STATIKA — SILENTLY RUNNING

⌾ LISTEN TO SILENTLY RUNNING BY STATIKA ⌾

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This track, says its creator (the Sweden-based producer, statika), was inspired by late night walks. You can tell. There's the sense that the world is both ending and full of potential all at once in 'silently running', a stretched-out looming feel that has you caught in the air, outside looking in, the cool night wrapped around you. The textures throughout, gleaming as they are gritty, call to mind glowing streetlights and the distant weighted gravel hum of sporadic city traffic.

"I used to make ambient pieces by slowing down tapes with cassette records, but I no longer have them with me," says statika, "so I attempted to replicate the process with a computer." The result sounds analogue enough, right down to the white noise that bookends track's distorted plumes of sound. We have a piece of ambient music here that brims with as much nocturnal atmosphere as it does summon the nostalgia-tinged sonic aesthetics of vaporwave, encapsulating a stopped-in-time emotion of an early-hours walk.

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• 🔔 Listen to more moody ambient music from statika over on their SoundCloud.

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☟ statika Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ tiktok ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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SHADI G — GODDESS PT. 1

⌾ LISTEN TO SHADI G, GODDESS PT. 1 ⌾

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The minimal production of 'Goddess pt. 1' by Swedish artist Shadi G doesn't just serve to create a luxurious atmosphere — it allows the vocals of the musicmaker herself to soar and glimmer unimpeded. A patter of kicks and the abrasive pop of a snare propels the track forward on a blanket backdrop of soft synth chords, a glitter of zithers ornamenting it all; at the forefront, Shadi G's voice itself lilts and meanders with slow, acrobatic ease, vocal reverb like mist casting a dreamlike softness over proceedings.

"I felt I was in a place where the fun and playfulness could take a bigger part," says Shadi G in an email to yes/no.

'Goddess pt. 1' may be at its core a silky R&B number, but it's also a soulful exploration of the singer's Iranian heritage: lines of Farsi curl and spiral into earshot in the finale. "I love the melody of the language, the nature of the language itself is so poetic," she says, explaining that she chose include Farsi into her track because of the importance the language has played in her life.

"I really want Farsi to get a platform to be heard and seen," she adds. "Music isn't just made in English, even though it's the language that's given the most exposure and space by the industry."

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• 🔔 You can stream and/or download 'Goddess pt. 1' by Shadi G via whatever music service on this list is your preferred choice.

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☟ Shadi G Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify ⚘

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AKB — SAKTMODET

⌾ LISTEN TO AKB, SAKTMODET ⌾

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Though it's possible to be fooled into thinking that AKB is a thinly veiled tribute to J-pop megagroup AKB48, it simply spells out the initials of Swedish musicmaker Anna-Karin Berglund. Names aside, her track 'Saktmodet' (loosely translating to "gentleness") is a gloriously organic, living-and-breathing piece of ambient music.

The song is a crooning collection of woodwinds, and the crash of resonant, lightly phasing piano (reminscent, in texture at least, of 'Canticle' by English band These New Puritans). It came to life while working on her 2020 album. Marianergraven, which was more focused on "mechanically profound sounds and sound worlds."

"This song," Berglund tells yes/no via email, "was a respite to work more with traditional instruments like piano and clarinet."

'Saktmodet' is an illustration of hot and cold: sharp, icy sounds ping out, and there's the accidental rustling and whispering of breath, all cushioned by rich, warm sounds of the clarinet and the fading, post-percussive glow of piano chords. More than temperatures, however, more than indoors and outdoors, it's the vital, close-at-hand feeling of the instruments that give this slice of ambience a real sense of human effort and emotion.

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• 🔔 'Saktmodet' arrives via Swedish label Lamour Records, originally featured as a bonus 7" bundled in with AKB's limited edition Marianergraven. You can listen to the track on Spotify, if you like.
• 🔔 If you want to hear more from AKB, it's possible to stream and download Marianergraven from Lamour Records' Bandcamp.

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☟ AKB Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 ZAP HOLMES — FLAKED OUT DREAMING

⌾ LISTEN TO ZAP HOLMES, FLAKED OUT DREAMING ⌾

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This track floats along on two separate plain. One is this floating nebulous feeling, a flowing tide like the watercolours of a dreamscape, the melting mind of somewhere unknown, the swells of the tide of the unsconscious, sweeping along and founding this track on wholly ambient terrain. Like floating through space, it's the infinity of slumber.

On the other hand, it feels close and intimate, though detached and lonely, like the charting and observation of a biomechanical organism. The way samples chant in regularity, lo-fi and wheezing like some artificial life process, ticking percussion keeping time and clacking and sounding the cogs of static motion, trickling along like a living engine.

And that makes sense. Swedish musicmaker Zap Holmes tells us his inspiration for the track was his dreaming girlfriend.

"My girlfirend like to sleep and sometimes for many hours. And I made this track during one of those times," he said. "Got some recordings on my iphone when we messed around at home so I put some samples of her in the song also."

So 'Flaked Out Dreaming' has this sense of being alive in suspended animation, a grand dream arcing over whilst all the time no time is moving at all; those hazy, crackling samples counting the seconds till consciousness. It's an epic of sleep, where it culminates in these sometime crashing waves of charged white noise distortion, twinkling lights like neurons firing on the cusp of waking.

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• 🔔 This is taken from Zap Holmes' Bluescreens EP - all of which he made on a "crappy little laptop when my main computer was broke. Was stuck with almost no samples and an old version of Reason."
• 🔔 You may stream or download 'Flaked Out Dreaming' via your fav service on this link right here.

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☟ Zap Holmes Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 CLAESONS — ACOUSTIC PUNK

With a title like 'Acoustic Punk' you might imagine something like a cross between gentle acoustic music and the noise of punk. If that is what you imagined whilst reading that sentence then, well, it's correct. This track by Swedish music unit Claesons is a combo of these two ideals, a bright blend of acoustic—no, almost chamber music, classical-style, new and experimental; of this, and of something closer to the quirky DIY of garage indie than punk. It's a mix of rough and smooth, beauty and energy.

The plucked guitar that begins the track teeters on mournful and in the same cyclical style as that guitar piece Romance, you know the one, cello solemn beneath, but soon leads into a thumping beat punctuated by the occasional crash of a cymbal, the main vocal floats in slurring and soaring, other voices haunt chorally above, all in all a sound like a cold gale, something internal externalised. The outro appears, long and languorous, a pinging guitar melody, soft piano, yet struck like distant lightning with peals of distorted guitar, disappearing into the vapour.

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• 🔔 This is from Claesons album V.V.V.V.V., due for release on 28th April via Swedish label Lamour.

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☟ Claesons Internet Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • website

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🐣 DJUSTIN — NEW PRESET

All along the quivering carapace is beset with jabbering angular synth like the ebbflow throttle of an alien machine, driving and forceful. The thud of the beat keeps time with electro sensibilities, the French touch thump-thwack clacking in the backdrop as the track tacks along its overcast path. It's a hearty potion of cold electronics, brightened by the ghostly vocals which seem apart and drifting above the slow gallop mechanics.

And into 'New Preset', by Stockholm-based Djustin, like welcome shards of sun on hard cold land, into the track arrive javelins of synth ablaze with uplifting light, lancing above the dark lurch of the beat and bass below, illuminating these lonely electronics like flashing lamps, the thin-air lustre of love or something like it, friendliness even, a new sheen of life. Dynamics of light and dark are wonderfully illustrated here, with thin synth juxtaposing thick, changes in key and the vocals ascending like the sun above clouds.

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• 🔔 Djustin is Rose Suau and Johan Angergård.
• 🔔 'New Preset' is taken from Voyagers which is the duo's new album out 7th May on Swedish label Labrador Records.

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☟ Djustin Internet Presence ☟
Facebook • official site • Twitter

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LAZY INTERVIEW #22: VULKANO

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← #21: DCUP #23: HARRISON →

Meet Vulkano. Do you know them? It's ok if you don't. But perhaps you should. They inhabit a strange esoteric area of music, a kind of mystic post-punk – a Swedish girl duo who screech and sing and howl, pogo-stick with whirling energy and bash the spirits out of drums: all with visceral intent. Formerly members of Those Dancing Days, this week (3rd Feb) they released their debut album, Live Wild Die Free. It's a journey through forests, crepuscular creepings, rites of nature, cold and spooky atmospheres cradled in raw craggy basslines and frenzied drumming, as synths float like mists and farflung vocals hold your attention with their endearing high-pitched warcry tones.

But that's what Vulkano are like. Nature, love, friendship – these three things imbue their music as much as they do the people themselves. Having been making music for a long time, perhaps they feel that they have finally arrived at a juncture which allows them to couple their creative output directly with what their hearts feel. The energy of their music is overwhelming, the enthusiasm is evident; and (so I have heard) their live shows are, unsurprisingly, rather mad. Feeling the music is always a sign of a genuine love for music, however. Anyway. They were very kind in answering the YES/NO Lazy Interview, which is below.

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Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
We are a two-girl band called Vulkano based in Stockholm, Sweden. We like to think we come from space and we are here to give music to the world. Cissi Efraimsson sings and plays the stand-up-drums and Lisa Pyk Wirström plays the keys and percussion.

Why did you decide to start creating music?
We got to know each other when we were 14 and we started to hang out because our biggest interest was music. We went to a lot of concerts and both of us thought it looked so much fun to be on stage playing for an audience and being on tour so we decided to start a band and since then we've played together. For us music is magic.

How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
Our sound is raw and filled with energy. It’s fun, primal and straightforward. We stand out because we follow our instincts and not any rules. When we play together it’s like the world around us disappears and we create our own crazy colourful creepy fantasy world. I think people can hear that in our music and like to be a part of it.

Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Under the full moon in the desert with a cold beer in your hand. You’re sitting in a nice chair in warm cloths with a home knitted blanket over you. You lay back, watch the stars and let the music take you out of your mind and out of your body.

What inspires you most when writing a song?
Nature, great songs, art, the superficial, volcanoes, other dimensions, colors, science fiction, space and life on Earth. We also inspire each other a lot. We are like ying and yang.

What is your most memorable musical experience?
God this is hard. Ok we’ll choose three.

1. Our first gig with our first band called Her Peace. We were 14 years old and played at youth garden outside of Stockholm. Cissi who was the drummer played every song so fast. Lisa was so nervous so she had to skip school the same day. The gig went quite bad but the feeling after was something new. We totally felt like rock stars!
2. Going to Japan to play with our previous band Those Dancing Days.
3. Recording our debut album Live Wild Die Free in the nicest studio we’ve ever been to with the coolest people Patrik Berger and Nille Perned. The studio’s called Ingrid. It was three of our best days of our lives.

What are your favourite three songs at the moment?

1. Julee Cruise - Floating
   
2. Tussilago – The Sulfur, the Tar and the Smoke
3. Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place
   

Who do you most admire in the music world?
We admire artists that go their own ways without compromising with their music and style. For example: David Bowie, Björk, MGMT, Siouxsie Sioux, Syd Barrett and Lykke Li.

In your opinion, what is the future of music?
Music is constantly changing. I feel like music right now is moving to a more electronic sound. I see a trend with less bands and more solo artists. More synth and more drums, less guitars. It also seems like indie bands and commercial bands sound more and more alike. I guess it has to do with that it’s so easy for anyone to learn how to produce music nowadays. I’m not sure I like this trend. I hope to see a much wider sound spectra in both electronic and “real instruments”. I also wish people will be brave and dare to make weird and different music. I don’t want commercial hit music to be the ideal for everyone.

What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
The future of our music is to explore deeper parts of our creativity and come up with even better music and ideas. We don't want to be held back by anything, especially not ourselves. When we write new songs we are being totally open to whatever feels inspirational so that we don't risk losing anything on the way. We hope to tour around the world with our music. We recorded a psychedelic short film that will be released this year and we’d love to do more films beside of the music.

What, aside from music, is most important to you?
Love and friendship. It's important that we treat everyone the same and are open to whoever comes across our life paths.

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As for Live Wild Die Free, perhaps you've heard 'Spider Spider', an eerie clanker of a song they offered up as a free download last Halloween, or maybe you've heard the epic wooded mystery of 'Vision Tricks' – both are a good indication of the album's proceedings. But it's more varied than you'd imagine from my descriptions – sometimes outright punk (as in 'Too Young To Die' with its mad screams of "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"), sometimes gentler pop sounds, sometimes inspired by nature ('Jungle', for instance, which literally describes a trip through a jungle), sometimes not, sometimes noisy, sometimes stripped-down. But it's always a daring sound, sonically diverse and certainly appealing to anyone looking for a bit of energetic music in their lives.

You can stream the whole thing here.

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← #21: DCUP #23: HARRISON →

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Like Vulkano on Facebook
Follow Vulkano on Twitter
Listen to Vulkano on Soundcloud
Visit Vulkano official site

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CEO WHOREHOUSE

I'd say something like really generalist here, like "weird is always good" in the hope of sounding super-open-minded and militantly anti-mainstream like some kind of genderless, plasma-based entity that some people think they are, have fantasies of being, or genuinely aspire to be, but weird is not ALWAYS good. Not always, not at all. Some weird is too weird and I can't really stand it. However, such is not the case with this zany track from ceo. Yup, I said "zany" - whatcha gonna do bout it?

Shrouded in mystery, ceo seeps out of the internet and into your ears with absolutely no details on their whereabouts (other than cryptically referring to their location as "In eternity" on their Facebook page) nor their identity; for an artist to be an entity, a thing, a sound, rather than an actual person, feels nicely normal – this I can cope with. At the same time, it adds gallons of intrigue, which is not a bad thing. Especially when the creative output is as intriguing as its source. That's what you get in ceo's 'Whorehouse'.

Oh wait I just googled some things and ceo is a guy called Eric Burglund from now-defunct-but-good-at-the-time duo The Tough Alliance. Intrigue destroyed. Anyway, here's the song.

It's pretty mental. Beginning with menacing bass that sludges into your brain with glistening tinkles and flute sounds, we're soon catapulted into a gaudy world of madness in 2/4 rhythm. Hot pinks and lime greens erupt in waves from the bouncy beat, synths casting neon light along the dark corridor of the verse; the hyper-pop of the chorus with its refrain of "Lost inside a whorehouse" bursts at the seams with a wild fireworks mentality, the atmosphere of a party in the dead-cold of winter. Synth leads blip and plink as fairy light decorations, with random yelps piercing the driving force of the song – add to all this the sample of some child talking in some language every now and again and you have yourself a strange old song indeed.

But it's not too strange. And it's not old. (For me, it conjures Momoiro Island from One Piece). Exhibiting a restrained yet ultra-confident kind of burlesque flamboyance in its style, 'Whorehouse' is literally out today on Modular. It comes from ceo's upcoming album WONDERLAND, out February 4th 2014 also on Modular, and I bet it's gonna be pretty cray.

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Like ceo on Facebook
Visit ceo official site

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VULKANO SPIDER SPIDER [FREE HALLOWEEN DOWNLOAD]

Hi everyone. Whoa. Feels like it's Halloween today? I'm sorry, I'm being sarcastic. It doesn't feel like it at all. I'm sitting looking out the window at a pretty dull day half-watching Russia Today considering a cigarette even though my mouth has been numbed by a too-strong coffee. In case you're wondering, I usually go for Al Jazeera but my TV has decided not to find it today - maybe it's a sign of Halloween after all. Halloween. Abby Martin certainly makes you think doesn't she?

Anyway, here is like, a Halloween treat or something like that. Maybe it's a trick. It's a bit of both. Rather than trick or treat it's more like "trick AND treat" (trick 'n' treat). Basically, it's by Vulkano and it's called 'Spider Spider'. Despite being trois mois old, this Swedish duo have given this song free download status for Halloween, something akin to offering up a virgin for sacrifice but with less gore and more music. I last wrote about these two - real names: Lisa Pyk-Wirström and Cissi Efraimsson - in July when their song 'Vision Tricks' sparked my interest; it called to mind the unnerving minimalism of The Cure's 'A Forest', complete with thick and rumbling bassline to add a bit of menace.

This song though is like a dark sound poem illustrating the movements or thought patterns of an actual spider. The dull thudding bass is definitely a spooky sound, almost like some homemade instrument made of human bones in a dodgy old shed in the middle of some overgrown garden of a derelict mansion. Or something like that. It's blissfully simple, following the same notes and patterns throughout, more like a creepy dance song than a pop song, the repetition like the frenzy of a cult-level mantra set to thumping kick drums, rolling toms and rattling-chain tambourines.

Cissi's vocals yelp in unaffected clarity, injected with the same passionate quirkiness that the music exudes. Opening, she sings, "I am out on spider hunt, I collect them, I collect them" - a line that drips with a light weirdness in which the rest of her lyrics are soaked. It's a fun song. Not pretending to be or even straying near the realms of "goth" or anything like that, it's interesting to see something music with such an unconventional spirit so near to pop - Vulkano recently went on tour supporting Kate Nash. Imagine that!

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Like Vulkano on Facebook
Follow Vulkano on Twitter
Listen to Vulkano on Soundcloud
Visit Vulkano official site

VULKANO VISION TRICKS [VIDEO]

Things don't always have to bright and sunny. Certainly not. Because they're not always bright and sunny; day gives way to night. It's normal yo. So a little bit of dark is alright sometimes. And in terms of sound too. If bright soundscapes give you images of melting endless summer days, dark ones evoke more shadowy or sometimes nocturnal scenery. Obviously.

As such, as the sun sets on another broiling hot day in South East England, the soundtrack for this still and twilit evening comes from Stockholm duo Vulkano. Comprised of Lisa Pyk-Wirström (keyboards/other things) and Cissi Efraimsson (drums/vocals), Vulkano's sounds in their song 'Vision Tricks' perfectly suit this time of day, when things can seem to appear from nowhere and glimmer in front of your eyes.

It's got the same darkly appealing atmosphere as The Cure's 'A Forest', but of course this is its own thing. It oozes an uncomfortable dark feeling without reverting to a wholly lo-fi sound as some who saunter down this route do, instead boasting an polished yet earthy pulse.

Listen to it via this video.

What you first notice is that bass. It sure is meaty. Gives just enough thickness of sound whilst picking out a melody, so heavy sounding that it could have been played on telephone wire for all I know. The melody harbours a grim edge and gives an impression of something foreboding, Nice nice nice. Its partner is a set of raw drums, who keep a steady beat throughout; snare rich and rattling, dull thuds for kicks. Later they roll and rollick in the choruses, provide a riotous clash of cymbals for the break. A strong foundation.

Cissi's vocals are yelping and affected, seeming to actually come as a warning - she even sings imploringly "I know it's out there..." (is it BOB?) There's something chilling about them, perhaps in the way that they echo starkly against the empty space in the song that's left over. Luminescent keyboard sounds that wail quietly all around appearing like kitsunebi (ghost lights), disconcerting fairy-lights. Altogether it's quite an enveloping sound.

It's actually their first ever ever single (from what I have yet to find out) and it's out officially on 29th July.

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Like Vulkano on Facebook
Follow Vulkano on Twitter
Listen to Vulkano on Soundcloud
Visit Vulkano official site

FREDRIK CHROME CAVITIES

There's nothing like a bit of this in the morning, no siree there isn't. What's this? You've heard it before? Of course you have. You won't know this band's name though, unless you knew them anyway. They're Fredrik and the song is called 'Chrome Cavities'. Chrome cavities. Sounds a bit sterile. But then again, the cleaner the better.

They are the ün-pop darlings of Kopparberg's ün-mainstream TV adverts for their ün-not-tasty (double negative, it's ok) fruit cider. It's quite a good bit of branding because it gives a summery and generally quite affable fruity cider quite a dark and indie aesthetic. It's like pushing a happy, brightly dressed 14-year-old into a muddy ditch then sending him off to a questionable (ün-questionable) warehouse rave with only a cow, given him by his mother, to trade for food and whatever else.

He comes back home covered in body paint, a beard puffing from his chin and resting on his chest like an angry cloud, bottles of Kopparberg inexplicably strung around his neck, rattling like a street performer. His mother is at a loss. She tells him off for being so ün-good and ün-clever, then she gets so angry about the cow and asks the still-inebriated son of hers what he traded for the cow. He pulls out three beans and she goes absolutely ün-sane. His name was Jack...

The story is ün-Jack and the Beanstalk.

So that's the kind of thing they're doing. Here's a link to the advert if you just haven't watched enough TV to have had your eyes treated to it. Amidst the slough of deeply troubling and brain-curdlingly annoying adverts, it's nice to hear some nice music.

Allah forgive me, I've been chatting too much about adverts. So sorry. So... The song is dark with a bassline that is as modulatingly rich as it is deep and heavy. Vocals come in like nonchalant chants, echoing and distant, and try to offset themselves against synth sounds that could be the nocturnal squeaks of undiscovered android animals limping in the swamps of invented memory. The beat is consistently frenetic and stripped back, feeling acupuncture for your dancing feet. Surprise addition of strings to this track brings it back to Earth a little bit.

Really looking forward to hearing more from these Malmö-based Swede ün-pop-boppers.

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• Omg, Fredrik on Wikipedia
• Omg, Fredrik's official site
• Here is their Bandcamp
• Here is their SoundCloud
• Omg, follow Fredrik on Twitter!
• Oh... wait... is that... Myspace?
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