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New Scandinavian music: July’s hottest tunes By Karl Batterbee
Tove Lo has just announced the autumn release of her new album Dirt Femme. It will be her fifth but, rather excitingly, the very first under her own record label. On it, she will explore “the intricacies of her femininity” – without the interference of higher-ups, this time. New single True Romance is a welcome taste of what’s to come: an unfiltered tale about awkwardly falling for someone you know you shouldn’t, with a vocal delivery that incorporates all the passionate peaks and lows that come with such a scenario. We have new music from one of Finland’s best popstars Jannika B - she’s back with her latest single P.A.S.K.A. In terms of musical references, this song has got it all. At least all the good stuff, anyway. Bombastic rock, ‘60s girl-band fabulosity, and hardcore electro, combined into a creatively brilliant pop tune. It’s a kitchen-sink ap-
proach that might read questionably on paper, but which has paid off on record. Norwegian pop superstar Dagny is back again and, indeed, banging again. On her new single Brightsider, she explores being someone who always looks on the bright side. The bright side is the sole side to this song, however - no darker sonic realms. This euphoric pop number features drums beaten even harder than her usual, in an attempt to be heard over the ambitious melody of the chorus. All light, absolutely no shade. The seasonally topical focus on light continues (and concludes beautifully) with Swedish duo Pure Shores, and their new release Light Of My Life. It’s an upbeat track with both feet planted unwaveringly in the sounds of the ‘80s. It eschews the usual neon hues that come with modern-day
songs inspired by that era, and instead gives us a celebration of the carefree beats that represented commercial pop radio at that time. This song deserves to be a mainstay on today’s commercial pop radio! www.scandipop.co.uk
Monthly Illustration
Street cred
By Maria Smedstad
one.” When I mentioned the name of my school, I had to repeat it twice, as if he didn’t quite believe me. Then he shrunk from me in fear, whispering “we NEVER dared walk past your school in our blazers. You lot would have done us in.” And that pretty much sums up the one thing that I gained from being at the bottom of a very broad spectrum. Over two decades later, I still have street cred.
I went to a rough school. When moving to the UK, we had no idea how divided the English school system was: private, grammar, state run. All we saw were different coloured ties and varying degrees of castle-like buildings. In hindsight, the ‘better’ the school, the more outlandish they seemed. Which is how I came to choose what I thought was the most normal – and with that, apparently ‘the worst’ – a heaving, run-down comprehensive. While attending this school, I had a limited notion of just how ‘the worst’ it was. Sure, lessons often ended with furniture being tossed out of windows, or ambulances being called. Yes, I was aware our uniform was a bit tatty and that (some) teachers had extremely limited expectations of us. But I still had no idea that the division was
so large. A few years ago, I ran into a man with a familiar accent at a dinner party. Sure enough, it turned out he’d attended a school just down the road from mine, one that was of a considerably higher calibre. When I pointed out his luck, he shook his head. “No, no, it wasn’t a posh school,” he insisted. “In fact, it was quite a common
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.
July 2022
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Issue 144 |
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