The one thing that was pretty much guaranteed on return from a couple of weeks vacation, along with a huge backlog, was that there would be some new release courtesy of Swedish musician Martin M. Sjöstrand, who churns out new material through his various projects at a rate similar to Mozart. I’m not sure if he sometimes writes music based on tunes constructed from 4 letter words (or buys gold pianos) like the Austrian used to, but his releases are always entertaining - the latest is from This Heel, and it’s an EP entitled ‘Cave Crickets’.
We last heard from This Heel earlier this year when he released the excellent ‘Fly Me Back To Suspended Animation’, and the latest releases are probably slightly more conventional and less prone to disappearing off at a tangent – ‘Cave Crickets’ is less than 2 minutes long, simply structured but with a distinct guitar theme that will stick in your mind.
‘Psycho Bird’ has more of a quirky feel, albeit in a laid back manner, I like in particular the groovy instrumental sections. The lyrics also bring a smile to my face. Where do you hide from the Psycho Bird? By hiding behind the shed, of course.
The curious ‘Flowered Skeleton’ concludes the EP, a mix of fleeting tunes, chord progressions and babbling human noise, followed by what sounds like a snoring duck. It’s a b-side I guess.
Anyway new music from Martin M. Sjöstrand is always welcome, with interesting chord progressions and melodies, and it’s a nice way to start back on a post holiday Monday. He also released another track entitled 'The Onion Man', which you can find on Spotify.