The nominees for the 2012 Manifest Awards, Sweden's alternative/indie Grammy, have been announced:
Folk/Ballad: Marin/Marin – Småfolket () Merit Hemmingson – EQ () Navarra – Nya fönster () Siri Karlsson – Gran Fuego ()
Dance: Skudge – Samlad årsproduktion () Jonsson/Alter – Samlad årsproduktion () The Field – Looping State of mind () Pallers – The Sea Of Memories ()
Punk: Sju Svåra År – Storma varje hjärta () Obnoxious Youth – The Eternal Void () Vånna Inget – Allvar () Black Feet – Black Feet ()
Hip-Hop: Mofeta & Jerre – Briljanter & Smaragder () Ison & Fille – För evigt () Mohammed Ali – Vi () Roffe Ruff – Barrabas ()
Experimental: Hans Appelqvist – Sjunga slutet nu () Hanna Hartman – H ^ 2 () Ophir – Opus Operatum () Midaircondo feat. Michala Østergaard-Nielsen – Reports on the Horizon ()
Hardrock: In Solitude – The World. The Flesh. The Devil () Opeth – Heritage () Terra Tenebrosa – The Tunnels () The Haunted – Unseen ()
Rhythm: Syster Sol – Kichinga! () Simone Moreno – Planetas () Kapten Röd – Fläcken Som Aldrig Går Bort () OK Star Orchestra – The Beat and the Melody ()
Pop: Azure Blue – Rule of thirds () Jonathan Johansson – Klagomuren () Korallreven – An album by Korallreven () Loney Dear – Hall Music ()
Rock: Pascal/Mattias Alkberg – Allt det här () Kajsa Grytt – En kvinna under påverkan () Bob Hund - Det överexponerade gömstället () Tramp – Indigo ()
Synth: Henric de la Cour – Henric de la Cour () Necro Facility – Wintermute () Mr Jones Machine – Monokrom () Covenant – Modern Ruin ()
Jazz: Jonas Holgersson – Snick Snack () Parti & Minut – Från klart till halvklart () Priming Orchestra – Deep Blue () The Splendor – Delphian Palace ()
Best Unsigned: Death By Armborst Storskogen Schizo and the Personalities Farsta
Singer/Songwriter/Country/Americana: Brothers of End – Mount Inside () Ane Brun – It All Start With One () Promise & the Monster – Red Tide () Lars Bygdén – Songs I Wrote ()
Best live act: Kriget () This is Head () Graveyard () Mattias Alkberg ()
The semi-finalists for the 2011 Nordic Music Prize have been revealed:
Sweden: Anna Ternheim - The night visitor Jonathan Johansson - Klagomuren Loney Dear - Hall music The Field - Looping state of mind Mattias Alkberg - Anarkist Lykke Li - Wounded rhymes Anna Järvinen - Anna själv tredje Deportees - Islands & shores Veronica Maggio - Satan i gatan Goran Kajfes - X/Y
Denmark: Larsen & Furious Jane - Dolly Michael Møller - A Month of Unrequited Love Oh Land - Oh Land Mikael Simpson - Noget Laant, Noget Blaat The Late Great Fitzcarraldos - The Late Great Fitzcarraldos Malk De Koijn - Toback To The Fromtime Iceage - New Brigade Thulebasen - Gate 5 When Saints Go Machine - Konkylie Hymns From Nineveh - Hymns From Nineveh
Finland: Von Hertzen Brothers - Stars Aligned Röyhkä & Mattila - Kaksi lensi tuulen mukaan 22-Pistepirkko - Lime Green Delorean French Films - Imaginary Future Siinai - Olympic Games Rubik - Solar Regina - Soita mulle Michael Monroe - Sensory Overdrive Mirel Wagner - Mirel Wagner Chisu - Kun valaistun
Iceland: Sóley - We Sink Lay Low - Brostinn strengur Ham - Svik, harmur og dauði Sin Fang - Summer Echoes ADHD - ADHD2 FM Belfast - Don’t Want To Sleep Gus Gus - Arabian Horse Mugison - Haglél Björk - Biophilia Apparat Organ Quartet - Pólýfónía
Norway: Razika - Program ’91 Lars Vaular - Du betyr meg Jonas Alaska - Jonas Alaska Team Me - To The Treetops! Ane Brun - It All Starts With One Stein Torleif Bjella - Vonde Visu 120 Days - 120 Days II Montée - Renditions Of You John Olav Nilsen og Gjengen - Det nærmeste du kommer Martin Hagfors - I like you
This list will eventually be culled down to a final 12 on December 1 before the winner is crowned on February 16.
Loney Dear's interpretation of Nobel Prize winner and fellow Swede Tomas Tranströmer's poem "C-dur", off his latest record "Hall music". Very prescient.
There's a brand new Loney Dear song streaming at Stereogum called "My heart": http://stereogum.com/763571/loney-dear-my-heart/mp3s/
Look for the new album "Hall music" to be released on October 4 via in US, in Europe.
01. Loney Dear
02. Kent
03. Familjen
04. Robyn
05. Håkan Hellström
06. The Bear Quartet
07. Britta Persson
08. Jonathan Johansson
09. Junip
10. The Radio Dept.
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Critics are apt to hear "Dada bandits" opener "Goji berries" and label Rubik as frenzied pop auteurs, a sort of Scandinavian Animal Collective. And "Goji berries" does go from screamo-addled Beatles to punchy-drunk keys punctuated by Sufjan flutes, to a Dan Bejar saloon romp that segues into a typically eastern Beirut horn jam. While "Goji"'s schizoid scheme is certainly noteworthy -- it seamlessly switches gears and genres while never betraying its Nordic pop sensibility -- it's hardly metonymical of the album at large. Yes, Rubik's "Bandits" lifts considerably from all of the best in blog-ready sounds, but they do so with the canvases of entire songs. What results is not, strangely, a sugar-coated Scando take on guitar indie, but a rolodex of an album with a virtuoso aesthetic. Rarely is a musical contact called upon twice, and even after repeated listens, you're left reeling at the incredible scope of an album that's stacked like the Yankees.
"Goji berries" phantom-tempo midsection precedes the Canadian guitar battalion of "Radiants", "Wasteland" borrows Idioteque percussion before settling for an anthemic power pop chorus. "Fire Age" and "Richard Branson's crash landing" are album highlights, the former plotting Stars' vocals around a ska-synth breakdown, the latter a glimpse of Scandinavian twee perfection. Its swirling synths wash beneath upbeat melodies and falsetto-and-horns chorus to convince you that this is what Loney Dear's "Dear John" should have been. Rubik reloads and refires, each song an impressive foray into new sonic territory, strung together by catchy hooks and wiry guitars, underpinned by the astonishing depth of the arrangements. It's only on the fifth or six listen that you even hear the complex synth arpeggios buried under "Karhu junassa", or the jaunty riffs beneath "Fire age".
There's little bad to be said about this album. The mix occasionally favors layered instrumentation over Artturi Taira's vocals -- much of the album finds Taira swimming in his own arrangements. While that's likely a tactic to secure more Finnish listeners in their native country, it obscures the beauty of Taira's lyrics. His voice can adequately be characterized as "British Effeminate" indicative of all of those post-Radiohead mope-and-hope rockers that plagued the aughts in Western Europe. But Taira's falsetto exchanges their currency of faux-pathos for a well-placed sense of urgency, his yelps best on "Karhu junassa" and "Radiants" when buttressed by instrumental imitation.
So where is this album? It's tailored for the blogs in almost every way, it has registered heaps of e-praise, yet Rubik has no plans to return to North . Maybe this album will be saved from obscurity by a forward-thinking movie director or cell-phone marketing exec, and maybe it won't. I might just like it better if it remains a diamond in the rough -- quietly pretending to 2010's indie throne. - Nathan Keegan
Check out Winkler, a new project featuring Ola Hultgren of Loney Dear together with Erika Alexandersson (Thus:Owls), Jonas Östholm and Andreas Houdrakis: http://vimeo.com/10157681
Let's get this out of the way: Danish band The Kissaway Trail owes a good deal of their sound to Arcade Fire. No... make that a great deal. From lush orchestral movements, to their pendent for melodramatic swells punctuated with non-specific "ooohh ohh ohhs", Win Butler and the gang seep though the holes of nearly every track. It may come as a surprise then, that The Kissaway Trail's sophomore effort "Sleep mountain" comes off significantly more than a simple "Neon Bible"-retread. Marrying electronics to dense instrumentals, they've managed to create an album that timelessly reflects the intermingled sorrow and optimism of youth.
With vocal styles that sound not unlike Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, co-lead men Thomas Fagerlund and Søren Corneliussen lead the charge though eleven tracks, their Bright Eyes-style emotive phrasing adding gravity to melancholic paean "New year" and helping transform Neil Young cover "Philadelphia" into a multi-layered, wandering daydream. Unafraid to un-ironically dip into Loney Dear-style sincerity on "Beat your heartbeat" and "New lipstick", it's difficult not to get swept up in their unabashed romanticism. Arcade Fire may have gotten there first, but The Kissaway Trail is here to stay. - Laura Studarus
Rubik
The Kissaway Trail
