Browsing Tag

sweden

A&R Factory Present: STEELE

Posted on 13 July 2016

In January this year Swedish artist STEELE gained widespread attention upon the release of her EP ‘OPIUM’. With acclaimed reviews from music bloggers and journalists worldwide she also managed to top the ‘Editors Choice’ list in the mars issue of Rolling Stone Magazine Mexico.

It’s with great expectations we’re announcing her new single ‘Follow’ – a song full of energy, pace and big expressions. It combines STEELE’s cinematic influences along with elements inspired by Post-rock music. It’s her most dynamic song to date, with a structure and arrangement that takes the listener up and down, high and low and eventually leads them through a musical maze that’s full of emotion and passion. As STEELE herself describes it;

“Follow is a track about my relation to music. It’s more like an ode to music really. No matter what I’m going through, music will always be there for me, with me and it’s something I’ll always hold on to”.

Teaming up with producers & songwriters Charles Elmi and Dejan Sajinovic, ‘Follow’ will lead the way for her sophomore EP which is set to be released later this year. ‘Follow’ is set to be released on June 27th through her label, Firegate Music Group.

A&R Factory Present: A Treehouse Wait

Posted on 12 July 2016

Jenny Wahlström grew up with one foot at a country farm in the south of Sweden. She had her other foot in Asia, where her parents worked for several periods of time during her childhood. That might explain why she always looks beyond her horizon and why international co-works have always been part of her artistry and musicianship. She has mainly worked as a songwriter in the EDM-stage, co-writing and performing with acts like Martin Garrix (Virus), Shermanology (Stranger) and Ferry Corsten (Many ways). As a former singer and songwriter for the electro pop band Sounds of Nonno, ”The Guardian”-reporter Michael Cragg praised Jenny and described her songs as sweet robo-pop that promised a lot for the future. Unfortunately, the band didn’t last that long and the future was uncertain.

Realizing that it wasn’t just songs that made sense to herself, but the fact that people actually listened when she started singing re-inspired her. After spending a month in the USA, being the opening act for a Swedish folksinger, singer and songwriter Jenny Wahlström plucked up the courage to put the songs down on paper and record the songs she didn’t think she’d ever share with the rest of the world. A Treehouse Wait was born.

Like others, A Treehouse Wait was not someone else’s project but her own and of course of her friends, a collection of creative people who feel the urge to speak through their music. They ’speak’ all over the world during their tours but sometimes they just put up a show in a small pub in Stockholm or at other times in someone’s living-room in the north of Sweden. The size of the band of A Treehouse Wait changes at each gig but whenever the musicians come together, the songs come to life and suddenly everything makes sense.

The songs are mostly inspired by the things one is so familiar with, but mostly would not talk about. Like empty city streets during the summer. Or when anxiety leaves. Giving up your love or the fear of leaving home. It’s not all beautiful, but it’s all life. And sharing that experience, the music suddenly creates a place for you to be, and you know that someone else has been there, too.

A&R Factory Present: Dotter

Posted on 11 July 2016

Born Johanna Maria Jansson (she adopted the name Dotter – Swedish for daughter) in the striking and artistically-friendly environment of Arvika, not far from the Swedish/Norwegian border, she started playing music “so early that I must’ve been born a musician.” Enamoured by her parents’ record collection – which featured everything from Led Zeppelin to indigenous music to Enya – Dotter experimented with home recordings and started writing piano compositions as a child.

After collaborating with producers online, she decided to head to Stockholm: not only to study music, but to also to benefit from the potential connections that can be found in a capital city. “I found a guy who wanted to record a demo with me,” she recalls. “And then we fell in love, so I’ve stayed in his studio ever since.”

That connection with producer Dino Medanhodzic also sparked a rich creative partnership as they crafted her breakthrough single ‘My Flower’, her follow-up ‘Dive’ and this summer’s new track ‘Creatures of the Sun’.

“My inspiration is always the ‘70s, but sometimes I don’t think about it so much – it just becomes something that doesn’t sound like anyone else,” she says, noting her love for using natural phenomenon as a metaphor for human emotion. “I grew up surrounded by nature and amongst mountains and I want to bring that feeling into the music. I also wanted to express the importance of protecting and caring for our planet.”

Those themes, she explains, are also prevalent in ‘Creatures of the Sun’. “It’s interesting to think about all of the coincidences that led to us being here on earth. All of my ancestors before me have led to this moment. It could’ve been totally different. Whether you’re a human or an animal or a flower, every second in life we’re important to the earth. And when we die we go back to the earth.”

Since releasing ‘My Flower’ and ‘Dive’, Dotter has focused on developing her live show, with a huge homecoming festival at Arvika’s Hamnfest a particular highlight to date. Mostly, however, she’s been working extensively on new material, both for herself and as a songwriter for other artists. ‘Creatures of the Sun’ is likely to be followed by another collaboration with Medanhodzic with ‘Evolution’ (“It’s about my own evolution as a person”).

Dotter has also been working with London-based producer Michael Angelo, whose credits include Sam Smith and Lady Leshurr. It’s a natural progression for an artist whose ambition is to reach audiences in the UK and North American, as well as at home in Sweden.

Possessing a unique approach that separates her from the pack, Dotter’s inimitable charm will be the calling card that enables her to be discovered by the wider world.

A&R Factory Present: Raindear

Posted on 11 May 2016

What if the Grimm Brothers fairy tale collection came with an indie electro vinyl to spin while you read along to Rapunzel and The Twelve Huntsmen? You’re traveling through the dark woods of human emotion—guided only by worldly instruments, ghostlike background sounds, and sugarcoated vocals by a young Swedish girl with a septum ring. RAINDEAR—AKA Rebecca Bergcrantz is both the dangling vines that block your view and your bright light at the end of the tunnel.

With influences from both the destruction that heartbreak brings, to classic romance and pop songs from bands like The Beatles, Bergcrantz, is a lot like your favorite teen movies with a dark side (The Craft, High School Hellcats, and Heathers). Fusing together sweet, trippy dance beats with themes like war, cults, and greed, RAINDEAR has something to say: there is more than one side to every story, especially when that story is centered around love.

While RAINDEAR is busy working on her debut album, the rest of the world is working on getting to know her. Featured in Scandinavian and American publications such as The Fader, Noisey, Blackbook, Culture Collide and Earmilk, as well as a feature interview on Noisey in the US, RAINDEAR is quickly popping up all over the world–thanks to her debut EP The Game, that dropped last year. 2014 also saw the release of single “Veins,” which was awesomely remixed by British producers Charlie Russell and Bradley Spence. About her track’s lyrics, Bergcrantz says, “Veins is about that kind of destructive love that you stick with ‘cause you love the rush, but you secretly know it’s bad for you. This is the addictive kind of love you can feel for a lover or for a friend or anything really and it’s of the kind that is almost warlike and comes from a very dark place.”

Besides her sound, RAINDEAR looks to art, fashion, history, and travel for inspiration in her songwriting, and also has a killer fashion sense (think stick-on diamonds arranged in cool patterns under her eyes and dripping gold jewelry that reaches from her fingertips to her arms).

Of the track, Raindear explains;

“Feathers is about decadent and dangerous love. It is about feelings of such an indifferent kind, they become overwhelming and passionate, cause they’re so fleeting so you might as well give all of yourself as you can easily lose everything the next second.  It’s about fleeting rushes of passion that switches into fear and danger and back to indifference.  It’s got kind of a trippy, reality-escaping message too. But the main point of the song is that you that you can feel light as a feather but still have a heavy bleeding heart….”