How Tikkled I am

Any band signed by the venerable A West Side Fabrication have to be worth a listen - and so it proved with Tikkle Me, a winsome electro pop duo from Ekilstuna in Sweden, who recently released the rather fab Butterflies In My Tummy single on the label. Here's the also-ace promo vid!



You can download Butterflies In My Tummy for 80 piffling pence from Klicktrack.com

Tikkle Me's MySpace

Three of a Kind #73

We're compilation crazy on the blog at the moment; and we're off to Sweden today for three songs from the 1994 A West Side Fabrication collection We're All Part Of A Family.

Long-term readers (let's pretend we've got any for a second) may have noticed my predilection for Swedish music; well, it was buying a cheap bunch of these A West Side Fabrication compilations many moons ago that helped kick-start my love of music from this particular part of Scandinavia.

Pop, dance, indie, folk, heavy rock - these albums had a bit of everything really, being, as they were, drawn from the eclectic roster of Swedish artists that would be signed to the label at any given time. The albums could consequently be a bit patchy at times but when they were good they were very good indeed.

I'll try and feature more songs from some of these collections in the future, anyway, but in the meantime today's tracks come courtesy of The Drowners and Popundret (both of whom I've written about here in the dim and distant), and Pleasurehouse, whose Candyfloss Summer is the best song the Boo Radleys never wrote (but probably should have). Great tunes all.

Pleasurehouse - Candyfloss Summer mp3

Popundret - I Say No mp3

The Drowners - Destroyer mp3

Mildly Interesting Pop Blog Fact: There are far too many labels on this post! Aargh!

Popundret / Asha Ali

A double helping of Swedish goodness today!

Formed in 1991, and heavily influenced by English bands like The Smiths, Popundret were yet another group to emerge from the northern Swedish town of Skellefteå - and, naturally, to sign for the local A West Side Fabrication label. Although the sum total of their recorded output only stretched to a couple of singles and one album (1996's Montmartre 15 40), Popundret did leave a couple of truly marvellous songs in their wake: Shiver Gone and Stab Me (the former especially being so utterly Smithsian that you might be forgiven for thinking that Morrissey had a long-lost Swedish twin!). But despite wearing their influences so heavily on their sleeves, these are both great songs in their own right.

Popundret - Shiver Gone mp3

Popundret - Stab Me mp3

We're getting towards the time of year when people start putting together their "Best of" lists for the past twelve months. Don't worry - I'm not about to bore you with one of my own, but I may drop in the odd personal '07 favourite here and there over the next few weeks. Which brings us to up-and-coming Swedish singer-songwriter Asha Ali's A Promise Broken. I first became aware of this track two or three months ago via the Into The Groove blog, and I've hardly stopped listening to it since. A really great pop song, and a real star in the making.

Asha Ali - A Promise Broken mp3

Asha Ali's self-titled debut album is available to buy as a download from the Klicktrack Music shop.

Popundret's Montmartre 1540 album is available from CD Baby.

The Drowners

One of many fine Swedish bands to have started out on the brilliant A West Side Fabrication label based in the northern town of Skellefteå, The Drowners are a power pop combo who emerged in the mid-90s and have gone on to release five studio albums in the intervening decade - the latest of which, the ominously titled Cease To Be, was released at the end of July this year.

I mentioned the release date there because, Cease To Be being the band's first release for five years, I'd previously assumed that they'd already done just that - i.e. ceased to be - so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that The Drowners are still very much an entity.

The band comprises five members: vocallist Magnus Vikstrom, Andreas Persson on drums, Leif Renstrom and Mikael Sundqvist on guitars, and Par Nordstrom on bass. Originally influenced by bands such as R.E.M., Husker Du and The Replacements, the band quickly established their own distinctive sound, and songs such as Teenager, The Destroyer, Is There Something On Your Mind?, Summer Break My Fall and 21 all stand up well alongside the excellent Swindie pop produced by nineties contemporaries such as Popsicle, Brainpool and The Wannadies.

Here are a couple of examples of The Drowners' sound: debut single Teenager, from 1996; and, from the latest album, Words (a cover of the wonderfully cheesy 1983 F.R. David classic!).

The Drowners - Teenager mp3

The Drowners - Words (Don't Come Easy) mp3

(songs available for 7 days)

Buy Drowners stuff from Listening Post Music.

Visit The Drowners on MySpace.

I never tasted meatballs like yours

Ever since the mid-90s heyday of The Cardigans, The Wannadies and Popsicle, I've been a huge fan of Swedish indie pop - or "Swindie", to give it its proper name. But it wasn't always an easy scene to follow from the UK, bearing in mind that outside of the aforementioned bands, you'd have been hard pressed to find much in the way of Swindie in your local HMV or Virgin Megashop.

So, in the days before the internet (or at least before I personally had 'net access) I was grateful to Hotstuff in Sweden, who'd feed my Swindie habit by mailing their latest music catalogue out to me a couple of times a year. (The words "Hotstuff Mail Order - Sweden" showing up on your credit card statement have quite a high potential embarrassment factor about them, by the way - especially when the card in question belongs to your dad, and he thinks the reason you borrowed his Visa card was to send away for a load of Scandinavian porn! Took me a while to talk my way out of that one, I can tell you.)

It was thanks to Hotstuff that I first really stumbled upon the superb A West Side Fabrication, an independent label based in Skellefteå on the north east coast of Sweden. AWSF had launched the careers of, among others, Popsicle, The Bear Quartet and The Wannadies, and at regular intervals would release compilation albums showcasing the many bands that made up their roster. I picked up loads of these compilations, along with a whole bundle of AWSF CD singles, during a particularly nicely-priced Hotstuff sale.

One band who kept popping up on the CDs was Waterbug. To this day I still know precious little about this band, other than that they hailed from Gothenburg, wrote lyrics about meeting Johnny Marr at a hamburger bar, and were rather good. I'm pretty sure they're not together anymore, but it's still possible to buy their CDs from the A West Side Fabrication webshop, so the music's still out there, including the following song, the rather splendid "Meatballs". They recorded two completely different versions of this song, but this one - from the "Yellow" CD single - is by far my favourite. See what you think.

Waterbug - Meatballs ('96 Version) mp3

Buy Waterbug stuff here