2015 is a good year for Despotz
2015 has so far been a good year for Despotz. The Swedish music company is now expanding with a new Despotz office in New York, where Luis Alvarenga has been hired as label manager.
"I am proud to be part of the Despotz Records team in the US and look forward to expanding a very eclectic roster of amazing artists in the North American market," says Luis Alvarenga. 
“Luis has previously worked for the Spinefarm Records and Indie Recordings, so we are happy to have him onboard. This also opens up the opportunities to work with more U.S. based artists," says Ömer Akay at Despotz Records.
“We are releasing more music than ever this year. We’ve just signed Casablanca who previously was signed to Sony Music, and Thundermother who previously was signed to Warner Music."
Casablanca and Thundermother will both release albums later this year. Casablanca will release their third album, called Miskatonic Graffiti. It is a concept album in three parts that tells a story of the small fictional town of The Mountains, but also takes the listener on a tour to the inner core of Rock and the futility of the existance of mankind. The album was produced and recorded during the summer of 2014 in Solna, Stockholm by Anders Ljung, Mats Rubarth, Erik Almström and Josephine Forsman, together with technician Jon Bordon.
"We are really looking forward to releasing our third album on Despotz Records! We believe that they are the absolutely right company for our concept album Miskatonic Graffiti, so we welcome them on the trip, along with our new guitarist Erik Almström," says Josephine Forsman, drummer in Casablanca.
"We are incredibly excited to present this new member of the Despotz family! We welcome Casablanca and look forward to a very productive partnership. In the current climate of the music industry, this concept album feels perfect. We get served a combination of sharp singles in a context embedded of songs with long intros and outros, plus a storyline and sound that captivates the listener like a favorite television series that you do not want to end. This in combination with the huge passion of the band, and a great team, we see no limits of where this can be taken," says Carl Marcus Gidlöf, Despotz Record.
The first release off of Thundermother’s upcoming album is the single It's Just A Tease. In September-October, the band will tour throughout Europe and visit Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Switzerland, and Spain.
“With this agreement we have also taken over the rights to the debut album, which will finally be available worldwide," says Ömer Akay on Despotz. "We thank Thundermother for their confidence to choose an indie rather than a major, but we would simultaneously like to thank Warner Music for their work with the band’s debut album Rock n Roll Disaster. Now we are going to work hard to make sure that everyone gets to see and hear this great band live!"
Thundermother was formed in 2010 in Växjö by guitarist Filippa Nässli. In Stockholm, she found the guitarist Giorgia Carteri from Italy and after several auditions the band got its current line up with singer Clare Cunningham from Dublin, Tilda Stenqvist (drums) and Linda Power (bass).
“Thundermother is in safe hands," says the band. "We have now finally signed to the cool record company Despotz and are excited as hell. The future looks bright. Look out!"

Anna Lindholm

ABBA the Museum at Djurgården in Stockholm is now presenting its first solo photography exhibition ABBA by Calvero, a unique fine art collection of the best photos of ABBA taken by the Swedish photographer Torbjörn Calvero. Many of the photographs have never been shown before, which is generating major international interest. ABBA The Museum is hereby initiating a series of ABBA-themed fine art exhibitions. The images will be on view during regular museum hours over the summer, and the photographs can also be purchased. A strictly limited number of signed photographs will be for sale at www.abbathemuseum.com/shop.

Agent Side Grinder Alkimia [Progress Produktions/Border] It is such a pleasant feeling, being able to feel safe with Agent Side Grinder. Alkimia is, in accordance with hopes and expectations, post- punk synth of high quality. The tracks hold together in a tastefully uniform sound world consisting of both Sisters of Mercy-darkness and dancy electronic harmonies. Mature. Professional. Although the entire album is of high class, some tracks excels as particularly strong: This Is Us is just one of them. Remarkable is also the demonic anthem For The Young - a closed and quietly raised fist. AL

Millencolin True Brew [Softcore / Epitaph / Playground] Millencollin released their latest album in 2008, but the seven year break hasn’t changed the band’s approach. The Swedish punk heroes still use the same formula as in their skate punk heyday in the 90’s. The cocktail is a mix of punk, pop and ska – though the ska element isn’t as obvious as it used to be. But the members political ideals are as high as ever. Sense & Sensibility is a hard hitting attack on xenophobia. Final track Believe in John is dedicated to John Lennon and questions our consumer society. ”It’s still in our hands to change it all around”. CO

Multiface Morning War [Naiv Recordings] With stompboxes the one-man band Multiface leads us into a melancholic, evocative dream world, mixed with shoegaze and post-rock. I can hear an affinity between Multiface and the Czech composer Tomáš Dvořák's melodies, with Multiface as his electronic, dystopian sibling. It's also easy  to draw parallels to Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumkins, as they both share the same langorious gloom in their voices and ability to emotionally penetrate all the way in. The music is narrow and at times difficult, but Multiface succeedes. . It will be interesting to see what happens in the future - both with Multiface and  the new label Naive Recordings in Malmö. JR

Supersci Entropy [Flyphonic Phonogram] Superscis brand new album is both original and fresh. The first thing that strikes me – a fan of color and science fiction – is the delicious wrapper. I far too often experience that a hip-hop song either has great lyrics and a dull beat, or music that really carries me away but with a stereotypical lyric about weapons, drugs and degrading to women. In Supersci both voices, sounds and rhythms sounds thoughtful, as if with millimeter precision placed all along a well-made plan and not leaving anything to chance. Everything is surfing on a consistently exciting sound wave. The fact that Supersci can deliver lyrics that rarely feels repetitive and consistently is presented with both sense and an advanced vocabulary impress. When Supersci in Call of The Wild blends into a background choir as taken from Astrid Lindgren's work, it really captures me. Supersci delivers a nice break from the mass produced and insipid hip-hop of today, and offer a well-packaged album of songs that actually seems keen on telling you something. They make me think of old heroes like Jedi Mind Tricks, rather than MTV. JD

Top Cats Kick Down [TC Entertainment / Atenzia BGR] Timo Räisinen is the co-composer of Top Cats latest single Hold Me Now and Swedish pop music genius Peter Kvint is credited for half the work behind both Waiting At The Moon and the western-sounding Fire In My Heart, a song that could have been taken from the soundtrack to any Kaurismäki movie as well Chris Isaak's breakthrough album. Even though Top Cats new album - where the band actually has written most of the material themselves - has a much larger concept than the stylish band with the style typical CD cover might give the impression of. CO

Truls Mörck Truls Mörck [Fetish / Border] Singer and guitarist Truls Mörck started his career in the Swedish band Graveyard, but left after the band’s debut album and has since then played with his  band Den Stora Vilan, and also been heard with Slowgold. On this first solo album the opening track Take The Sun Down sounds like an outtake from some great, early Pink Floyd album (pre-Dark Side Of The Moon), but Truls Mörk has a wide musical palette and the music takes off in many different directions. The result is a psycedelic mix of influences from Silver Apples, Mmoss, Can, Mathew E. White, The Byrds, and Steven Malkmus & the Jicks – just to mention a few of Mörcks personal heroes. CO

Greybeards Longing To Fly [ Attitude Recordings ] In any blind test the young Gävle-based band Greybeards' debut album could certainly be mistaken for some half classic British rock production from the seventies. Driven by tender conviction the quartet storms the fort of rock music with  songs, sound, attitude and an obvious musical authority, reminiscent of both Mott the Hoople and the Kinks, Thin Lizzy and Slade. The inherent and rather warm cockiness of this band makes it hard to guard against them. In their live performances, the band must be highly explosive. Recorded, the bar is placed at its highest with rock gems as We'll Never Die. CO

Ida Sand Young At Heart [ACT / Naxos] Ida Sands business card probably says jazz singer and jazz pianist and her fourth album is released by the German jazz label ACT. The repertoire on this tribute album, however, is neither Swedish or American jazz, but new interpretations of the Canadian rock icon Neil Young. The song selection extends in time from the Woodstock debut of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Neil Young's second solo album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) to a couple of tracks from the album Harvest Moon (1992). Nils Landgren has produced the album that also features singer Bo Sundström from Bo Kaspers Orchestra (Helpless), Dan Berglund (bass, e.s.t., Tonbruket), Per "Texas" Johansson (tenor saxophone), and Ola Gustafsson (guitar). CO

The Leather Nun Whatever [Wild Kingdom / Sound Pollution] The Leather Nun formed in 1978 and became one the first Swedish rock bands to make it on the international scene. In Sweden they had a devoted cult following from year one, but their classic ABBA cover Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) gave them wider recognition in the mid-eighties. (Being the first band to sell condoms as tour merchandaise still kept their shock value intact. though.) In this long-awaited comeback album’s opening track All Those Crazy Dreams singer Jonas Almquist tells the story of the band. Almquist’s voice and phrasing still sound quite Lou Reed-ish - and, yes: if you listen close to Not Afraid you can still hear the echoes of ABBA… CO

Klabbes Bank Z [Hoob / Border] By taking in jazz atypical musical elements as harmoniously motionless atmosphere blocks, Klabbes Bank creates something that John Cornell from the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in his praising review very aptly defined as post- jazz (compared to the established concept of post-rock and the genre's representatives, such as Tortoise, Sigur Ros and Mogwai). The odd arrangement of the three-piece blowing section, combined with floating electronic sonorities gives the listener an exciting sound experience that is not really heard before. Z is the band's fifth album. CO

Kite VI [Progress Productions/Border] Just as the title says, this is the sixth record from the super duo consisting of Nicklas Stenemo (The Mo, Melody Club) and Christian Berg (Yvonne, Strip Music, The April Tears) and just as we have learned to get used to when it comes to Kite, it is not a full-length album but a provident EP with just a few, carefully selected tracks. Compared to earlier releases, I sense an evolution in VI. The listener still get served a magnificently sparkling synthpop experience with a powerful, almost desperate energy, but now a new kind of melancholy is showing. I don’t get hit by the same smash-the-roof dance excitement as usually, when listening to this band. A new level of the sense of seriousness I love with them, is carried to me with strenght and confidence by the incomparable voice of Stenemo, among with heavy bass and rippling electronical harmonies. It's incredibly beautiful and I am grateful. AL

Skenet Allting Rullar [Subliminal sounds / Border] The Swedish reception of Skenet’s debut album has been nothing else but warm. The group has been praised as genuine Swedish folk music performers, whilst combining the tradition with elements of 70’s rock (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd a.o.). The band’s traditional and delicately composed strings blends in a nice way with the more modern rock/jazz sounds of organs, drums and bass, and creates a fusion that suits for a diverse crowd. There is a fire within the music, giving me the urge to dance barefoot on the tableswith a friend in one hand and a bottle of “soda“ in the other... In these time of EDM, this contrasting album has even greater value, and hopefully Skenet will grow and inspire across borders. LL

Sada Vidoo A Story With No End [Crossover / Border] It’s no coincidence that Kate Bush often is mentioned in relation to the sound of Sada Vidoo, and brings the more visual interpreter back to theatrical times of David Bowie and Alice Cooper. But even though this concept has been used by other artists before, one cannot deny that Sada Vidoo is doing something unique in today’s music-climate. Her concept album A Story With No End is released as a book, combining beautiful pictures with the song lyrics. Musically, classic and glam rock blends with electronic dub-step influences. Intricate use of contrasting song- techniques and emotional schizophrenia hurls the listener between tender tunes and aggressive power song. Facing patriarchal issues in her early careeer surely reflects in her musical expression; like a phoenix raising from the ashes showing that Sada Vidoo will not let herself be victimized! LL