Love Dance - Skisse #3

An absolutely stunning, upbeat shoegazey pop tune, the kind of song you fall in love with over and over again.

It was released earlier this year on the Beko 100 digital comp.

Bedroom Eyes - Norwegian Pop

I could make up a good excuse for not posting yesterday, but why bother? Truth is I went out with friends after work and got plastered. So sue me.

Here's a great '80s-ish pop tune by Bedroom Eyes, who is really called Jonas Jonsson and is Swedish. From his 2010 album The Long Wait Champion.

Tiger Tape - She is Fiction

I posted another track from this album just last month, but surprisingly Tiger Tape still haven't taken over the world yet so I'm gonna give them another go. They're a bit...quirky, which can be a big ol' red flag for a lot of people, and the vocals might not be to everyone's taste - but personally I find them pretty close to irresistible.

Eggstone - Hang On To Your Eco

I seem to have been posting a lot of Swedish indiepop lately but, well, why not. Eggstone were around in the 1980s and '90s and put out three albums, which I'm told were fairly successful in Sweden although they didn't make much of a dent in this part of the world. I'm not sure they really deserved much more than they achieved, but they did have their moments.

This is a track from their second album, 1994's Somersault.

Tiger Tape - Let's Work Things Out

Tiger Tape are an indiepop band from Stockholm who used to be called Moofish Catfish. The less said about that, the better. This is a rather striking tune from 2010, from their debut album I Woke Up in Hökarängen. The vocals have a great don't-give-a-fuck quality to them.

 

Sad Day for Puppets - Again

Swedish band who emerged toward the end of the last decade, channeling that early '90s not-quite-indie-rock/not-quite-shoegaze sound. This was a 2010 single.

Easy - Horoscope

Swedish guitar pop band who made a minor splash in indiedom with their 1990 debut, Magic Seed on the Blast First label, but seemed to sink without trace after that. Shame because, as you can hear from this track (one of the album's singles), they certainly had promise.

The Radio Arts - 04:30 AM

Decent little electro-pop band from Sweden, who don't seem to be around anymore. Shame.

This was from a 2005 EP.

Liechtenstein - Roses in the Park

Liechtenstein, despite their name, are not actually from Liechtenstein (is anybody actually from Liechtenstein?) They're from Sweden, but they sound a bit Scottish. Well, more specifically they sound a bit like the Shop Assistants. But that's OK.

This is a track from their 2009 debut album on Slumberland.

Bel Canto - Dreaming Girl

Norway's Bel Canto are sort of a more electronic version of the Cocteau Twins. I'm not a huge Cocteau Twins fan, nor particularly into electronic music, so when their debut album White-Out Conditions was released in 1987 I listened to it once or twice and then forgot about it. And haven't paid any attention to anything they've released since.

I found a copy of it in a bargain bin recently and decided to give it another whirl and, well, it's still not really my thing. But this one's kind of nice.

The Sugarcubes - Birthday

I never really got the hype around the Sugarcubes. Well, that's not quite true. I got it, in the sense that I intellectually understand the appeal of a band from an otherworldly country like Iceland with a certifiably-insane-yet-cute-as-a-button female singer (with an admittedly massive voice). But their music...meh. Average alternapop, most of it.

"Birthday" was a genuinely great single, though. Here's the Icelandic version.

The Dø - On My Shoulders

The first Finnish band to make an appearance on this blog (well, French-Finnish anyway). The singer, whose name I'm not going to even attempt to spell, has an interestingly screechy voice that would probably be hard to listen to if my hangover was any worse. Some of their folkier songs are quite lovely.

This was a 2007 single, and also appeared the next year on their debut album A Shoulder.

Serena-Maneesh - Drive Me Home The Lonely Nights

Here's a cracking little tune by a Norwegian band who were frequently described as shoegazers, although they were more than a decade late for that genre's heyday. Personally I find their MBV-esque material pleasant but not particularly interesting, while this song, which has more of a Delgados-meet-the-Cardigans feel to it, is absobleedinlutely fantastic. Not sure what they're up to these days, if anything.

The Wannadies - Because

Outside Sweden, at least, the Wannadies are known mainly for their rather annoyingly infectious contribution to the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, the "You and Me Song". I knew a few people who became positively homicidal whenever they heard it.

While I wouldn't be a huge fan of theirs, I did think they knocked out one or two tracks that should have been big hits with any indiepop fan. This is one of them, from their 1997 album Bagsy Me.

The Elephants - Obvious

The Elephants are a Danish band who I discovered when they played the Hard Working Class Heroes festival here in Dublin a couple years ago. HWCH is an annual weekend-long festival which features mainly bands from Ireland, although every year a few from another country or group of countries are invited. 2007 was the Scandinavians' year.

The Elephants weren't my favourite non-Irish band of the festival - that honour went to Marybell Katastrophy - but this song has stuck with me in the years since. Really must check out more of their stuff some time.

Back in Judy's Shack - What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life

Here's what I know about this band:

1. They're Swedish.
2. They had an EP out on Series Two records last year.
3. They have cute little male/female vocals and neat little sounds in their catchy little songs (and I do mean little songs).
4. Erm, that's it.

This is the final track on that EP, and I like it very much indeed.