Xiu Xiu - “I Luv Abortion”

If you live in Stockholm, Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart will bring his fragile nihil epilepsy to Debaser Slussen on Saturday April 14th. And I’m going to be there at the front row. Kind of a different vibe than last week’s surprise performance by The Hives I reckon.

This is the most ruthless song I could find on the new album Always. I dig the opener “Hi”, too. But today is ending with another round of anxiety attacks. I’m trying to hold on to this. But believe me when I say, it’s the negligence of others this time. Human behavior! I’m innocent here. It’s them. It’s been them for a while now. Today is another day full of dread. It started out normal but it’s ending in terror. I was just screaming in my pillow. I hope you’re doing OK though.

Swimclub - “What You Want”

I remember I had the same first impression last year when I first heard “Swimsuit” by Oregon Bike Trails. Swimclub’s “What You Want” enqueues the same playlist with its jaunty 60s balladry.

This is off the Brooklyn-based quartet’s upcoming EP called Funhouse For Friends streaming here and out on April 26th.

Watch the video to this lively bristling pop song if you like Sidney Poitier.

Stas Neilyk - “Goldilocks”

Yes, I’m dancing about architecture again. Because of a radio buzz from a basement near the city library. The dusting off of my ancestor’s rotten papers. A short children story that left me wondering for a long while to come, but it was my grandpa’s nursery tales in my ears that put me to sleep. 1837. I was lucky enough not to be mature. Now I’m a wanderlust because the only thing my maturity brought me was delirious longings: for books that brought me light bulbs upon my bed, for beds that screeched all night to the rhythm of Captain Beefheart. I’m expecting the world to be my rag doll, my freak show. I’m Jacob. This is my brother Wilhelm Grimm. My furniture is echoing back with trumpets. I’m longing for the mandolin I never tried to learn. No, actually this whole maturity works like…it’s just about semen. For tonight, I’m your tower of Pizza. Me at my best. I don’t know. I’m trying.

Stas Neilyk you might recall from another shady dreamy scribble I wrote back a while ago. This is by far his most accomplished work to date. His hushy lungs are the comfort. And that carnival I hope is reality somewhere on someone’s shelf. It’s depicting quite a cabaret in my reverie. I think it’s a song a tad difficult not to love. Share it if you’re already dancing in your room. Or not.

Or here’s some other stuff you can do:

1. Watch the story of Goldilocks. The original you’ll find quite scary. I found it more pleasant when the protagonist was replaced by blondie;
2. Watch a Stas Neilyk music video smoking, rattling a tambourine and blowing in his harmonica in a jungle;
3. Watch another Stas Neilyk music video disguised as an early ’90s grunge band in a parallel universe;
4. Have a creamy chocolate muffin while writing a thank you letter to Earl Scruggs;
5. Watch Helena Bonham Carter ridicule a dwarf that is Warwick Davis;
6. Watch gore cult flicks. / Do not watch gore cult flicks.

Holmes - Brothers

You’d better cling onto that Bill Hicks saying when it gets a mention on this song. It’s my state of mind right now and it’s worrying me more than any time in the past. At every stage in life, just like that piece of rope that stalker threw around in the zone, there’s a dilemma waiting for you. An imaginary milestone. You think it’s going to be your final shelter, but there’s a challenge ahead. There’s always a worry in queue to strike your mind.

“Brothers” is this Swedish band’s fickle, fragile and tender lament. Tender like the more emotional moments of Built To Spill and the heartfelt innocence of Great Lake Swimmers. I draw a blank for now and let the wavelengths sail this boat. I’ll keep trying though. You can’t rely on mundane creatures utterance but I hope Hicks is right. For now, there’s a distant expanding yellow rectangle at the end of the tunnel and I’ve turned on the bright lights on.

The band’s new album is called Burning Bridges, due April 13th.

Karen Dalton - “Green Rocky Road”

Karen Dalton is a ghost. Her persona, her withdrawn shadow of presence, her remote but heart-wrenching timbre voice and her cocaine banjo. With only two official studio albums, Dalton has her own catalog of solitude. She defied her own era’s values turning her back to whatever hip and trendy. She had her own audience, her own cult of listeners. Her music sits you down on a rocking chair in the front porch, smoking, playing with your fingernails.

1966 is the name of an impromptu collection of her rarity underground folk tunes. And if you’re so deep in the blues mud and aim for heedless free of thought music, this is your resort. She died from AIDS in 1993 and was admired by Dylan as can be seen from this photo.

Photo: Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton and Fred Neil at the Cafe Wha? Feb. 1961, photographer: Fred W. Darrah

Samla Mammas Manna - “Syster System”

You get a lot of readworthy tweets when you select the right people to follow. I just stumbled about this cool but thoughtful one and couldn’t refuse not to retweet it. Microblogging has its own moments of deliberation on occasions:

why is it 98% of bands who get compared to Animal Collective just sound like a room full of guys knocking into shit? ~ Lowercase Steve (@perfectmidnight) February 23, 2012

Ponder around it! Could be true, right? We’re surrounded by wannabes. They’re all around us. They’re our friends. Our musician friends doing their best to sound like “them”. Be it Animal Collective, Springsteen, Throbbing Gristle or Roky Erickson & The Aliens. A great deal of the review requests I receive on a daily basis are absolutely devoid of identity and soul.

But this one band above you’d better not joke with. These guys are original of their own quirky species. It’s back to the heydays of the progg movement. And it’s intelligible and well yes massively experimental. So, yes! We are in Sweden. That means you get to hear every good Swedish/Scandinavian act that I come upon. ‘cause we’re talking some serious creative and eclectic range of material here from Kent to Knife, from ABBA to Broder Daniel and from The Hives to Cornelis Vreeswijk. Many things started in this beautiful peace-loving country. Let’s take advantage of it while we still can.

This wild quick charmer is off the band’s 1973 album Måltid (Meal Time).

Recommended by Julius Hjort. You may remember him if you’re a reader of this blog back when we posted delicious pieces of his soundtrack for that Swedish/Polish documentary. In case you’re Swedish and a musician you can help me discover new talents or just be nostalgic sometimes and share with us some great names. I’ve done posted some of them already through Ghost FM’s short history so far.