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)

The old man and the sea, the old man and the sea, oh no! I think it’s me

Give me a break! I’m so tired of these so called ”indiebands” from Britain and the US who are all named THE something. This time it’s The Pharmacy, and believe you me, their new album called Choose Yr Own Adventure doesn’t bring anything new or exciting to the receipe, which is starting to sound old and boring. I would rather listen to Britney Spears than this, because alltough she has all these problems and is really sad, at least you want to sing along to her music. Choose Yr Own Adventure has twelve tracks, and neither of them catches my attention. The only thing that makes me reflect over the music is that the singer has a really terrible voice, and that their rhymes are horrific.

I think i’ll stop here. It’s not that The Pharmacy is the worst band ever, it’s just that I have already forgotten how they sound like, a minute after I switched them off. That can’t be good.

Mark Northfield is a very interesting musician and composer, - maybe not exactly in the genres we usually write about here in Eardrums, - but his music really makes me feel good, and that’s a good enough reason for me to recommend this artist to all of you.

Northfield’s music has been defined by himself as “Alt Classical”, which in my opinion describes it all very good. The arrangements are mostly classical, - strings, piano and classical orchestration. The vocal melodies are closer to alternative pop/rock, but you will never question where Northfield has his heart: This is classical music. And it is more than that.
His style may remind of the music of Owen Pallett/Final Fantasy, or artists like Clogs or Max Richter, - all of them artists I like very much. For some strange reason, I am also reminded of more electronic musicians like Dave Gahan/ Martin Gore of Depeche Mode and Marc Almond, especially in  some of the vocals.

In march this year, Mark Northfield released an album called “ascendant” on his own label Substantive recordings (available at Rough Trade or CD Baby, and I’ve also seen it on iTunes). The album is composed to be listened to from start to finish, and I assure you that 50 minutes with Mark Northfield’s music is well spent. The album features nine different vocalists, and according to the press release, this is his discreet tribute to 4ad’s collective This Mortal Coil and Stephin Merritt (The 6ths and The Magnetic Fields) as well as Hector Zazou and Craig Armstrong.

Northfield regularly works as an accompanist for ballet and contemporary dance classes at Arts Ed, London Contemporary Dance School and the Royal Academy Of Dance.

Listen to one of the songs on the album, and if you like his style, get the album!

Mark Northfield - Waiting for Green

Sweden’s Motoboy has released my favourite song on his new album as a single, and he’s also made a video for it. Watch here, and you can get the song below:

Motoboy - Ride my wild heart

Norway’s Monzano released their fine debut album “high horses and one-trick ponies” late last year, and now it is re-released in a new version for the Japanese market. The band has signed with the Japanese label Friend of Mine records, and the label wanted some extra tracks for the new version. Some old Monzano classics were recorded in new versions, and the band felt so good doing it that they decided to release the bonustracks as an ep for their home-market.

One of the songs on the ep is brand new, the catchy “Happiness”, where the band’s Eivind Bøe debuts on main vocals. He has done a lot of background vocals in monzano and has done some wonderful main vocals in his own soloproject Beneath Her Parachute, but never done the lead vocs in Monzano.
Speaking of solo projects: Sjur Lyseid, the original main vocalist, has started the recording of his own soloalbum these days, under the name “The Little Hands of Asphalt“. Kenneth Ishaak will produce, and we are waiting in excitement!

Here’s Monzano with “Happiness”:

Monzano - happiness