The winners of the 2010 Spellemannpris, the Norwegian Grammy, have been announced:
Honorary Award: A-ha
Newcomer of the Year: Kvelertak
Producers of the Year: Stargate
Electronica: Lindstrøm og Christabelle
Metal: Enslaved
Open Class: Jaga Jazzist
Pop group: Kråkesølv
Jazz: Elephant9
Female artist of the Year: Ingrid Olava
Popular music composer of the Year: Susanne Sundfør
Male artist of the Year: Thom Hell
Spellemann of the Year: Karpe Diem
Swedish indie act Friska Viljor have a new song they are giving away: https://soundcloud.com/cryingbob/friska-viljor-larionov
The band's new album "The beginning of the beginning of the end" will be released on March 25 via .
Sleeping in Airports is yet another in the long line of female-fronted Finnish acts exploring the realms of shoegaze and they have two tracks they are giving away for free: https://soundcloud.com/sleeping-in-airports
Not as immediately appealing to me as On Volcano or Murmansk, but definitely not without potential.
A lesson in hardcore, courtesy of Desperat. The band just recorded a new record this past weekend and you can read all about it at their website: https://desperathardcore.wordpress.com/ (assuming you can read Swedish)
Sounds like Like Rats from a Sinking Ship have upped their game. Look for the band's new album "We get along like a house on fire" to be released on April 1 via /.
has announced the signing of Swedish act Mordant who they lovingly describe as "Sarcofago sodomizing the corpse of Dissection at the sound of the demon bell." Expect an album release this fall.
As with "When the deer wore blue", the dreamy echoes of '60s pop continue on through Figurines' self-titled release, coloring the album in nostalgic, sun-bleached tones and textures and casting strange shadows across their music. As fans of the band have come to expect, the swells of the compositions, both with respect to instrumentation and emotion, are layered and intricate, but not inaccessible or pretentious. The bright, clean production is subtly subverted by pop songs that are not reliant on guitar or vocal hooks, and tracks that evoke a summery feel often turn from the sun to explore the shade created by so much light -- "Have you always been someone that you've never been?" This perspective does not feel staged, as if the songs were deliberately crafted to include funhouse mirrors distorting the images reflecting back out of the music -- there is a natural, effortless flow to the compositions, even when a track turns corners that, at first, take the listener by surprise. On "We got away", what opens as a "Pet sounds"-inspired track evolves into something else: a love song that feels distanced from its central premise, and painfully aware of this detachment, as the subtle, clever refrain "I love her like a lover should love her" suggests. There is something this band brings to the table that so many other acts just cannot, an originality that is hard to pin down, but is nonetheless on full display on "Figurines". - Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Figurines