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THE
SWEDISH SOUND
Created for Parasol by Hanna Calner
Beautiful Sweden, the oblong country in Northern Europe, perhaps most famous
for VOLVO, IKEA and Absolut Vodka. But except from Vodka, the largest export
goods of Sweden, is actually Swedish music. Though The Cardigans, ABBA, Roxette,
Ace of Base, Eagle-Eye Cherry and Europe may represent Swedish music on the big
international scene, the Swedish independent pop scene is at least that good.
Almost every small town in Sweden has their own local pop-heroes. Perhaps it
is because of the public municipal music-schools, open for everyone since the
1950's, or because Sweden is a multicultural country, open-minded to influences
from the world around. This is clearly reflected in the pop-music produced in
the country. Still, you may hear a bit of the Scandinavian
melancholy in it.
Members of Parasol's favorite Swedish bands, Club 8, Starlet, Waltz for Debbie,
Permer, Acid House Kings, Ronderlin, Lasse Lindh, the Soundtrack of Our Lives
and Thirdimension, all come from southernmost Sweden. Some of them now live in
Stockholm, but it all started in either Göteborg, Malmö or Åhus.
Except from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden and the center of the country's
music industry, Malmö and Göteborg have great influences on Swedish
music. Both cities have been chosen as "poptown of the year" (Malmö in
year 2000 and Göteborg in 2001) by national Swedish radio. This, because
both cities have a young, vivid and inspiring music life. The southern Sweden
independent pop scene perhaps seems small in a world-wide perspective, but nevertheless
it creates world-class music. The small area promotes good opportunities for
musicians to collaborate and inspire one
another.
MALMÖ
Malmö, located at the west-coast in southernmost Sweden, is the hometown
of members from Starlet, Waltz for Debbie, Acid House Kings and Thirdimension.
Malmö is Sweden´s third biggest town with about 260,000 residents.
Some twenty percent of the city's population are immigrants. The proximity
to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, (a bridge nowadays connect the two cities),
makes Malmö Sweden's gateway to the rest of Europe. All these things bring
Malmö a certain atmosphere. In recent years, this former industrial-town,
has evolved into a cultural center. The music scene in Malmö has been
put into focus, much thanks to the Eggstone-owned Tambourine Studios, in which
world famous artists (like Tom Jones, the Cardigans, St. Etienne and plenty
of Japanese pop-bands) have made their recordings. Malmö is also the hometown
of bands like the Cardigans, Eggstone and the Ark. It is quite comfortable
being a famous popstar in Malmö, because as they say "nothing really
impresses a Malmö-citizen." The ruling mentality there is "If
you´ve seen Malmö, you´ve seen the world." And because
of the small area, everybody knows everybody within the same business. This
gives birth to interesting band-crossing music-constellations, some which can
be heard during the yearly music-festivals Möllefesten and Malmöfestivalen,
both held in Malmö city. In addition, Malmö offers excellent clubs,
especially Kulturbolaget, Inkonst, Jeriko and Panora.
WALTZ
FOR DEBBIE/PERMER
Words have since long being a central part of Martin Permer´s life. He
has always expressed himself through the word, putting them together forming
poetry and novels. When Martin realized the importance of music in the early
90's, he also discovered that forming the words into music had a healing effect
on him. In 1993, in the university town Lund, close to Malmö, Martin and
his newly found friend Stefan Sjölund began experimenting together. Stefan
told Martin everything he knew about music production. Stefan unfortunately
left town in 1996, but Martin was still eager to go further with their commenced
project. After a while Martin met Annica Lundbäck , who at that time lived
in the same student house as he. Both were inspired by the sound of bands like
St: Etienne and the meeting resulted in their first demo 1997. The demo was
sent to some labels, the response was good and in 1998 their first single was
released by Stockholm Records. But because of several bad circumstances, they
did not receive the backup they needed and the whole thing came to nothing.
Disappointed but not entirely overcome, Martin searched for other ways to fulfil
his musician dream. Thanks to Martin's dad, who supported the two young music
enthusiasts with money, a new demo was recorded in January 1999. The demo happened
to land in the right hands and the whole album, Gone and Out, was released
by Sweden's Labrador label and labels in Sweden, Spain, Japan and the Philippines.
In USA, Hidden Agenda released the album with two bonus tracks. "Once
Upon A Time" ended up as a radio hit on P3, Sweden´s biggest radio
channel. Since then, Martin has moved to Malmö, studying at the University
College of the town, while Annika lives in Stockholm, working as a political
journalist for a magazine. In 2001, Martin invested in an own studio-equipment
and started recording songs that didn't really fit in to the Waltz for Debbie-concept.
Martin is now his own singer and plays most of the instrument himself. The
songs will be released under his surname "Permer" by Parasol later
this year. Martin also collaborates with other musicians like Club 8 (for whom
he has been involved as a producer) , and Björn Stegmann from Thirdimension,.
Meanwhile, Waltz for Debbie are working on their second album.
THIRDIMENSION
One of the most interesting pop bands of the current Southern Sweden independent
scene is Thirdimension. The band members; Björn Stegmann (vocal, guitar),
Markus Slivka (guitar), Björn Wickenberg (drums) and Hans Savelli
(bass) are not just cool and good-looking, the music they deliver is clever
and truly brilliant. Added to that, their live performances show excellent
musicianship and are filled with a powerful presence. In other words, they
have got what it takes to reach the stars some day. The Swedish music press
has compared them with the Soundtrack of Our Lives, perhaps because the
sound of Thirdimension´s first album Protect Us From What We Want had
that same intensity and that same feeling of the psychedelic 60's as the
Soundtrack of Our Lives' album Welcome to the Infant Freebase, and
just like them, Thirdimension are moving between different genres in their
songs in a genius way. But with time, the soundscape of Thirdimension has
evolved into something unique for the band.
The fairy tale of Thirdimension starts back in the
summer of 1995 in the university town Lund when Björn Stegmann one late night entered a bar where Markus
Slivka hang out. Björn knew that Markus was a guitar player in some bands
in town and Björn himself was a good singer. After a couple of beers,
the two came up with the idea of forming a band. Markus knew a drummer, Björn
Wickenberg, who joined up when he soon after came back from studies in Venezuela.
With the bass playing waiter, Henrik Olsson, the band was complete. Later,
in the year of 2000, Henrik chose to go for his studies instead and was replaced
by Hans Savelli, a former member of Henrik's brother's metal band. At start,
the sound of Thirdimension was strongly influenced by the Smiths. But as they
became technically better, their sound changed into something more 60'-retro.
Today, they have created their own sound and Björn Stegmann, who writes
most of the music and the poetry, gets his inspiration from several genres
of music, like New Order, the Small Faces, the Pixies, Depeche Mode and Nick
Drake. Like many other bands, they recorded demo tapes to send to labels. During
the spring of 1997, they met Christoffer Lundquist from the Swedish power pop
band Brainpool. He was charmed by the quartet and offered his help. Christoffer
according to Thirdimension is a gifted musician. "He is not afraid of
taking risks and helps evolving the music into directions that are not always
obvious." Thirdimension recorded three songs with Christoffer (in the
garage of his mother-in-law!). One of them, "Until it Breaks", impressed
Warner Bros Music in Sweden so much that the band was signed in November the
same year. After almost a year in the studio the album, produced by Christoffer
Lundquist, finally came out in December 1998. The respons was mostly very good.
The Swedish press described them as "one of the most interesting debuts
of the year" and "a promising pop band." "This Time" became
a hit on Swedish radio. During the spring of 1999, Thirdimension was touring
together with the musicians Anna Stadling and Andreas Johnson. They played
at two of Sweden´s biggest festivals, Hultsfredsfestivalen and Stockholm
Water Festival. Otherwise, most of the concerts were unfortunately set in places
where the audience came to gamble or dance to eurotechno music, rather than
to listen to live music. Places where people really interested in the music
of Thirdimension did not usually hang out at. Later, Warner Bros decided to
promote Andreas Johnson instead of Thirdimension.
Today, Thirdimension is working on new material and plays around Southern Sweden
and Copenhagen, Denmark. Some of the new songs were recently recorded at the
legendary Tambourine Studios in Malmö. Meanwhile, Markus Slivka and Björn
Stegmann are also involved in other projects. Markus plays in a Malmö-band
called Björns Vänner and Björn writes songs together with Martin
Permer from Waltz for Debbie.
You will hear more from this quartet in the future, that is for sure!
Other Malmö pop-bands worth seeking out: Mondial, Punky´s Dilemma,
Loosegoats and David and the Citizens.
GÖTEBORG
Göteborg is the hometown of the Soundtrack of Our Lives and Ronderlin.
With its 470,000 residents it is Sweden's second biggest town, located on the
beautiful west coast in Southern Sweden which is famous for its lovely archipelago.
This is the town where your Volvo-car and your Hasselblad-camera are made.
The town has a long music tradition. The pop scene was important here as early
as in the 60's, and gave birth to international stars. In the 70's, the political
and progressive music grew big and you can still hear influences from this
era in the recent Göteborg-made music. The annual Göteborgskalaset
music-festival shows the great music variety of the town. Famous bands from
Göteborg in addition to Soundtrack of Our Lives are Bad Cash Quartet,
Silverbullit, Broder Daniel, and the Plan.
THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES
ÅHUS
Åhus, a small, Absolut Vodka-making medieval town on the east-cost in southernmost
Sweden, is the childhood-town of members from Starlet, Waltz for Debbie, Acid
House Kings and Club 8 and so also the birthplace of the two Parasol-connected
labels Summersound and Labrador.
THE SOUND OF ÅHUS
Everything starts with something, and in Åhus, it all started with the
two brothers Niklas and Johan Angergård and their friend Joakim Ödlund.
The three met in the middle of the 1980's. With a former interest in synth
music, hardrock and punk, someone introduced The Smiths to the three fellows
and this opened up a brand new world of amazing music. Filled with pleasure,
they started to make their own music. After several band-constellations and
just as many band-names, Acid House Kings was finally formed in 1991. Their
first releases were by the German label March-Marigold (two singles and one
album). So far, the band has come out with three albums. In 1998, a fourth
member, Julia Lannerheim also from the Åhus area, joined the band, giving
a female touch to the songs. Acid House Kings still exist, though Johan, Niklas
and Joakim are also involved in other band projects.
Acid House Kings
Johan and Joakim established Poprace in 1992 together
with their Åhus
friends Karolina Komstedt, Henrik Mårtensson, Anders Baeck and Jens Hård.
Poprace had a quite raw sound at the beginning that turned out to be softer
and more pop than rock during 1994. Five songs were soon released by March-Marigold
and later on, in 1996, another 5 songs were recorded and released at Elefant
Records, but at that time the band was already split up. The former band members
and lovers Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt realized that they wanted
to continue making music together, but of a gentler and softer kind that could
fit in better with the music they both listened to at that time. The result
is Club 8.
Karolina sings with her sensitive voice accompanied by the melancholic, melodic
music of Johan. The duo has now released four albums, two of them for Hidden
Agenda/ Parasol. Joakim, Henrik and Anders now together with Jonas Färm,
sings about love and loss, happiness and unhappiness and call themselves Starlet.
Starlet
In 1999, the independent label Summersound Recordings was established by Niklas, Johan and
Joakim...mainly to release good music that the trio liked...in Sweden. Summersound's
first release was Happydeadmen's A Decade in Pop. Soon, the idea of
releasing a collection of other Swedish indiepop-bands took the shape of The
Sound of Young Sweden Vol. 1. Rare or formerly unreleased songs from
bands like Leslies, Edson, Acid House Kings, Club 8 and Happydeadmen were
gathered
on one album. Volume 1 was followed up by Volume 2, including
tracks by Melodika, Mondial, Lasse Lindh, Nixon and Edson. Soon a third volume
will be available. The success of Summersound Recordings gave birth to Johan's other label, Labrador Records. Labrador publishes
bands like Cinnamon, Club 8, Lasse Lindh, Leslies, Mondial, Starlet, Ronderlin
and Waltz for Debbie.
OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:
Bad Cash Quartet's Official Website
http://www.badcashquartet.com
Broder Daniel's Official Website
http://www.jimmyfun.se/broderdaniel
The Cardigans' Official Website
http://cardigans.com
Chalk Sounds
http://www.chalksounds.com
Communication Recordings
http://members.tripod.com/~comrec
The Concretes' Official Website
http://www.lickingfingers.com
David and the Citizens' Official Website
http://www.thecitizens.nu
Edson's Official Website
http://www.edson.nu
Happydeadmen's Official Site
http://members01.chello.se/happydeadmen
The Hives' Official Website:
http://www.hives.nu
The (International) Noise Conspiracy Website
http://alt.digitalfarmers.com/tinc
Kent Fansite
http://www.kent.uk.freeuk.com
The Leslies' Official Website
http://www.listen.to/leslies
Loosegoats' Official Website
http://www.loosegoats.com
Red Sleeping Beauty Fansite
http://www.algonet.se/~mikael_m
Refused Fansite
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/3337/index2.html
Shermans' Official Website
http://www.shelflife.com/shermans
Thirdimension's Official Website
http://go.to/thirdimension
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