Another Monday hits us, so to brighten your week here are another 5 (mostly) new Nordic releases:
Wilder Beats (Finland) - new album 'Twenty Sixty One'
Finnish band 'Wilder Beats' hail from Oulu, home to many bands we've featured in Nordic Music Review, but their style is somewhat different. A clever fusion of electronic music, with influences from bands such as Four Tet, their album 'Twenty Sixty One' is a dreamy, hypnotic soundscape, which shifts and moves gently, allowing different rhythms and fleeting melodies to hit you as you travel through it. Highlights include the excellent 'Monster', where melancholic and emotional vocals carry the track forward, and with some thoughtful lyrics to consider too. We don't feature that many Electronic releases such as this, but this is well worth giving a listen.
Pink Milk - new single 'Kill 4 U'
The post punk / underground music scene in Sweden seems to be thriving, and we've featured a fair few bands in the last year, but it's typically remiss of us to have missed 'Pink Milk'. The duo have made a pretty big impression in the last 2 years with their debut releases, and are all set to release their album 'Purple' on October 20th. In the meantime their single 'Kill 4 U' has landed, a track overwhelmingly drowned in reverb and feedback, with dark vocals peeking through the haze - it's a glimmer of a different world, and we'd expect their album to offer something very different to anything we've heard this year.
Line Bøgh (Denmark) with album 'Like fire like fire
We featured Danish singer songwriter Line Bøgh sometime after she released her single 'Yellow Moon' a couple of months ago, and we're delighted that her debut album 'Like fire like fire' has now reached us. It's a an album written in very much a personal style, softly written songs with gentle melodies and her distinct vocals carrying the tracks forward. 'Yellow Moon' remains an obvious highlight, but there are plenty of songs that are worthy of listen - 'Out of Air' suits her vocal style really well, but I particularly like 'Airplanes', with a jaunty melody and lovely instrumentation courtesy of brass contributions. This is well worth a few listens.
Tuvaband (Norway) - new single 'Trees'
We've featured the Norwegian / British duo 'Tuvaband' a couple of times, they're certainly in our favourite 10 of new bands featured in Nordic Music Review in our 3 year existence. Their previous tracks are definitely worth putting together in a playlist and now they have an additional song 'Trees' to add to them. As always with Tuvaband's music, there is a sense of simplicity in their approach, lo-fi, an effects laden guitar and shimmering vocals that seem to come from another world altogether. This is a really beautifully constructed track to get totally immersed in. Anyway the good news is that they're coming to London to play at the end of October (they'd obviously be welcome to come to Manchester as well...) and their EP 'Mess' is due at the beginning of November.
Rain on Monday (Sweden) - Single 'Kill My Love'
'Rain on Monday' released their single 'Kill My Love' sometime ago, and if truth be told, this track has been sitting on our new music playlist for months, slowly growing on me every time I've heard it. Behind 'Rain on Monday' is Swedish musician 'Raimond Nurmilampi', and his music is easy listening Indie Pop, influenced by folk musicians and I suspect a few indie bands from the 1980's and 90's. 'Kill My Love' has the type of melodic hook that will stay with you all evening, vocals that are distinct due to a hint of huskiness, and easy going synths that are never too harsh or overbearing on the ears.