Welcome to The Archives where all the best new Nordic music gets stacked up each week. Some weeks are more "stacked" than others. You will also find new titles on this page that didn't make the front page, so check back often. Do I feel compelled to mention that almost all of these are import CDs and are available at extremely decent if not decadent domestic prices? I do. Click on the cover scan for more details about each release and purchasing options. Bold links in quotes within the descriptions are windows media sound samples, try before you buy.

Check out tracks from imminent/upcoming releases:
22 Pistepirkko "Suburban Ladyland" from (Well You Know) Stuff Is Like We Yeah!
The Tallest Man On Earth "Pistol Dreams" from Shallow Grave

Norwegian psych-rock juggernaut Motorpsycho follow-up the Indie Rock Valhalla that was 2006’s Black Hole/Blank Canvas double-album with the band’s 13th full-length, Little Lucid Moments, their most hypnotic and heroic work to date, and the heaviest prog-rock action they've explored since the late-90s. Four immense, proggy tracks, includes a prerequisite 'suite' of songs (shades of "Starship Trooper" by Yes, harmonies included). Motorpsycho seed their proto-stoner supernova jams with Steve Reich-ian interludes, mind-expanding Deadheadsian guitar-weaving and galaxy-wide jazz odysseys; spooling up monstro riff-mongering and seismic traktorbass™ that evoke both Sonic Youth and Swervedriver; all simultaneously anchored and propelled by the jazz-motorik stylings of new drummer Kenneth Kapstad (former member of Gåte), who totally shreds time & space, amen. Four molten, mesmerizing tracks strung out over nearly 60 minutes, recorded roughshod in late 2007, this is MP in epic, zoomrock mode. Here's part of the second passage from the 21-minute salutatory suite, "Little Lucid Moments: A Hoof to the Head", and another open-throttle edit from the monumental "She Left On the Sun Ship".
U.S. Tour:
6/20 Wexner Center, Columbus OH
6/21 Terrastock Festival, Louisville KY
6/22 Empty Bottle, Chicago IL

Things get a little more ornate and orchestrated when Boy Omega Man Martin Henrik Gustafsson trades in the electronic backing of recent efforts for a bevy of strings, horns and pianos on his latest effort, Hope On the Horizon. The songs start simply but soon immerse the listener in grander-than-usual dynamics and epic arrangements, like on "A Quest For Fire" and a chiming sweetness that belies the subject matter on "Suffocation Street". While his desperate vocals still recall earnest troubadours like Conor Oberst and Elliot Smith, this time out Martin's waltzy folksongs are awash in a rootsy Sufjan Stevens-esque grandeur unheard on previous efforts...

With Montys Loco's last album, Man Overboard, still in regular rotation we welcome with open arms these Swedish electro-pop mavens' new recordings. Farewell Mr. Happy is yet another beautiful and bizarre collection of uncompromising looped and sampled dark-dreamery, comparable to The Knife and Bjork, and retaining that sinister Phil Spector girl-group-gone-bad vibe. Their sonic habitat remains a sleepy, hyper-sensual sonic otherworld, but the edges here aren't softened at all, in fact the opposite is true. The new songs are dangerously serrated and sprinkled with oldchool industrial flourishes, but of course it's Anja Bigrell and Marie Eklund's woozy and winsome vocal aerobatics that stir the spirits and tug purposefully at the heartstrings. Explore the first two singles: "Farewell Mr. Happy" and "Heavy".

With a sound that has matured from adorable to drop-dead gorgeous in the space of time between releases, The Second Band's new album, The Definite Form, is more epic, more rapturous and more assured than ever, an orchestral-pop gem that will be in my Top 10 for 2008. The Örebro, Sweden combo’s soulful brass-driven ecstasy is still evident, but this time out, older and wiser, shadowed with a feeling of heartbreak and melancholy that is undeniably Scandinavian. Fans of The Beautiful South (arrangements), Headlights (sweetness), Bright Eyes (earnestness), Okkervil River (rustic charm) and Shout Out Louds (a manic melancholia) will find plenty to swoon to here. Get dizzy with "The Piano Machine" and "Funeral At Sea".

An Object is the debut album from Swedish motorik-punk troika Paper, featuring Calle Olsson from The Bear Quartet and Paddington DC along with members of Audionom. They've been around for almost a decade, dropping the occasional download or compilation track, but this is their first official release, and on the esteemed Novoton label to boot! Paper's sound is based around the frustration of punk, the delicacy of pop melody and the hypnotic power of repetition. Think early Wire meets early Wire, simple, single-minded, powerful; with contrails of Neu!, Silverbullit/Citizen Bird and Joy Division. Fans of The Bear Quartet’s recent electronic eccentricities, Audionom’s hypnotic avant-punk, and Paddington DC’s zoom-pop will be spellbound, if you don’t mind a bit of krautrockin’ cochlea-knocking. While seemingly greater than the sum of its parts, check out these highlights: the 12XU-ish "Out Of It Into It" and the album's first single "To Her".

On their new, self-titled album Norway's reigning rock royalty Madrugada’s ferocious, impassioned blues-rock is even more charged and heartbreaking than ever after the untimely death of guitarist (and My Midnight Creeps frontman) Robert Burås last year. Taking the songs that Robert had completed, and recruiting guitarists like Kid Congo Powers (The Bad Seeds, The Cramps, The Gun Club) and Emil Nicolaisen (Serena Maneesh) to flesh things out, the remaining members of Madrugada offer this album as testament to their lost brother, a true rock-n-roll dude. Have an earful of the ominous and portentious first single: "Look Away Lucifer". Could this be the band's swan song? Hard to say. I imagine it would be hard to move forward after such a loss, but we'll see...

Recently nominated for a Swedish Grammy Nouvelle D'Amour is the ambitious new album from our favorite Swedish/Ugandan soul siren Jaqee (Jaqueline Nakiri). For this new platter this songbird's partnered with Swedish rock icon Mattias Hellberg (Nymphet Noodlers, Hederos & Hellberg, esteemed solo-singer-songwriter) who voodoos up some killer songs and crafty arrangements as well as some truly rambunctious and rootsy psych-country-dub-ragga-folk-blues grooves, in a soulful sub-Sahara stylee. There's hints of Massive Attack's hazy dubscapes and proto-folky Devendra Banhart's Smokey Monuntain-esque genre-splicing; throw in the kitchen sink (and a banjo!) and you're golden. Check out the first single "Sugar", the smoky "Zion", and the plucky "Banjo Lullaby".

At long last, one of 2007’s best Swedish albums, from one of our fave artists, finally arrives here at HQ in early 2008…sorry it took so long! The Fine Arts Showcase, led by post-modern popsmith Gustaf Kjellvander (Christian's little brother and member of Songs Of Soil), makes mecurial, melodic rock music. When covering an album's worth of Rough Bunnies tunes Gustaf continues to shine as a vocalist and arranger. Cute, girly Rough Bunnies ditties become grand, expensive, stentoroian-voiced epics; he's creating polished art-rock baubles from the cult-cultivating Rough Bunnies’ melancholic lo-fi uncut gemmage. Dive into the album's first single, "Modern Love" and the multi-referential "Rough Bunnies Saved My Life"

Happens every year, a spectacular late addition, in fact it's not even here yet... Mattias Barjed, glowering guitarist for The Soundtrack of Our Lives, created and curated this double-album soundtrack for a hip new Swedish miniseries (about twenty-something rockers in early-70s Gothenburg) that plays out like a gritty retro-rock opera! Features contributions from Barjed's TSOOL bandmates, plus members of Elope, Hipwhips, Jan Martens Frustration and many more. Also includes a new, unreleased song by The Tallest Man On Earth. Check out guest stars like Hipwhip's Markus Lindmark on "Set Us Free", series female lead Fanny Risberg on a cover of The Hipwhip's "Stay With Me Forever" , and an awesome guest vocal by TSOOL frontman Ebbot Lundberg on "Coming Down Cold". I'm calling this my Album Of The Year and just in time to take the top spot on my list of fave Nordic albums of 2007.

Award-winning Swedish songstress Anna Ternheim's domestic debut is here, in EP teaser form, highly recommended for Cat Power, Frida Hyvönen and Imogen Heap fans. Six mostly-acoustic songs include the 'Naked Version' of her recent single “Lovers Dream”, a cover of David Bowie & Iggy Pop's "China Girl", plus a live video of her righteous Broder Daniel cover, “Shoreline”, a piano and vocal version of this classic Swedish rock track so compelling I’m posting her studio piano version and BD’s bombastic original just for kicks. U.S. Tour May 2008.

Back in stock soon! Fans are still mourning the passing of Madrugada/My Midnight Creeps guitarist Robert Burås on July 12th. Since that sad day we've belatedly and finally come across a supply of Madrugada’s haunting 2005 live album, Live At Tralfamadore, at a bearable import price. An album released just 12 days after the astonishing gig at the Olso Spektrum in December 2005, documented here in glorious stereo. Feel it: "Hard To Come Back". Extras include songs from the 2005 Oya Festival and a couple other venues. Features special guest appearance by Kid Congo Powers, one of Robert’s guitar heroes.

I'm a fan of the EP format to begin with and this highly recommended debut EP from shoegazing Swedish trio Norma just cements my fanaticism! Parlaying a monumental brand of tripped-out hypno-electro-rock majesty driven by motorik beats Norma creates gloomy, zoomy, post-rock symphonies comparable in their epic scope, dynamics, and totally cosmic bombast to fellow Scandinavians Eskju Divine, Serena Maneesh, The Lionheart Brothers and Moonbabies. So many adjectives, so few songs! Four epics, two of them clocking in over 8 minutes, including "The Storm". 180 proof shoegaze rock, invoking the corporeal spirits of klassic krautrock, Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, M83, Mogwai, Sigur Ros, etc. Norma is a great new band and the Novoton label (home to Black Belt, Antennas, Existensminimum) continues to impress!

A domestic release for Swedish retro-psych-prog act Black Bonzo's second album! With their debut album, Self-Titled AKA Lady of the Light (which I'm trying to restock at a decent price), Black Bonzo made fans of many Parasol staffers, pals, and customers, so it’s extra cool to have their new album readily available Stateside. This new album finds the band exploring even more glorious 60s and 70s progressive rock trajectories, stupendous stadium rock, the soundtrack to a hazy, hairy, heavenly bygone era. Led by Magnus Lindgren prog-perfect vocals and Nicklas Åhlund’s magnificent organ Black Bonzo resurrects Queen, Uriah Heap, Yes, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, even a hint of Kansas. From the Hammond-o-riffic "Thorns Upon A Crown", to the meaty, beaty, big and bouncy "The Well", to the five man acoustic jam "Ten Feet Away" it becomes apparently that Black Bonzo has become even more adept at crinkling the time/space continuum. The band says "It's more adventurous, original and mysterious then you ever can imagine!" and knowing what we know about their flamboyant and freaky debut we've got two words for you: "WHOA!" Yes these classic rock chameleons are back, and in fine "prog-was-punk-before-punk-was-punk” form.

First off, I LOVE grandiose boy/girl duets by Swedish twins. You put that combo together and I’ll love it and gosh bless 'em upstart Swedish guitar-pop duo Tupelo Honeys have done just that! Even if you take the twins out of the equation I’ll love it like I love David Fridlund and Sara Culler, Vega (especially), and our own Moonbabies; and I’ll harken back to The Delgados, The Go-Betweens, and OK, I'll admit it, The Dream Academy. Three fine examples include “Boy, You’re All Right”, “Andy, Are You Sure?”, and “Without My Princess”. We’re talking popsongs here, so lyrically it’s pretty much about feeling good, feeling very good, and feeling bad, but only occasionally. Joel’s songs trend towards epicry and grandeur (think Arcade Fire and even Johnossi), while Linn’s sweeter sunnier fare has twee and classic Swedish pop (think Club 8, The Tiny and Concretes) dominating the graph. It’s when their voices come together that the goosebumps go off, bigtime, and when the twins do that amazingly effective shouty gang vocal call and response thing I hear a very romantic and winsome Love Is All. Anyone else? Now available as Japanese import with two bonus tracks.

Rock trio Elope’s 9 Distilled Dreams and their previous effort, 3WD, were recorded during the same marathon sessions, but released over two albums, songs split between rockin' and mello'. 3WD made no bones about rocking out Crazy Horse style, while long-awaited and chiefly acoustic companion piece, 9DD, explores Elope’s dreamy side, their hazy mellowosity, and as it happens could be the best album of their career. "Black Eyed Citizen" is one of the strongest songs of their career and the blown-glass beauty of "No Don't" is a sound to behold. Whereas their 2004 debut, The No Name Record, stirred Cream, Badfinger, and The Beatles into their steamrolling stoner melodicism; and 2005's 3WD offered throwback, electrified prog(gier)-rock majesties; here within the misty-eyed classic rock escapism and meandering psychedelia of 9 Distilled Dreams you'll find straight-up references to Big Star, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, and even CSNY... Dreamy.

Shoegaze guitar-pop action from Swedish outfit Park Hotell (two Ls) led by Christian Ramirez and featuring members of Mattias Alkberg BD. Gauzy pop that can rock when called for, harkens back to quality fuzz-guitar bands like The Weddoes, Joy Division, The Bear Quartet (an obvious influence), Razorcuts, and yes, The Close Lobsters...sigh! EP #1 has a real propulsive Weddoesing Present vibe, with fuzzy guitar lines like comets tails ("Size Of Spain"). EP #2 sounds a bit like fellow New Order-lovin' countrymen The Embassy ("Low On Resistance"), complete with Peter Hook-esque grinding basslines. We've also restocked Park Hotell's only other available CD release (as far as I know), a fuzzy-wuzzy 2-song single from 2003, featuring "Hearts".