Swedish~ Stereo~

Linda Sundblad is very active this year after relase of her long-awaited album "Manifest", she took part in Love Stockholm 2010 festival, was invited as host and script-writer of Rockbjörnen 2010, worked as songwriter (for example you can find her song "Good Stuff" on Elin Lanto's album "Love Made Me Do It") and currently she's preparing for trip to Afghanistan where she will be performing for Swedish soldiers (Linda has been already tripping to Kosovo before and decided that she has to make it again), now she's going through tough training and you can see a lot of photos on her site.
If you remember year before Linda was featured on 2 tracks of Rasmus Faber's album "Where We Belong" - "Everything Is Alright" and "Always". Guys keep working together and we get new track "Stay With Me" made by Rasmus and Japanese violinist Chieko Kinbara that's going to be released on Rasmus' new compillation "So Far 3", it's pleasant chill-out summerish track with beautiful strings part, latin percussion and relaxing mood.

As well you can download new lounge-salsa version of Linda's "To All My Girls" made by Rasmus with Thomas Eby on her site for free.

Last year Linda performed with Rasmus at Billboard Live in Tokyo both their previous tracks "Everything Is Alright" and "Always", very nice live versions that I really recommend you.

Can you imagine sweetness of Sibel, Anna Bergendahl and Pauline in one artist? That's what I discovered just a few days ago.
Jasmine Kara is a new artist, when she appeared on Love Stockholm 2010 with her new single "In The Basement" I thought that it's some foreign guest-artist, fast look at her Myspace page convinced me she is American and as the single didn't make a big impact on me, I turned my attention to other interesting moments of the festival. At the same time during Summer new Jasmine's songs were rolling around Swedish iTunes chart and now when Jasmine released new video for her another single "Try My Love Again" I've found out that she's actually artist with Swedish-Iranian roots who was born and grown in Sweden and though last years she tried to breakthrough in USA currently she builds career in Sweden and it promises to be successful. On July 28th Jasmine will release her album "Blues Ain't Nothing But A Good" in Sweden and right now you can check what she is about on her Myspace page. Mostly it's a retro blues-stuff, probably you'll find something similar with Christina A. style (because of loud strong vocal of Miss Kara as well).
Talking about "Try My Love Again" it's a verrry catchy piece of Summer, sounding poppier (even with some raggae-vibes) than "In The Basement", Jasmine shows herself like utterly nice person, full of life, energy and charm. That's what's totally buying me from the first look and listen and making Jasmine's performance at Allsång på Skansen in two weeks one of the most expected ones. Hope you'll like her too!

Fantastic celebration of live Swedish music called LOVE Stockholm 2010 is unfortunately over leaving to us loads of impressions and memories of some amazing performances and great gigs but yesterday audience in Kungsträdgården still could enjoy the rest of them.
You could see Ola Svensson performing his huge Spring hit "Unstoppable", Caroline af Ugglas with her choir, Linda Sundblad with new single "Making Out" (one of undoubtfully best pieces of her last album), Eagle-Eye Cherry with his biggest international hit "Save Tonight" recently covered by E.M.D., Thomas di Leva with his old song "Vi har bara varandra", Anna Maria Espinosa performing her own song "A Little Moonlight" and duet together with Niklas Strömstedt - his "En Kvinna Och En Man" (most amazing part of this performance was King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf dancing near the stage) and some foreign guests like Jasmine Kara and Carpark North.

Caroline Af Ugglas - Vi Bär Upp Varandra
Anna Maria Espinosa - A Little Moonlight
Carpark North - Just Human
Jasmine Kara framför - In the basement
Di Leva - Vi har Bara Varandra

You should also check another recent concert in Kungsträdgården with Style performing their last single "LoveKiller" and classic hit "Vill Ha Dej", Broken Door with both their songs "Angel" and "Sunday Morning", Orup and the most interesting performance of Gravitonas. It was the first live performance of this utterly exciting new project of Alexander Bard with debut single "Kites" currently climbing dance charts of Sweden and new song "Shameless" that showed new side of the project. Initially Alexander announced the project as electro-rock band, however "Kites" turned to be more in synth-pop direction and "Shameless" definitely shows better what he meant, it's a catchy and full of drive pop-rock song with nicely developed rhythmic verses containing light synth-keys on background reminding some beautiful moments in music of BWO and guitar-driven catchy chorus that gets stuck in your head immediately. This is the level of quality that made previous Alexander's projects icons in Swedish music and that's gonna make Gravitonas continue this trend in a very close future.

God bless TV4! These people make amazing present to everyone who can't come to LOVE Stockholm 2010 and upload full-length gigs of some artists like Sanna Nielsen (Strong, Impatiently Waiting For You, Devotion, Sound Of Spring (new song!!!), I Can Catch The Moon, Hela Världen För Mig, Vågar Du Vågar Jag, But I Know What I Want, Empty Room), Carola (Evighet and duet with Samuel Ljungblahd), Takida, Samuel Ljungblad and Timo Räisinen. The most amazing part of it for me personally is Sanna's gig, sure it can't pass even half of emotions that gives her performance when you're right in front of the stage but the quality of concert record is fantastic so you can enjoy it on maximum.

...You could see Ola Svensson singing Tomas Ledin's song "En Dag På Stranden" on the stage of Skansen on National Day...

...Carola performing her new single "Det är bara vi" devoted to wedding of princess Victoria...



...Eric Gadd with his last single "Rise Up!" and well-known back-vocalists (Thérèse Löf, Michael Blomqvist and Anna Andersson) behind him (MF-2011 warning???) on a beautiful stage on Skeppsbron...



...Sarah Dawn Finer covering the winner of Eurovision-2010...



... Kalle Moraeus just having sold his new album golden with the song that really helped him with it...



and also

...especially popular these days band Johnossi performing their hit-single "What's The Point?"...

...Cookies N Beans covering Bee Gees classics "Islands In The Stream"...

... Timo Räisänen performing his last single "Outcast"...

...Rigo performing on National Day Swedish song "Stockholms Ström" (no ideas about where it came from)...

and Miss Li with really nice performance of her "Bourgeois Shangri-La".

If you're still gonna be in Stockholm in close future, don't forget to check programme of LOVE Stockholm 2010 or take a look at this short programme from Aftonbladet.

Also two summer great tv-shows "Allsång på Skansen" and "Lotta på Liseberg" have announced this year line-ups.

"Allsång på Skansen" will start 29th June and we'll see among others The Ark, Anna Bergendahl, Carola, Eric Saade, Darin, Timoteij, Kikki Danielsson, Salem Al Fakir, Thomas Di Leva, Oskar Linnros, Mando Diao, Tove Styrke, Orup, Hanna Lindblad, Charlotte Perrelli, Magnus Carlsson, Måns Zelmerlöw and Sarah Dawn Finer.

http://svt.se/2.112060

"Lotta på Liseberg"'s (starting from 21th June) line-up is not less fantastic and has a lot of interesting artists like Charlotte Perrelli, Alexander Rybak, Markoolio, Linda Bengtzing, Velvet, Alcazar, Jessica Andersson, Erik Linder, Kalle Moraeus, Sanna Nielsen, Timo Räisinen, Måns Zelmerlöw, Timoteij, Maria Haukaas Storeng, Erik Gadd, Andreas Johnson, Cookies n’ beans, Anna Bergendahl, Jill Johnson, Rigo, Caroline af Ugglas and Eric Saade.

http://www.tv4.se/1.1668077

Just a few weeks left before one of the main cultural events of this year in Sweden - marriage of princess Victoria and Daniel Westling and Stockholm's already preparing for this royal celebration. This Sunday when Sweden will be celebrating National Day (as always with some exciting open-air concerts in Stockholm) 2-weeks festival LOVE Stockholm 2010 will start with different activities all over the city and will finish on 19th June in a day of Victoria's wedding. These days Stockholm will see performances of artists like Darin, Carola, Alexander Rybak, Anna Bergendahl, Timoteij, Salem Al Fakir, Erik Grönwall, Orup, Martin Stenmarck, Moto Boy, Ola, Cookies N Beans, Shirley Clamp, Anne-Lie Rydé, Sanna Nielsen, Fibes, Oh Fibes!, Alice Svensson, Rebound, Nanne, Rigo, Amy Diamond. Check information about festival here and watch trailer of festival with Linda Sundblad's "Making Out" as soundtrack.