Video mix: KVLR, El Perro Del Mar, Totalt Jävla Mörker, Entombed, Division of Laura Lee, Abhinanda, more...

This week's It's a trap! Last.fm/Audioscrobbler listening group top 10 albums of the week:

01. Tiger Lou - The Loyal
02. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
03. The Postal Service - Give Up
04. The Knife - Silent Shout
05. Hot Chip - The Warning
06. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
07. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
08. Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
09. David & the Citizens - Stop the tape! Stop the tape!
10. The Knife - Deep Cuts

Top 10 tracks for the week:

01. Yo La Tengo – Beanbag Chair
02. David & the Citizens – 48h
03. Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
04. Yo La Tengo – I feel like going home
05. I'm From Barcelona – We're From Barcelona
06. The Knife – Silent shout
07. TV on the Radio – Wolf Like Me
08. Junior Boys – Double Shadow
09. Yo La Tengo – Black flowers
10. Marit Bergman – No Party

Want to make your own playlist count? Join us! Go here to learn more: http://www.last.fm/help/

Check out the video for the latest single from The Knife, "Like a pen": http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1770093121198081996

This week's It's a trap! Last.fm/Audioscrobbler listening group top 10 albums of the week:

01. The Radio Dept. - Pet Grief
02. The Knife - Silent Shout
03. The Knife - Deep Cuts
04. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
05. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
06. The Postal Service - Give Up
07. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
08. Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
09. Tiger Lou - The Loyal
10. Hot Chip - The Warning

Top 10 tracks for the week:

01. The Rapture – Pieces Of The People We Love
02. Irene – Little Things (That Tear Us Apart)
03. Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
04. Marit Bergman – No Party
05. The Plan – Walk for gold
06. Laakso – High Drama
07. Mando Diao – Killer Kaczynski
08. The Knife – Silent shout
09. The Radio Dept. – It's Personal
10. Isis – Dulcinea

Want to make your own playlist count? Join us! Go here to learn more: http://www.last.fm/help/

The Knife has added two new shows in Italy and Germany:

10/10 - Magazzini Generali, Milan (ITA)
10/13 - E-Werk, Cologne (GER)

Now that he's made a name for himself as the visual artist behind The Knife, Silverbullit guitarist Andreas Nilsson has now been hired to do the video for Depeche Mode's new single "Martyr".

The Knife's latest single "Like a pen" will be released on October 16.

This week's It's a trap! Last.fm/Audioscrobbler listening group top 10 albums of the week:

01. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
02. Tiger Lou - The Loyal
03. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
04. The Postal Service - Give Up
05. The Knife - Silent Shout
06. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
07. Radiohead - Kid A
08. The Radio Dept. - Lesser Matters
09. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
10. Camera Obscura - Let's Get out of This Country

Top 10 tracks for the week:

01. Marit Bergman – No Party
02. Tiger Lou – Until I'm There
03. Thom Yorke – harrowdown hill
04. Timo Räisänen – Fear no darkness, promised child
05. Kasabian – Empire
06. Tiger Lou – The Loyal
07. Tiger Lou – Nixon
08. Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
09. The Lovekevins – Happy Happy
10. Mew – Apocalypso

Want to make your own playlist count? Join us! Go here to learn more: http://www.last.fm/help/

The Knife will do a one-off gig at the Forum in London on November 14.

This week's It's a trap! Last.fm/Audioscrobbler listening group top 10 artists of the week:

01. The Knife
02. Radiohead
03. Death Cab for Cutie
04. Tiger Lou
05. Camera Obscura
06. The Beatles
07. Johnny Cash
08. Sufjan Stevens
09. Belle and Sebastian
10. Peter Bjorn and John

Top 10 tracks for the week:

01. Marit Bergman – No Party
02. Kazakstan – Julien
03. Tiger Lou – Until I'm There
04. Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken
05. I'm From Barcelona – Collection of Stamps
06. I'm From Barcelona – Treehouse
07. I'm From Barcelona – We're From Barcelona
08. The Knife – The captain
09. The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
10. The Knife – Silent shout

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Interview: Jonas Skybakmoen (Johndoe)

The Knife, Figurines and 120 Days are the first Scandinavian acts confirmed for this year's CMJ Music Marathon.

Pitchfork has a track review of the Rex the Dog remix of The Knife's "Marble house": http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/track_reviews/The_Knife_Marble_House_Rex_The_Dog_Remix

This week's It's a trap! Last.fm/Audioscrobbler listening group top 10 artists of the week:

01. Radiohead
02. Death Cab for Cutie
03. The Knife
04. Hello Saferide
05. The Radio Dept.
06. Belle and Sebastian
07. Camera Obscura
08. Peter Bjorn and John
09. The Postal Service
10. The Arcade Fire

Top 10 tracks for the week:

01. The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
02. Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
03. Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken
04. The Radio Dept. – It's Personal
05. Hello Saferide – If I Don't Write This Song, Someone I Love Will Die
06. Hello Saferide – I Don't Sleep Well
07. Tiger Lou – Like My Very Own Blood
08. Hello Saferide – The Quiz
09. José González – Heartbeats
10. The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

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The Bear Quartet
Eternity now
A West Side Fabrication

I'm convinced that alien DNA has somehow gotten into a bunch of Swedish musicians recently, and they may not know it. The very odd sounds and arrangements being generated by bands like The State of Floral Beings, The Knife and The Bear Quartet just can't be explained merely by saying "they're hard-working musicians and they're looking for new sounds." I defy anyone who listens to "Eternity now", the brand-new Bear Quartet CD, not to tell me that something not quite of this realm is driving the band. Holy smoke, is this thing wild and uncategorizable. I chuckled at a description of these guys online as "Sweden's most legendary pop band." What you hear on this CD bears only a tangential relationship to traditional "pop." Let's start with the mindblowing 21-minute centerpiece "Bear Quartet International Airport". This is one crazily brilliant, jaw-dropping track that kept me up half the night in awe. It starts with a jagged, killer guitar riff that burrows into your brain, ferocious drumming and an overall sense of sonic abandon before zigging and zagging through uncharted musical terrain. There are tempo shifts, just a snatch of weird vocals and a beautiful section where all the music sounds bowed (even though it's probably done on a synth). Honestly, this piece sounds like it's attempting to reinvent prog rock for the new millennium, and I'm not gonna argue against that. Thrilling stuff. Elsewhere, the short "Broken heart" and ultra-strange "The repairing of the Red Sea" utilize innovative pitch-shifting on the vocals, a technique used by Ween and Iceland's Eberg, but still in its infancy as far as the creative possibilities. It's a delight to find Bear Quartet exploring this sort of terrain. "Sailors" has a fairly simple rhythm track and synth, but then proceeds to alienate the general listening public (although not ME) with a high, moaning vocal that is clearly NOT the work of a band with record sales as their top priority. And there are several percussion-heavy tracks like "Where I cried," as well as a spooky ambient instrumental called "Peders forlat," which goes even further in making this platter hard to summarize. You can almost hear them laughing at the listener's expectations. Bear Quartet have made a dozen CDs and umpteen EPs over the years; "Eternity now" is clearly one of their weirdest and most delerious. Yes, that's a thumbs up.
- Kevin Renick