

Recently, I’ve found lots of these wonderful little recordings, - very lo-fi, very here and now -, on myspace or on last.fm. Many of them are found because of a brilliant podcast called "5…4…3…2…fun!!", - originally a radioshow from a Santa Barbara student radio station, but luckily for me also available as a podcast. I’ve also found some through a nice netlabel called the 001 Collective, which releases several fine artists for free on the net. Here are only a few of the ones I’ve enjoyed lately, and if you like these ones, I might dig up some more. A tribute to all the lo-fi-ness in this hi-fi-world! Let’s go!

WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS

I’ll start with Watercolor Paintings, a project that’s actually led by the people behind 5…4…3…2…fun!!. Rebecca Redman makes nice, acoustic, intimate indiepop songs together with her brother Joshua, and this time it was the music of Watercolour Paintings that led me to the 5…4…3…2…fun!!-podcast. I’m not sure how I found this band, but I guess it was through some recommendation on last.fm. The songs are wonderful, - often played on acoustic guitar, harp, ukulele and various toy instruments. Rebecca has a bunch of songs available for free on her myspace, and I think this is the one I love the most:

Watercolor Paintings - Happyships

SHELBY SIFERS

Shelby Sifers plays wonderful songs in much of the same style as Watercolor Paintings. Her style has been described as "Cutesy" or "Love Core", which in many ways describes her work very well. Her vocals is the main element in her recordings, and she spices it up with acoustic guitar, banjo, keyboard and melodica, always arranged very minimalistic. The lyrics are one of the things that really makes me happy when I listen to Shelby Sifers. They’re  about the small things in life, that  sometimes becomes the big things in somebody’s life.Another nice thing is that she often lets friends and familymembers join in on the songs, like on this cute and lovely song:

Shelby Sifers - Things are Beautiful

…and if you like this, there are a lot of free songs by her on her last.fm page and on her myspace page.

 FRAGILE FAWN

Fragile Fawn is another of these wonderful small bands. They’re from Oak Park, California, and I think they are a duo. I also think their names are Dani and Devon … or Dani and Clarke…, but I’m not 100% sure. Are you? Anyway, - nice music! Cute-Country? UPDATED! The band is definitely a duo, and their names are Devon Clarke Geyer (who goes by Clarke! for his solo stuff) And Dani Fine. Dani lives in Oak Park and Devon has moved to Boston, so the band is currently only working together when he’s home for holidays. Some digital recording software and the internet would have been the sollution for many bands in this situation today, but I guess a digital recorded version of Fragile Fawn would not be the same. I’m all for digital recordings for other bands, but please Dani and Devon, work hard with the songwriting and recordings during the holidays instead! 

Fragile Fawn - Love to love to love

BARE KNEES

Behind the Bare Knees-moniker is Kasper and Kathrin from Gothenburg, Sweden.  The duo write funny lyrics and lo-fi songs about kassettendecks and underwear, and their acoustic popsongs have so far been released on an  EP called "Bare knees bit my daughter!" and an album called "Pump up the lump". Both of these releases are available as free downloads on the band’s website. Bare Knees will soon release another album, - a split album recorded together with  Ray Rumours. The album will feature 7 songs from each band, and it will be released on Cosy Recordings.

Bare Knees - Always on your side

That’s all for today. Maybe more later, if you want me to…