Rosie Thomas

Here's an artist I can't seem to get enough of tonight...



Rosie Thomas is an amazing singer/songwriter from Seattle. There's often a piano in her mellow, beautiful songs and with that voice of hers everything sounds great.

If you haven't already heard this woman - Do not miss out! This song is one of her best and it's taken from her 2002 album: When We Were Small. Some more songs are available from her homepage, so go visit and get them right away!

Wedding Day

Professor Pez

Here's something that showed up among my last.fm recommendations this week ^^



Professor Pez is a five member, Norwegian indiepop band with that Scandinavian sound. Very easy to like ^^

So far they have released two albums and the song below is taken from their first, Let us follow the evil balloon. Check out their homepage for more samples from their albums as well as some demo songs!

Stealing Sneakers

Dexter's Moon

Tiger Lou yesterday was awesome. Today I've checked out the music created by his sister.


photo by Sara Appelgren

Dexter's Moon is a group of Swedes making what they call "Lo-fi Country Pop". They released their debut album, Come Rain, in 2005 and from what I've heard (half of it is available for free from their homepage ^^) it's all mellow, nice and beautiful, though perhaps not that much obvious difference between songs musicalwise.

The song below is a piano version of a song from their second demo, You Can Count On Me. It's very lovely.

Promise Piano

Tiger Lou

It's been longer then I thought since I last updated, but here's an entry on a guy I'm gonna go see live tonight ^_^



One of Sweden's best indie artists is no doubt Tiger Lou, aka Rasmus Kellerman. (If I'm not mistaken, he's the second guy from the left on the pic above, while the others makes up his touring band.) Indie pop? Indie rock? I'm not sure how to describe his music to make it justice, but I can agree with his German label, riptide recordings, that wrote "it is rare that a pop song has felt so important as when told by the Tiger!" He released his debut EP, Trouble and Desire, in 2003 and his second full album, The Loyal, came out in October 2005.

The song below is a single from Tiger Lou's first album, Is My Head Still On? Though released as a single I think it's far from his best song, but it was the only one for which I could find a full downloadable sample :p If you're on last.fm and want to hear more - go check out his last.fm artist page where most of his released songs are available.

Sell Out

Half Asleep

Here's a discovery made because of last.fm today ^^



Belgian duo Half Asleep makes some nice, slow, calming music with a piano, acoustic guitar and occasional drums. Their music is described as "a beautiful mixture of sadcore, dream pop and folk sounds" and Another Records says that "Half Asleep brings sensual songs for late-nights listeners, reminiscent of the soundtrack from a melancholy film scene".

You can get their latest album, (we are now) seated in profile, for free from Unique Records' Half Asleep page. From just one listen I think it's a very good album so if the song below appeals to you - don't miss it!

Fill The Turkey with Your Stupid Jokes


If, when you're done listening to Half Asleep, you're in the mood for more similiar music - check out the first tracks from this month's mp3 focus at sudd., which features a compilation from anal0g ^^

Harmonica

I first heard about this group from for the eardrum's no longer updated subsection norwegian eardrums. As I believe philly might still be in need of some high energetic music - here they are!



Harmonica is an eight member group hailing from Oslo, capital of Norway. Monica Johansen, featured on the pic above, writes music as well as lyrics for all of their songs and she does a great job creating happy, energetic rock'n roll/sambapop. If you like Marit Bergman (that has all of her songs up for listen at her homepage ^^), you'll love Harmonica!

The songs below is the only studio recorded material I've heard, but it was more than enough to convince me I have to hear more from them in the future.

Friday Night
Girls and Boys (They Kiss at Night)

Tias Carlson

Here's a guy I first heard of from swedesplease.



There's a lot of good singer/songwriters coming out of Sweden, and Tias Carlson is one of them. He released his debut album, What I have gathered from coincidence, in 2005 and hopefully he'll have a new album out early summer 2006. I could hardly find any info on him, but here's a quite nice interview from German sweet jane music

I really like the song below, so please take a listen. And if you like it too - of course you should go to his homepage for more ^^

Setting Sun

Calexico

As I was reading about DeVotchKa, I found plenty of references to these guys, so of course I had to check them out as well.



Like DeVotchKa, Calexico is a bunch of Americans blending folk with a portion of indie rock. They've been around for a decade and has released six albums so far.

They have plenty of live tracks available on their homepage, but this song is taken from their album Feast of Wire, available through Cityslang

Sunken Waltz

DeVotchKa

After reading about them in em lo's blog I couldn't not check them out.



Despite their obvious Eastern European influences, DeVotchKa actually hails from Colorado, USA. Their style is a blend of folk and indie-rock, but it's the varied ethnic part of folk that makes their music so interesting.

The song below is featured on their 2004 album, How it ends, that has recieved plenty of commending reviews.

Such a Lovely Thing