#alternativefolk

NMR Indie Playlist

'Jacques Labouchere' - 'Lost Goals' (single)

Andy Wors

Feb 22, 2020
2 min

'Jacques Labouchere' - 'Lost Goals' (single)

We've covered a fair few new names and bands in the last week, so we'll return to an 'old favourite' for another new release which was out just yesterday, and it's a very welcome return from none other than Jacques Labouchere, who we last wrote about in October 2017 when he released a lovely album entitled 'Piece' (a follow up to a self titled album and 'BI-polar Baby Strollers'), and shortly before he embarked on a mammoth European tour which took him everywhere but the UK.

Alice Boman - 'Dream On' (album) and UK / US tour dates

Andy Wors

Feb 19, 2020
2 min

Alice Boman - 'Dream On' (album) and UK / US tour dates

One album we haven't had chance to cover in detail is the debut album release from Swedish songwriter Alice Boman, which was released a few weeks back. It seems strange that 'Dream On' is her debut album given she has been writing and performing for so long now - her debut EP 'Skisser' ('Sketches') was released back in 2013, originally meant as 'bedroom demos' but then released in their original form when a record label heard and liked them, and since then she has establishe

'Gypsy Chicken' - '13 Billion Years' (album)

Andy Wors

Feb 17, 2020
3 min

'Gypsy Chicken' - '13 Billion Years' (album)

After featuring 'Martin Månsson Sjöstrand Trio' last week, I was conscious that we do sometimes head off almost too frequently in the direction of the unusual and offbeat, but we do love bands that do things that are slightly different to the norm, and 'Gypsy Chicken' write infectiously likeable, quirky alternative folk that is pretty difficult to define, but is both entertaining and charming in equal quantities. Behind 'Gypsy Chicken' are 2 musicians, both Norwegian based, b

Andy Wors

Feb 6, 2020
1 min

'Fródi'' - 'Spor' (video)

Last year we covered Faroese artist 'Fródi' when he released his lovely album 'Hola', and we were able to remind ourselves of its charms when we created our 'Favourite Albums of 2019' list. It's definitely worth listening to if you haven't yet heard it. Anyway he's now released a video to the song 'Spor', and I've been totally transfixed by it, both sad and uplifting, as it charts the departure of French war brides, who'd married American soldiers and were embarking on their

'Folke Nikanor' - 'Rymden enligt Folke Nikanor’ (album)

Andy Wors

Feb 4, 2020
3 min

'Folke Nikanor' - 'Rymden enligt Folke Nikanor’ (album)

I try to avoid looking at artist Press Releases before writing a review for fear of inadvertently writing something which the record label / PR people want me to say, but sometimes this kind of messes things up somewhat. The new 'Folke Nikanor' album is a really enjoyable listen, and one of the biggest compliments I could think of when I first heard it is that in places it reminds of Christian Gabels amazing '1900' project, so of course the fact that it turns out that it is a

Andy Wors

Jan 30, 2020
1 min

Siv Jakobsen - 'Fear the Fear' (single)

We try to mix things up as much as possible by featuring artists both new and old to Nordic Music Review, and we're particularly delighted to write once again about Siv Jakobsen, who's music I remember so distinctly listening to on our launch night way back in 2014. Since then we've followed her progress carefully, from the release of her EP 'The Lingering' to her debut album, as well as UK tour dates and her new single 'Fear the Fear' is the 1st glimpse of a new album, which

Andy Wors

Jan 28, 2020
1 min

'Big Fox' - 'Beast' (single)

The list of high quality Nordic album releases expected in the next couple of months is pretty extraordinary, and we'll add 'Big Fox', who will release her 3rd album, 'See How the Light Falls' in March. Behind 'Big Fox' is the singer songwriter Charlotta Perers, and it's fairly remiss of us not to have featured before, as although her last album was released back in 2013 she has received widespread attention for some excellent single releases in the last couple of years - inc

'Lillith' - 'Beautiful Dreamers' (single)

Andy Wors

Jan 23, 2020
2 min

'Lillith' - 'Beautiful Dreamers' (single)

We've featured a few bands last year who were returning after a long hiatus (I guess Treemer' from Finland were one of those), and Norwegian band 'Lillith' are another band who have been away for a long time, after releasing a really well received album back in 2010, and finally re-emerging from the shadows in the last week with a new single entitled 'Beautiful Dreamers'. They describe themselves as a 'noir pop rock band', which given the growth in Scandinavian noir culture i

'When 'Airy Met Fairy' - 'Blanket of Sorrow' (single)

Andy Wors

Dec 20, 2019
2 min

'When 'Airy Met Fairy' - 'Blanket of Sorrow' (single)

So we maybe might squeeze in one special feature over the weekend, but our last 'new release' of the year is, somewhat inevitably a 'Christmas song'. Just as inevitably it doesn't involve happy dancing Santa's, talking reindeer or even a little baby Jesus, but instead a more thoughtful reflection of what Christmas can be like for some, courtesy of Icelandic band 'When 'Airy Met Fairy' and their song 'Blanket of Sorrow' 'When ‘Airy Met Fairy’ are a band we’ve not covered too

Introducing...'Murky Munroe' with track 'The Drought'

Andy Wors

Nov 29, 2019
1 min

Introducing...'Murky Munroe' with track 'The Drought'

It's turning out to be a 'bumper' day of features to celebrate our 5 years of existence, and there's more than a hint of familiarity in the names we're featuring - most notably 'Ceasetone' and 'YOHIO'. And whilst we've never directly written about 'Murky Munroe', the name behind the moniker is more familiar, as it's the brainchild of Mazdak Khosravi, the Danish / Iranian musician that we featured as part of the 'Black Dog Howl' duo we loved writing about, and still love liste

Andy Wors

Nov 29, 2019
1 min

'CeaseTone' - new single 'Egotopia'

So it's our official 5th birthday today, and it's therefore pretty appropriate that we start with one of our favourite bands, a huge welcome back to the amazing 'CeaseTone', a project we first wrote back in our first few months of existence when we came across some 2014 experimentation by the bands founder Hafsteinn Þráinsson. Since then the band has received widespread praise for the exceptional 'Two Strangers' album, still an absolute favourite of ours, had nice words writ

Introducing... 'Elimarit' with single 'Heart So Cold'

Andy Wors

Nov 6, 2019
2 min

Introducing... 'Elimarit' with single 'Heart So Cold'

We'll be heading to Sweden, Iceland and Denmark later (hopefully), but first we'll start in Norway with an artist who has an amazing background in contemporary music working with other artists, and is now releasing music in her own right. 'Elimarit' is Norwegian, and after performing with the London Contemporary Voices caught the attention of some of our favourite artists, including the likes of Tom Chaplin, Lucy Rose and Guy Garvey, subsequently working with them on a variet

Andy Wors

May 14, 2019
2 min

Eli Gauden - 'Another Day' (single)

So we've covered 3 bands already today, and we have a couple of songwriters next who both bring a different perspective to their songwriting. Eli Gauden is Norwegian, somewhat inevitably hailing from Bergen, and the influences behind her music lie in more traditional songwriters such as John Mayer and Leonard Cohen, as well as (even more inevitably) the natural surroundings of her native Norway. It was her studies in the USA that helped influence the style of her music, which

Malin Sallstedt - 'Undress the Truth' (single)

Andy Wors

May 1, 2019
1 min

Malin Sallstedt - 'Undress the Truth' (single)

We covered 'Ida Wenøe' at length yesterday, so just a short write up today, and it's a follow up on an artist we wrote about a couple of years ago, and we're delighted to be able to update you on a forthcoming album release too. Malin Sallstedt is from Sweden, and we first wrote about her in 2017 when she released a track in the guise of Malin Sallstedt and the 'Tiny Orchestra', a lovely song entitled 'Deny'. Her debut album 'Bloom Free' will be out on May 24th through Havtor

Album of the Week: Ida Wenøe - 'The Things We Don't Know Yet'

Andy Wors

Apr 30, 2019
4 min

Album of the Week: Ida Wenøe - 'The Things We Don't Know Yet'

Regular readers will be used to delays to our album reviews, normally caused by constraints of time and general hapless disorganisation, however sometimes writing about albums which are that little bit special simply take a bit longer. And Ida Wenøe's album 'The Things We Don't Know Yet' isn't the type of album that anyone can really take in after one listen, because there's so many lovely subtle details in both the music and the lyrics that will take that bit longer to under

Andy Wors

Apr 12, 2019
1 min

'Hush Forever' - 'About A Boy' (single / video)

We will have a couple of album reviews later, but there are a really good collection of releases hitting today, and one song and video which has really captured our attention is from Swedish songwriter 'Hush Forever'. The former member of ambient duo 'Flipside' has this ability to write the most intimate music, and his latest song 'About A Boy' is just so personal, but also so delightfully written. It's the second part of his "Ann-Ki And Her Son" series, where the musician be

Andy Wors

Mar 7, 2019
2 min

'Les Shales' - 'Nowhere's Eve' (album)

We're still trying to get into the habit of writing a couple of short and sharp album reviews each week, so that we can cover as many new releases as possible, and Swedish duo 'Les Shales' are definitely worthy of a few lines with their new album 'Nowhere's Eve'. It is an album which was sent to us last week without any fanfare, just one line asking us to take a listen, and that seemed rather nice - no big attempt to capture our attention, or use of a pestering PR companies

'Ida Wenøe' - new single 'Another Kind of Love'

Andy Wors

Mar 4, 2019
2 min

'Ida Wenøe' - new single 'Another Kind of Love'

We have briefly written about 'Ida Wenøe' previously, but have given her nowhere near the coverage she deserves, but thankfully we should be able to correct that over the next few months with a new single, an album and some UK live dates to write about. I think I first read about the Danish singer songwriter a few years ago when our friends at the excellent 'Good Because Danish' wrote about her, and since then she has released a steady stream of music, including the excellen

'Haggren Gravlund' - 'Horseman Pass By' (album)

Andy Wors

Jan 3, 2019
2 min

'Haggren Gravlund' - 'Horseman Pass By' (album)

So the New Year plan is that we spend 10 days covering Albums we missed in 2018, then shift on to new releases. I really hope we can stick with it, because we have a lovely selection to 'work' through. And we'll start with a project we briefly featured in Autumn last year, which comprises 2 Swedish musicians, Peder Gravlund (also part of 'Handshake') and fellow songwriter Gustav Sigala Haggren - together they are 'Haggren Gravlund'. The album is entitled 'Horseman Pass By',

Andy Wors

Nov 29, 2018
1 min

Elsa Åborg with new track 'I cave'

We have 2 releases from Sweden to feature today, and I love the fact that they are just so contrasting in styles. We'll start with Elsa Åborg, a singer songwriter based in Stockholm, who previously played in a project called 'High on Heels' (with Julia Frej), and who herself released her debut EP at the end of 2015 entitled 'Heart Attacks' - which is an interesting collection of songs worth checking out on Bandcamp if you have chance. Her new release is entitled 'I cave' and