Nordic Spotlight
The best music and music festivals in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands
Last year, on Halloween, we posted Swedish dream pop band ViVii‘s song “Suckerpunch.” It was appropriately ghostly for the occasion. “Love Love Love,” the band’s newest single from its forthcoming self-titled debut album (out March 15), is similarly haunting. That said, it’s not as explicitly dejected as “Suckerpunch” is. Emil Jonsson’s deep voice and Caroline […]
On the artwork for Swedish artist Merely‘s upcoming third album, Hatching the Egg (out Friday on YEAR0001), a red-black background object is rendered so blurrily it’s indiscernible. The music that Kristina Florell makes as Merely has precisely the opposite charm: her redolent dream pop is of a high-definition caliber, one that employs ambient sounds for lucidity rather than for fog. […]
Congrats to Signe for making history! Her newest single, “Your Game,” is the inaugural single for Diamond Club Sweden. If you’ve followed us at all over the years, you’re familiar with our love for Diamond Club, the Norwegian singles label that Brilliance (another one of our favorite Norwegian labels) runs. With Signe, Diamond Club is […]
Based on its name, one might expect Gothenburg, Sweden to be the most goth-friendly city in the world. Think drinking establishments drenched in darkness and blasting the Sisters of Mercy, a statue of Robert Smith in the main square, and coffee only served black. Research proves this idea unfortunately wrong: Gothenburg is instead best known […]
It’s not at all difficult to understand what Raimond Dagfjäll says when he sings, but the lyric video for his song “Fever Dream,” the title track of his newest EP as Rain on Monday, is far from unnecessary. In the video, the song’s lyrics appear in blocky text against grainy, slowly-moving bays of static, and this combination […]
Madeleine Grace is a Swedish/Congolese singer whose voice boasts the suppleness and heavenly aura of R&B luminaries. She uses this vocal talent to great effect on her recent single “Tombé,” which skews ever so slightly towards the realm of dancefloor bangers. The song initially lights up with a shimmering, radial melody that remains consistent throughout […]
Endings are seldom appreciated unless they’re immediately succeeded by the chance of renewal or rebirth. Both a TV finale and New Year’s Eve suggest the closing of a chapter, sometimes involving the loss of something special; only the latter, though, comes with the prospect of a new chapter. Though realistic hope for a new beginning […]
Ah, winter. It’s that wonderful time of the year when all the trees die, hot chocolate sales soar, and the mere thought of going outside sends shivers down the spine. During this grim, frostbitten season, it’s probably best not to set outside at all, instead clinging to blankets upon blankets and playing some wintery tunes […]
Although psychedelic music doesn’t always need vocals—think about the many endless instrumental interludes that defined psych rock’s earliest days—to convey the sense of wonder, joy, and innocence that drugs can incite, sometimes, vocals can reveal hallucinatory depths otherwise inaccessible. Swedish/Norwegian duo Lerin/Hystad understands this vocal-instrumental balance quite well: Starmap, its newest album, is its first to feature vocals. […]
When you think of hotbeds for indie rock music motivated by loud guitars, cheap weed, and skateboarding, what places come to mind? California? Boston? Gothenburg? Okay, maybe not the last one, but MAUER, a new foursome out of the Western Swedish city, is trying its best to change that. With its newest single, “Furniture,” MAUER […]