Music: A Swedish smorgasbord

The stereotypical Swede in St Andrews doesn’t always present a wide picture of Swedish culture while jumping on a low quality sofa from IKEA, screaming to ABBA after a night […]


The stereotypical Swede in St Andrews doesn’t always present a wide picture of Swedish culture while jumping on a low quality sofa from IKEA, screaming to ABBA after a night of heavy drinking.  Although I have to admit that it doesn’t take me a night of heavy drinking to remember the lyrics of “Dancing Queen”, I’d like to take the students of St Andrews on a journey of current Swedish music and give a taste of the delicious “smorgasbord” that it is.

 

The first stop takes us to Gothenburg and a visit with the pop-genius Jens Lekman. This king of lyrics recently released the EP “An Argument With Myself”. His masterpiece “Waiting for Kirsten”, describes the way of life in Gothenburg through an explanation of the rules of the VIP-lines to Kirsten Dunst, after she was turned away at a club last summer. “Times are changing Kirsten… They turned a youth centre into a casino, they draw a swastika in your cappuccino”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCfoKk_mER0

 

Our next stop is Stockholm where we find the lovely Anna Ternheim. A “folkable” singer-songwriter, with that perfect amount of hipster, makes Anna Ternheim an absolute must on our “smorgasbord”. Here on her cover of “The Longer the Waiting, The Sweeter the Kiss” (hang in there Single-in-St-Andrews!) together with Dave Ferguson, she shows why a good song doesn’t need a Gaga-esque-production in order to be expressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afjRIFjsPJI

 

At our last stop, 350 miles north, we’ll enjoy the desert that is Deportees. In the town of Umeå, with a total of something like 12 hours of sun per year, this group manages to shed a lot of light with their amazing melodies.  On the title track of their new album, “Islands and Shores”, it sounds like New Order’s “Ceremony” had a child with one of the slutty harmonies from Fleet Foxes.

 

For some more delicious music tune in to Us Folk with Jasper & Oscar, Mondays 9-11pm on STAR.

 

 

Photo © www.annaternheim.com © Nikias Nyberg
Written by Oscar Swedrup, standing-room-only writer