Swedish~ Stereo~

Big news for all fans of Alexander Bard. Alexander is going to be involved in next season of Swedish Idol as jury-member replacing Andreas Carlsson who decided to leave but still Anders and Laila Bagge together with Alexander and Pelle Lidell are on board. Does it mean that Alexander is aimed to hunt for some young talents for creating some new exciting music project? However it's gonna be really interesting to follow this Idol-track. Three seasons in a row we had jury giving standing ovations to winners with strong rock-voices but without proper commercial uniqueness to successfully move further after Idol so now we have a chance this situation will change.
Talking about current Alexander's project - Gravitonas, we've got fresh remix video for Video Violence Remix for single "Religious" and though this mix wasn't our fave in a pack, now we like it much more.

I've just found out that for almost half a year of this blog life I never told you about one of my most favorite Swedish projects ever - Vacuum, so I will now!
Vacuum turned to be unexpectable sensation of 1996 when Alexander Bard who was well-known for his international massive pop-project Army Of Lovers has put the group on hold and started completely different project - not less extravagant but in its own way. Dark synth-pop sung by androginy-styled vocalist Mattias Lindblom and Alexander with another new face Marina Schiptjenko on keyboards, they sang about science, religion, culture, the whole conception turned to combined fresh idea in accessible and strong pop-music so it turned to be a blast on international level and many parts of Europe have given up without a fight after debut single "I Breathe". It has also peaked at #2 in home country and debut album "The Plutonium Cathedral" reached #12 that's not bad at all. Without pause Vacuum released the album "Seance at the Chaebol" that was more targetted to other European countries. In the end of 90s Alexander turned to new project Alcazar and only Marina and Mattias were left as active members of Vacuum (with Anders Wollbeck as permanent songwriter from the beginning of the project) and soon they released two re-editions of the last album with some new songs so all the singles of band - "Science Of The Sacred", "Let The Mountain Come To Me", "Pride In My Religion", "Tonnes Of Attraction", "Icaros", "Starting Where The Story Ended" were still floating around European radiostations and music channels.
When Marina has left the band and gone to BWO Mattias and Anders released new album "Your Whole Life Is Leading Up To This" - less commercial and darker electronic with singles "Fools Like Me", "They Do It", "The Void" demonstrating refreshed side of Vacuum. Through last 10 years Anders and Mattias also worked as songwriting team with many Swedish and international artists like Alcazar, Julie Bethelsen, Rachel Stevens, Nouveau Riche, Magnus Carlsson, Daniel Lindström, Monrose, Tarja Turunnen, Cinema Bizarre, Garou and many others.
Few years ago "Your Whole Life Is Leading Up To This" has got re-edition with new songs "Walk On The Sun" and "Only Human" and though it's not the latest singles I'd like to show you these songs, they are different but both amazing, when "Walk On The Sun" is powerful rhythmic pop-rock radio-killer, "Only Human" is more gentle acoustic-guitar based song - thoughtful and touching to goosebumps with amazing vocal of Mattias.
Vacuum still keeps releasing new songs, recently performing set of new ones so I hope soon I'll be able to tell you about their next album.

Today SVT revealed first 4 artists who'll perform at next year Melodifestivalen, all of them are quite popular so undoubtfully you've heard at least few names from list of artists and songwriters. If you didn't I'm gonna present you all artists during Autumn. But giving fast look on a list you can mention schlager-veteran-artist Linda Bengtzing with schlager-veteran-songwriters like Thomas G:Son so if there's someone who has doubs it's gonna be huge schlager, I would advice you to forget about them. Due to Linda's revelation she's fallen for this song from the first listen and she promises that no one will stay unsatisfied, even Bert Karlsson (another hint that song will be very schlageristic). Utterly popular dansband-group Lasse Steffanz will perform with the song of coming back songwriting team from 90s - Norell Oson Bard, actually this team already has huge experience with dansband acts but still it's interesting what Alexander Bard will bring to this song from his huge music portfolio after trio broke up. Probably mostly I'm excited about Swingfly - rap-artist who presented set of pretty nice singles not so along ago mixing hip-hop with fresh sounding pop, I'm gonna tell you about him later.

Another Melodifestivalen-newcomer is Pernilla Andersson who's not newcomer for Swedish audience in common though. She's relatively fresh name on indie stage but has already managed to release 4 albums for 3 years and all of them charted more or less well. Last one "Ö" has debuted 3 weeks ago at #11 of album-chart and right now Pernilla presents new single from it - "Som En Ö". Like the most of Pernilla's stuff this song is gentle guitar pop, a bit melancholic with feeling of light sadness and relaxing mood. You can check live performance of it right below.

Michaela de la Cour doesn't need special presentation being one of Swedish music legends. Sure you know this blonde Army Of Lovers pop-queen breathing glamour and extravagance. After a long silence Michaela has started her comeback in 2009 with brand new pop-rock track "Back on Earth", self-ironic and sexual video and absolutely amazing mix from Adam Rickfors. How pleasant it was to get recently another new track from Michaela and this time it's amazing club track with filtered robo-vocals (in a manner of "Back on Earth") in electro-sound verses and refrain turning to a huge club-delight anthem. You can check sample of this track on Michaela's myspace as well.
UPD: In 2 days we've got the title "HomoSapien", full version of the song and the video and it's not less lovely in a full pack!

Talking about other Army of Lovers news. New project of Alexander Bard - Gravitonas announced few days ago that its first album is scheduled for September but already on August 18 we'll get "The Hypnosis EP" containing four tracks and new maxi-single "Religious" on August 25. Hope another new track "Shameless" I've been talking about little earlier will also be on this EP.