Säkert! På engelska

Dare you watch this video?



Read more about the Can I Project at Annika Norlin's Säkert! blog

The 11-track album Säkert! På engelska is out now on Razzia Records

Park life

Andreas Mattsson and band perform ace recent single Parklands live on Swedish TV. Magic.



Parklands is from the album Kick Death's Ass. Buy the download here or the CD here.

New album from Andreas Mattsson!

Forgive the exclamation mark, but the arrival of any new Andreas Mattsson-related release has been incredibly exciting news for me for over fifteen years now - ever since I first heard Make Up by Popsicle and instantly found myself a new favourite band - and his new album Kick Death's Ass, due on February 18th, is the first we've heard of him for nearly five years since 2006's brilliant solo debut The Lawlessness of the Ruling Classes. (Well, apart from producing and contributing to Hello Saferide's last album, which was admittedly pretty great also.) So yes, a momentous day.

Appropriately, with today being football transfer deadline day and all, Kick Death's Ass (shame about the spelling of "Arse" there, but nobody's perfect) sees Andreas switch labels from Hybris to Razzia Records from where you can pre-order the album. I cannot wait to hear it, but suppose I'll just have to.

Although Kick Death's Ass is still a couple of weeks away, the album's brilliant first single, AA, is already available to buy as a download here, and can be streamed using the fancy Soundcloud gismo below. It's classic Mattsson right from the very start, and buying it will constitute the best 80p you'll spend all week.

AA - ANDREAS MATTSSON by RAZZIARECORDS

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an album to pre-order. Roll on February 18th!

Hometown Boys & Girls

Swedish indie classic ahoy! It's The Wannadies' 1990 gem My Home Town...



And here's Min Hemstad, a Swedish language cover of the very same song from Annika 'Hello Saferide' Norlin's other project Säkert (which, thanks to having known and liked the Wannadies' version for years, now becomes the first Säkert song I've ever understood the lyrics to!)



The Wannadies - My Home Town mp3

The Säkert version of the song can be found on the new Razzia Records compilation, There's A Razzia Going On Volume 2, which also, rather thrillingly, includes a previously unreleased Hello Saferide song, I Fold, and which can be ordered here.

There's a Razzia going on

Hello you! Guess what? Stockholm's Razzia Records have a fantastic-looking compilation album, There's A Razzia Going On, coming out on June 18th. Just have a butcher's at the goodies on offer:

01. Hello Saferide - I was definitely made for these times
02. Adiam Dymott - Memory loss
03. Konie - My Life Is Shit But I Am Funky (remix)
04. I Are Droid - Blood & Ether
05. Firefox AK vs Laid -Once I was like you
06. Maia Hirasawa - Melody
07. Tripoli - Walk on
08. Säkert! - Det var tre månader sedan idag
09. They Live By Night - Meaningless repair
10. Timo Räisänen - Spill your beans
11. Svenska Kürkan - Besatt
12. The Plan - Stay Awhile
13. Jonna Lee - I wrote this song
14. Mange Schmidt feat. Thomas Rusiak & Eye N I - Håll käften del
15. Thunder Express - Switch
16. Tellevika feat. Firefox AK - Eric
17. Ebbot Lundberg & Mattias Bärjed - Coming down cold

The Hello Saferide track - indubitably one of the best UK-released singles of 2007 - would be worth the admission fee alone, but with Firefox AK, Maia Hirasawa, Timo Räisänen, Jonna Lee and Annika Norlin's side-project Säkert also present, this album just has to be a very good thing indeed.

More exciting Hello Saferide news: Annika's announced on the HS website that the band've been busy recording a new album, which "will be released September-ish". As if that wasn't enough on its own, it turns out the album's being produced by Swedish indie pop legend Andreas Mattsson of Popsicle, Sweet Chariots and Andreas Mattsson fame (and who I wrote a gushing tribute to in this entry)!

So anyway, it's all good, to borrow a phrase from that nice Sarah Assbring lady. And, while we're here, let's have some classic Hello Saferide and Popsicle by way of a celebration. Why not!

Popsicle - Histrionics mp3 (left click - available for a week)

Hello Saferide - Valentine's Day mp3 (right click)

Buy Razzia Records stuff from their webshop.