Jim's Top Ten (or Twelve) Picks of 2004

1. Thirdimension "Permanent Holiday" (Hidden Agenda) [more]
A dazzling second album and my favorite of the year. Biased? Yup. Patting ourselves on the back a little and proud we got to put this out? Hell yes. To think these gentlemen endured getting their first album (the awesome Protect Us From What We Want) getting more-or-less shelved by Warner Sweden upon release back in 1998 and then six years later produce this life-affirming new album, an incandescent gem…without missing a beat…as if they'd never been away. Astounding.

2. The Chrysler "Failures And Sparks" (Flora & Fauna) [more]
This crosses over in so many myriad ways: exquisite fractured pop, heartwarming bonfire Americana, intimate acoustic folk. One the best albums in recent memory, and a close second to Thirdimension. Good news: likely to be released here early this year in expanded form.
Re-released by Parasol/Galaxy Gramophone in the US, September 2005.

3. Leopold "Dreaming Is For Anyone" (Take One More Take) [more]
A perfect "Parasol" style pop album. Lush piano-driven arrangements, melancholy lyrical moods, spectacular songs, compelling Nordic understatement... Pretty sure (checking my notes again) that this is one of the most beautiful albums of the century. Yep. New album coming soon.

4. Hip Whips "Self-Titled" (Dubious/Brass Button) [more]
The first of a handful of guitar-less bands in my awesome column this year... The Hip Whips employ a soul-drenched chameleon voice (think Jagger, Van Morrison, and Stevie Winwood), a huge Hammond organ and a crack rhythm section… A late-sixties throwback of the highest order.

5. Eskju Divine " Darkness All Around EP" (Imperial Recordings) [more]
Usually I keep EPs and full-length albums separated, but this EP is so woven with sonic wonderment that it has become an album-like feast to our ears. Dramatic, bombastic, anthemic keyboard-driven art-pop. No guitars. Humongous arrangements. Four righteous songs. I can't imagine the upcoming album being better, seriously, but being just as good would be mindblowing.

6. Peter Bjorn And John "Falling Out" (Planekonomi) [more]
A smashing guitar pop record, hands down the best of the genre for me this year. Perhaps it's The Jam influence that crosses over bigtime for me. Pretty damn brilliant any way you slice it.
Re-released by Parasol/Hidden Agenda in the US, September 2005.

7. Elope "The No Name Album" (Gravitation) [more]
My infatuation with 60s and 70s recording values and that era's nuancing is fully enabled by this ultra-melodic not-so-stoner-rock outfit. More Beatles that Queens Of The Stone Age, but you get a bit of both. Like the Hip Whips a lovely throwback to an age of sturdy songwriting and exemplary craftsmanship.

8. Franke "Optimismens Han" (Service Records) [more]
Immense echoing dissonant rock from the little band that could, did, and then disappeared. Filled the gap between Citizen Bird/Silverbullit albums at very least.

9. Bjorn Olsson "Self-Titled [the crab]" (Gravitation) [more]
This collection of home demos (third in the four volume seafood series) is a fantastic voyage into the ethereal rock-n-roll psyche of Bjorn Olsson, includes apparent early demos for what would become some classic TSOOL songs. "The Lobster" is coming soon to complete the quadrilogy.

10. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives "Origin Vol. One" (WMI) [more]
Easily contains 5 of the best rockers of their career, channeling their Union Carbide Production days if you ask me. Looking forward to Volume Two and hoping for a bit more of the band's canny/uncanny trademark psychedelia. U.S. release (March 2005) features two bonus tracks.

11. 22-Pistepirkko "Rally of Love" (Bare Bones Business Oy) [more]
The 17-year retrospective DCD for this freaky Finnish synth-pop/guitar-rock/swamp blues trio hooked me, but it was this 2002 release, their most recent proper studio album, that totally won me over. New album will land in 2005 and could change the world if Rally of Love is any indication.

12. David Fridlund "Amaterusa" (Adrian Recordings) [more]
Debut solo album from David Fridlund, frontman for David & The Citizens, with his lady Sara Culler. Not officially even released, with an eleventh hour December 22nd release in Sweden. If you want a head start check out the truly charming video for the first single "April & May" right here.
Re-released by Parasol/Hidden Agenda in the US, April 2005.

Honorable Mention 2004
It was a heartbreaker, paring down my stacks of
favorite Scandinavian titles from the past year or so.
The releases below didn't make my Top Twelve
above but they still mean the world to me.

Where would I be without my favorite album to wash dishes by? Sole Love, by Vega, released earlier this year, is a hopelessly romantic collection of baroque pop duets between Vega mainman Nils-Erik Sandberg and Ellekari Larsson. Comparing this to The Delgados and Dream Academy is not much of a stretch.

The weirdest album of the year award goes to The Knife, a brother sister duo engaged in thee most perverse non-stop erotic cabaret this side of well, nobody. Their second effort Deep Cuts (arriving at Parasol later this month) is a freaky electro-punk groover from start to finish. Oddly enough the song “Heartbeats” from Jose Gonzalez’s debut is a cover of The Knife’s most amazing single to date. In the meantime their discombobulating Self-Titled debut is worth checking out.

A close second to Vega in the dishes washing arena would be Stockholm rockers Mazarine Street. Their 1997 album Thirteen Reasons To Believe is one of the best rock records to come out of Sweden in the last decade, in my opinion... Imagine a slightly more futuristic Union Carbide Productions (with turntables, killer samples, more horns, etc), unequivocally badass with a real sense of menace at times.

KVLR’s new Self-Titled album (released by my pal Avi Roig at It’s A Trap!) is all-the-best-reasons-to-love-indie-rock resurrected. With its monumental 90s bombast the single “Slow Clapping” is a incandescent rock track, worth the price of admission alone.

23-year-old wunderkind Jens Lekman restored my faith in dramatic, theatrical, campy pop in one fell swoop…or rather three genius EPs. Three lusciously lo-fi short-form releases (You Are the Light, Maple Leaves, and Rocky Dennis) that might rival his full-length, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog… Morrissey, Scott Walker, Divine Comedy fans should get your hands on anything and everything this young man offers.

The Shout Out Louds full-length album isn’t available from Parasol any longer (they’re shopping it to labels in the States) but you owe yourselves a taste of their bristling guitar-and-synth-pop majesty. Their Oh, Sweetheart EP might be their three best songs yet, so go for it.

The Gravitation label's Spring In Paris released their debut album Hope There Is A Morning After This earlier this year, and it continues to pluck at my heartstrings... A highspirited Jonathan Richman-esque, Ray Davies-ian guitar-pop romp, slinky songs and plaintive vocals wrapped in Bjorn Olsson's wooly production.

I had been waiting for the debut by Swedish faves bob hund’s English-lyric alter-ego Bergman Rock for years, stoked by a CDR full of demos. While BR’s Self-Titled full-length took the songs in wild and novel directions, I do miss the lo-fi aspect of the demos. Still a marvelous and idiosyncratic new wave record, polished and peculiar in ways other music isn’t.

Combining the boyfriend/girlfriend talents of members of two of my fave Swedish bands, Heikki features Jari from The Bear Quartet and Maria from The Concretes. Their second album, entitled Heikki 2 is laden with rollicking pop grandeur and intimate whimsical folksiness, and Jari is one of the best guitarists in the world to boot.

Imperial Records has presented gifts like Jose Gonzalez and Eskju Divine and their latest release by Melpo Mene, Holes, follows in the label’s royal tradition. Subliminally awesome pop quietude with some lovely Elliott Smith things going on, otherwise hard to describe…believe it or not. Highly recommended, listening to it right now in fact.

Although I’ve been suitably enamored with David & The Citizens’ latest album Until The Sadness Is Gone, it took mainman David Fridlund’s magnificent 11th hour solo album Amaterasu (new in stock) to really connect the dots for me. A truly brilliant pop band.

Likewise, D&TC labelmates Laakso are a feverishly poetic Swedish/Finnish pop group of unbridled intensity. Their most recent album, I Miss You, I'm Pregnant, is a bohemian bonfire folkrock crescendo that easily falls into Jeff Mangum, Connor Oberst, Thom York territories.

Also coming soon, before Xmas hopefully...the new single "Speak To Me" by precision-rock dance-punk quintet CDOASS, who I predict will soon give The Hives a run for their major label money. And I'm pretty sure Howlin' Pelle agrees with me! Think Gang of 4 meets Franz Ferdinand meets The Pop Group meets The Homosexuals, and then kiss your OASS goodbye!

The recent Remastered to Be Recycled collection by Union Carbide Productions (the late-80s, early-90s pre-Soundtrack of Our Lives Stooges-rock juggernaut) is exceptional for many reasons: unreleased tracks, new mixes, a super-rock mastering job. One of the greatest rock bands ever. Ever. Swedish Rock wouldn’t exist without them.

Another blast from the past, Blissful, released about 30 songs during their short but sweet career in the mid-90s. A cataclysm of hyperkinetic punk, jazz-drenched pop and colossal dynamics, the band’s Greatest ain’t a greatest hits collection, but it is their best album.

And if anyone out there is still without the DCD retrospective from Finland’s 22-Pistepirkko, The Nature of…1985-2002, I must ask why oh why? This is the perfect overview for these Finnish freak-pop phenoms and rather inexpensive for an import double-album. Absolutely alluring guitar pop, warped new wave, and bristling blues rock, what’s not to love?

Looking for the two best Swedish music collections at Parasol to fill in the gaps? The Accelerator comp from Startracks is loaded with favorites like The Bear Quartet, Radio Department, Laakso, Moneybrother, and loads more...

...while It’s A Trap’s very recent Reader’s Companion Volume One, while equally loaded has not surprisingly introduced me to so many more great bands, like CDOASS, Jim Stark, Thirdimension, Jose Gonzalez, Peter Bjorn & John, KVLR, and many more essentials.

Best news of late 2004 is…2005 is shaping up nicely.