IAT.MP3 artist Tsukimono has posted the track "Hat out of bell" from his out-of-print CDR "Please" up on myspace for free download: https://www.myspace.com/tsukimonoswe
Check out the new Path of No Return video for "Cold grief empty eyes": https://pathofnoreturn.net/video.html
Rusty Flores have posted a video slideshow to accompany their new single "Violent white": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixwcBT24byE
Swedish indierock act The Uppallnights have posted an EPs worth of new material on myspace: https://www.myspace.com/theupallnights
MP3: Promise and the Monster - Sheets
Promise and the Monster in a word: haunting. For awhile, I had her CD sitting on my desk next to Kongh's "Counting heartbeats" and it's amazing how similar the cover art for the two albums are. Kongh, a band on Trust No One (the label run by Switchblade drummer Tim Bertilsson), play loud, crushing doom which of course is far from the quiet, reserved sounds of Promise and the Monster, but they both evoke similar feelings of despair. The dark woods, the serif font, represent it well. As the best doom bands know, heaviness is not always related to volume and distortion. It's the space between that's often darkest.
Promise and the Monster - Sheets
Henrik José, the Swedish indie/electronic artist once known as Bliss, now as a new website where you can download his entire discography: https://www.henrikjose.com/
We've got a brand new interview with Swedish folk-punks Dia Psalma posted today. Check it out!
This week's It's A Trap! Last.fm listening group top 10 artists of the week:
01. Radiohead
02. Jens Lekman
03. Shout Out Louds
04. Kent
05. Bloc Party
06. Sigur Rós
07. Death Cab for Cutie
08. Belle and Sebastian
09. Sufjan Stevens
10. Stars
Do you listen to music on your computer or with an iPod? Join us! Go here to learn more: https://www.last.fm/help/
Anna Järvinen
Jag fick feeling
Häpna
An ex-girlfriend got me hooked on the brilliance that is Granada a few years back, and I probably should have expected that Anna Järvinen could achieve an album of this caliber, but, to be honest, I was blindsided. Andres Lokko of SvD compared Järvinen's album to both Van Morrison's "Astral weeks" and Håkan Hellström's "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg", and I'm not sure you can get much higher praise than that. "Jag fick feeling" is definitely one of the sparkling gems of a fantastic year for music. Every week my Top 10 list is changing. With the way things have been unfolding, most bands had better hope for a slow November and December if they are to retain a glorified position on my Best of 2007 list; Anna Järvinen can rest a little easier having created an album so effortlessly brilliant that it is almost infuriating. My marriage proposal is in the mail, Anna. Just think about it, okay?
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Here's the playlist for this week's radio show, featuring special guest Pontus Levahn from the band Torpedo:
01. Fireside - Let Rasputin do it
02. TALK 1
03. Britta Persson - You are not my boyfriend
04. Hyacinth House - Lucky stranger
05. The Bear Quartet - Sailors
06. TALK 2
07. Jennie Abrahamson - In this life to live
08. Margaret Berger - Seek I'll hide
09. Heroes & Zeros - The foolproof
10. TALK 3
11. Folie - Strum
12. Ellen Beach - The widespread acclaim
13. The Indecision Alarm - Where every fucking dream is killed
14. TALK 4 (INTERVIEW)
15. Torpedo - From Russia with love
16. Rupesh Cartel - Comes the hour comes the man
17. TALK 5 (INTERVIEW)
18. Torpedo - Hospital
19. Tiger Lou - Until I'm there
20. TALK 6 (INTERVIEW)
21. Simon Ryman - Walk with me instead
22. Fanny Risberg - Stay with me forever
23. Lack - Deserters
24. TALK 7
25. The Je Ne Sais Quoi - Manic panic
26. Hebosagil - Slightly confusing
27. Dieter Schöön - The harbour's cold
28. TALK 8
29. Lukestar - White shade
30. Fun - Hold it close
31. The Skull Defekts - The secret
32. TALK 9
33. Laakso - Great times underground
34. CS Nielsen - Black spots
35. Knugen Faller - Lugna favoriter
36. TALK 10
37. Säkert! - Allt som är ditt
Darkthrone
F.O.A.D.
Tyrant Syndicate/Peaceville
This is the filthiest, most numbskulled black-thrash album I've heard in years and years and I absolutely mean that in the best way possible. Most bands progress and become more refined as the years go by, but Darkthrone retreats and regresses, always getting closer and closer to the pure black metal sounds of originators such as Venom and Bathory. I still love the sophistication of so-called BM elites such as Emperor, but Darkthrone does a much better job of personifying everything that metal should be about. This is music for the dejected and rejected, the kind of stuff that revels in being a no-class dirtball. The title track says it all: "Fuck off and die!" If you don't like it, it's because you're not supposed to.
It's also worth noting that the so-called unproduced recording on this still sounds thousands of times better than any other modern metal album. No lame triggered drums, no wall of over-compressed guitars, nothing but the purest essentials. Everything is crisp and well-balanced and guess what? Even the bass is loud and clear. Amazing!
- Avi Roig
MP3: The Bear Quartet - Ghosts for laundry
"Ghosts for laundry" is quick little pop nugget off of 1995's "Holy holy" album. This is Bear Quartet in their classic indierock guise: you get a bit of tape manipulation at the end of the track, but the song itself is straightforward guitar-rock, very fitting for the time period and complete with slightly off-key vocals. Even the lyrics aren't too obtuse or depressing - who hasn't sat up late at night doing laundry alone, wondering about ghosts or other supernatural creatures? This is especially true for doing laundry at some deserted 24hr laundromat, as it's even more strange and isolating, all the better for the imagination to run wild. Who knows if any of the characters that you actually do run into there are living or dead? Sometimes it's hard to tell.
The Bear Quartet - Ghosts for laundry
Download a new track from Scandal Beauty: https://www.scandalbeauty.com/mp3/scandal_beauty_flying_again.mp3
MNW is putting out a comp of 70s prog/rock from Göteborg as kind of a companion piece to the "Upp till kamp" miniseries: https://www.mnwmusic.se/artists/gbg_progg/gbg_progg.html