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Fresh Scandinavian sounds
By Karl Batterbee
From exciting newcomers to culinary-themed comebacks, here are some recommended playlist additions for the month of May. Swedish artist ORKID is back with her first new music since last year’s Where Flowers Grow EP, and she’s still got her mind on that life-giving earth – this time trilling about “the garden of Eden”! Pleasingly, she’s also maintained the quality control of that EP, which helped her pick up a Grammy nomination this year; new single EDEN is some truly beautiful Scandi synthpoppery. There’s a lot to be said for the simplistic charms that lie within a jaunty pop song, and the new release from Finland’s Behm has got bags of them! Plus, not only is Kaiken Arvoinen unlike anything else out there right now in the melodical sense, it also manages to pull off what’s a rare feat in the streaming age we’re in these days; it clocks in at almost four minutes in length.
10,000 Tuntii is the debut single from Finnish newcomer KAUKUA. Written, produced and performed entirely by the man himself, it’s an incredibly strong first-showing for the artist. The song’s melody is dripping with enough melancholia that it’s placed him right at the top of my list of new acts to listen out for in 2025. Another Finnish newcomer to keep your eyes and ears on is 19-year-old Eino, who has just released his debut Haamuja. It’s a one-listen-and-you’re-hooked kind of affair, and so he’s ticked that box of strong first-impression with aplomb! Finally, almost 40 years after it became one of the signature Swedish hits of the ’80s, Lasse Holm’s Canelloni Macaroni is back on the table! With a soupedup production from Swedish producer Nause and newly recorded vocals from
Monthly Illustration
90 | Issue 178 |
May 2025
www.scandipop.co.uk
By Maria Smedstad
The North On a recent flight to Stockholm, I got chatting to another passenger who had the haunted look of an Englishman freshly persuaded to move to the north of Sweden, which is exactly what he was. “My wife is from there,” he explained. “She suggested we try living up there for a bit.” I felt a pang of pity for this man, imagining that the ‘for a bit’ would likely mean ‘forever’. In my experience, when a Swede chooses to move back to the north, it’s because their soul is irretrievably bound to that place. My sister is one of those people. Occasionally, and especially if we are on holiday in some lovely, warm country, she will question her choice to return to the north. This is until I remind her that she would not be able to drive the huskies that she keeps acquiring, down the streets of Rome in a dogsled.
Lasse himself, it can serve as the Italian-themed snack to every ‘grillfest’ across Sweden this summer.
when snow melts and turns to ice and then it snows on top of that?” I nodded, familiar with this special hell. “But,” he continued, more brightly, “I look forward to seeing what the rest of the seasons are like!” I wished him good luck, which he probably took to mean him catching his connecting flight, but which in fact was in reference to him finding out that there are only two seasons in the north; winter and mosquito.
I, on the other hand, have grown too soft for the north, and it shows. On one of my last visits, my sister’s friend, upon inspecting my British outfit, remarked to my sister as if I was not even there: “Make sure this little one wears real clothes.” Back to the Englishman on the plane, who nervously confessed; “The winter wasn’t good. Do you know what happens
Maria Smedstad moved to the UK from Sweden in 1994. She received a degree in Illustration in 2001, before settling in the capital as a freelance cartoonist, creating the autobiographical cartoon Em. Maria writes a column on the trials and tribulations of life as a Swede in the UK.