Bonnier Amigo Music has signed Anna Maria Espinosa (Moder Jords Massiva, Club Killers) and will be sending her into the studio with producer Jari Haapalainen (The Bear Quartet, Laakso, etc.) to record her debut album. As for the actual songs she'll be doing, she's lined up an illustrious cast including Ellekari Larsson (The Tiny), The Concretes, The Plan, Mattias Hellberg, Andreas Mattsson, Moder Jords Massiva, Nicolai Dunger and of course, the aforementioned Jari Haapalainen. Expect a fall release.

Here's the playlist for this week's radio show:

01. Timo Räisänen - Sixteen
02. TALK 1
03. Dreamboy - What have I done
04. Echo Is Your Love - Three ropes
05. The Raveonettes - Dead sound
06. TALK 2
07. Connny Nimmersjö - Dum i huvudet
08. Holiday Fun Club - Hamburg in the night
09. Elin Ruth Sigvardsson - Antidote
10. TALK 3
11. Christian Kjellvander - Two souls
12. Heroes & Zeros - The foolproof
13. Gåte - Sjå attende
14. TALK 4
15. Repoman - Chemically obsessed
16. The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Instant Repeater '99
17. Petter - Logiskt (ft. Säkert)
18. TALK 5
19. Dieter Schöön - Warm hearts
20. Springfactory - Stingy Friday afternoon
21. Sivert Høyem - Don't pass me by
22. TALK 6
23. Sweatmaster - Song with no words
24. Enslaved - Enemy I
25. The Concretes - Kids
26. TALK 7
27. Broder Daniel - Cruel town
28. September - Cry for you
29. Britta Persson - Cliffhanger
30. TALK 8
31. TLS - A song left for you
32. The End Will Be Kicks - Ass of a friend
33. Immanu El - Kosmonaut
34. TALK 9
35. Fare You Well - Deceiving eyes
36. Weeping Willows - So it's over
37. Firefox AK - Winter rose (ft. Tiger Lou)
38. TALK 10
39. Scraps of Tape - Death as it should be

A West Side Fabrication has posted a new track from A Saga on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/westsidefabrication
The song is called "Like water" and was produced by Jari Haapalainen (The Bear Quartet, Laakso, The Concretes, etc.).

The Concretes have uploaded the Kleerup remix of "Keep yours" to myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theconcretes
The track will appear as a b-side on the single which will be released on October 15 on all formats: CD, 7" and mp3.

The Concretes will do a live session tomorrow (Friday, September 14) for Marc Riley's show on BBC6. It should air sometime between 7-9pm local time.

Dusted reviews The Concretes' latest album "Hey trouble": http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/3799
This one seems to be a bit of a sleeper as I'm slowly seeing more people coming around to finding it an improvement over the debut.

Santa Maria aka Maria Eriksson (also in The Concretes + Heikki) does the Listed thing for Dusted: http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/643

The Concretes will support Shout Out Louds on tour in GAS:

09/18 - Prime Club, Cologne (GER)
09/19 - Backstage, Munich (GER)
09/22 - E-werk, Erlangen (GER)
09/24 - Karlstorbahnhof, Heidelberg (GER)
09/27 - Lido, Berlin (GER)
09/20 - ISC, Bern (CH)
09/21 - Les Docks, Lausanne (CH)
09/25 - Weekender, Innsbruck (AUS)
09/26 - Rockhouse, Salzburg (AUS)

Festival report: Accelerator

Festival preview: Accelerator

The Concretes
Live @ The Luminaire, London, 06/06/07

Tonight saw the debut of the new slimmed down and shaken up line up of The Concretes playing to a sardine packed Luminaire. Minus Victoria Bergsman, vocal duties are now taken care of by drummer-turned-vocalist Lisa Milberg. Phil Collins eat your heart out. Milberg still needs to gain a shade more stage presence, as she came across with a reassuring charm, but needed to give her between-song banter a bit more gusto. However, this can be forgiven when you consider she's spent the last five years hitting skins for the band. The band's eleventh London gig to date was a definite triumph, especially when you consider what a torrid time the band have had over the last year. The band entered the stage to the instrumental chimes of album title track "Hey trouble" which acted as a very gentle rallying cry to war. There was a definitive air of survivorship around them, which possibly was a reaction of the crowd making the band feel like they were playing some kind of homecoming gig. Rather than a comeback, this was the rebirth of The Concretes.
- Nick Levine

Pitchfork sits down for a short little chit-chat with The Concretes: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/43265-lisa-milberg-talks-concretes-itroublei-rebirth

Interview: Shout Out Louds

The Concretes
Hey trouble
Licking Fingers

If someone had suggested to me that The Concretes' new album is their best album to date, before I've heard any of the songs, I'd have found it very hard to believe them. I'm a big fan of the band and when I heard the news that Victoria Bergman gone solo, I seriously thought The Concretes were over and done with. How wrong I was! Drummer Lisa Millberg has now taken over vocal duties, and she's fabulous at it, not to mention perfect for the band. It's quite a bold move by producer Jari Haapalainen to put her vocals so high up in the mix, but it works very well. I like all the songs on this album, although some of my favourites are the very melodic "Are you prepared?", the chorus to "Keep yours", the first single "Kids", and the last song of the album, the slow and pretty "Simple song". If you're also a fan, and were worried that the band would lose their edge or whatever without the loopy Bergman behind the mic, you can finally relax – The Concretes seem to have ended up an ever better band without her.
- Simon Tagestam

The Concretes in the UK:

06/05 - Birmingham Academy 2, Birmingham
06/06 - Luminaire, London
06/07 - Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
06/08 - The Cockpit, Leeds
06/09 - The Theckla Social, Bristol
06/10 - Newcastle Academy 2, Newcastle
06/11 - King Tuts Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow