Horseplay

If you've ever wanted to watch some live music with an audience comprised entirely of indifferent horses, here's your chance. Oh yes, that Frida Hyvönen's in a field of her own.

Random Swedish Song of the Day

The first in an exciting* new series! I have a memory stick full of Swedish music which I shall shuffle whenever the mood takes me and then post the first track that comes up each time. The memory stick doesn't contain any Europe, Sylvia, Herreys or Ace of Base (yet) however, so no need to panic!



Frida Hyvönen - London mp3

*Excitement levels can go down as well as up. Consult your GP if symptoms persist. Too Much Apple Pie is not an equal opportunities employer.

A light that never goes out

If only the British music press could stop wetting themselves over First Aid Kit for five minutes, they'd see that there are other Swedish artists worth getting excited about. None more so than the ridiculously talented Frida Hyvönen, who releases her third album, To the Soul, in April.

The first single from it is Terribly Dark, which perhaps doesn't quite match up to the quality of some of her previous songs musically, but as ever the lyrics are a cut above what you'd expect from yer typical modern-day popster, and unlike some others I could, and in fairness already have, mentioned, Frida never affects an American accent when she sings. What more could you ask for from The Swedish Kate Bush?

Swede surrender

Anyone who's read any (well, most) of my previous contributions to this blog will know that I am more than a tad taken by this Swedish indiepop malarkey, and need no second - or indeed first - invitation to blather on about it.

In fact, such is my infatuation with all things 'Swindie' that I've probably said all I have to say on most of my favourite Swedish acts on Too Much Apple Pie, over the past few years. But this doesn't, of course, stop the music itself being great. So what I thought I'd do now, like, is to have a dedicated 'Swedish music season' in which all the acts I feature in my contributions to this blog will be from Sweden. (I know what you're thinking: how will we tell the difference?)

Anyway, basically it'll be less blather, more music for the next little while; which has to be a good thing, right? If you want to know more about some of the artists featured here just click on the 'labels' tab at the bottom of the entries. (Alternatively you could just go out and buy their entire back catalogues. Yes, do that.)

Let's get the ball rolling, shall we, with four - count 'em! - songs from one of my absolute favourite compilation albums, the magnificent, two-disc Svensk Indie 1988-2006 - En Kärleks Historia - a must-buy, I'd suggest, for any serious lovers of the genre. (That Bear Quartet song title takes some beating too.)

happydeadmen - Silent Sigh City mp3

Frida Hyvönen - Once I was A Serene Teenage Child mp3

Marit Bergman - This Is The Year mp3

The Bear Quartet - It Only Takes A Flashlight To Create A Monster mp3

Three new songs from Marit Bergman

Well, one of them's a cover version, but you get my drift. Marit says that "these are the last songs that I will be releasing for a long time" and adds, mysteriously, that she'll be concentrating on unspecified other projects for the time being. Suppose we'd better make the most of these, then.

Marit Bergman - He Will Never Be Your Boyfriend mp3

Marit Bergman - Free Falling (Tom Petty cover)

Marit Bergman - Hunting mp3 (right click)

Actually, this gives me an excuse to feature one of my favourite YouTube clips, in which Marit joins Jennie Abrahamsson and Frida Hyvönen backstage before a show in New York, where the trio perform an A cappella version of the latter's Birds, in front of a make-up mirror. Bloody magic, this is!

Three of a Kind #75

It's one of my favourite places on the 'net, yet I barely understand a word of it. Swedish-language music and popular culture website PSL is such a boon for me because it's full-to-bursting with specially-filmed live performances of individual songs in all kinds of unlikely places by a multitude of top solo artists and bands.

This month alone PSL-shot promos have appeared on the site by M. Ward, The Ladybug Transistor, The Weakerthans, Hanna Hirsch, Skansros, David Sandström Overdrive, and Tobias Fröberg. (Spike and me once met Tobias Fröberg in the bar after a gig where he'd been supporting Kathryn Williams. He really is a lovely bloke, and smiled benignly as I excitedly gabbled on about my love of Swedish music in general and rattled off a list of my favourite bands. Great sense of humour, too, as anyone who's heard his onstage banter will testify.)

New vids appear sporadically on PSL so you never quite know when you're going to find something fresh on the site; but this unpredictability just makes it all the more enjoyable. If you've never been there you really could do a lot worse than to check it out sometime, as I guarantee you'll find something you like. Here are a few of my favourites:

I featured this song on the blog a while back, but Frida Hyvönen's Dirty Dancing definitely bears another listen (or thousand) as it is, frankly, wonderful. This one looks like it's been filmed in some tea rooms in Harrogate, but the location's actually Stockholm. Nice dungarees too!



Whippersnapper Swedish sister act First Aid Kit really are terribly good, you know - even if, worryingly, one of them appears to be wearing a Spice Girls t-shirt in this clip.



Remember the videos for Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy and The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony? Of course you do. Well, this one, starring Sarah Nyberg Pergament AKA Action Biker, is a sort of polite Swedish equivalent!



Get thee to PSL for much, much more of the same

Song of the Day

Blimey o'reilly guv. As if all those Presidential coincidences the other day weren't spooky enough (see previous post), just as I'm about to post a track from Silence Is Wild, the new album by the Kate Bush-inspired Frida Hyvönen, I see Davy from The Ghost of Electricity has written a post on la Bush herself, this very morning. Not only that but the track he's posted is December Will Be Magic Again; while there just so happens to be a song entitled December on Ms Hyvönen's new album. What can it all mean?

That's where the similarities end, mind, as, unlike Kate's sanguine take on the year's final month, Frida's December basically involves a far from fun-packed trip to the abortion clinic. Oh dear.

I'm not going to put that song up here, good as it is, as you're probably depressed enough already, it being a Monday and all. So instead here's the brilliant Dirty Dancing, in which our Frida gets all nostalgic about a childhood friendship with a boy called Jimmy, who she's just met again as an adult.



Frida Hyvönen - Dirty Dancing mp3 (for 7 days)

Silence Is Wild is utterly fantastic. Buy it here.

TODAY'S TRIVIA QUIZ CATEGORY: Movies.

Remember Remember the 4th of November

Good news ahoy! Talented Swedish piano-botherer Frida Hyvönen has a new album out on November 4th (or October 29th, if you're in Sweden). Silence Is Wild can be pre-ordered from here.

Here's the first single, Enemy Within, which Frida has very generously made available for free download at her website.

(you'll have to excuse her if her voice doesn't sound quite as strong as usual BTW, but as you can see from the pic she's been feeling a little horse of late)

Frida Hyvönen - Enemy Within mp3 (right click)