Ida Maria

Among the Swedish "pophopps" of 2007, as listed by DN I found a new Norwegian artist to keep my eyes on!



While currently residing in Sweden, Ida Maria originally hails from a tiny place in Norway. She makes happy, upbeat, energetic and catchy pop of the same kind that made me like her fellow countrymen Harmonica so much. Right now she and her band are recording an album with Timo Räisänen (one of my favorite Swedish artists - he too does happy, upbeat, energetic and catchy pop) and I'm pretty sure it'll be great!

Down below is the song featured on Pophopp 2007. Drop by NRK Urørt do download three songs more and visit Ida Maria's MySpace to listen to a fourth ^^

Louie [left click]

Strawberry Sadness

I just noticed the name of these people on last.fm today ^^



Wihtout ever hearing their music you can tell already from their name that Strawberry Sadness makes sweet pop music. They started out as a duo but are now a quintet. No own releases available yet, but if you happen to be in China you could try locating the recently released Bergen Rock City vol.2 to hear more from Strawberry Sadness as well as other interesting Norwegian artists.

The song below is my favorite and it came second in last year's Urørt finale, but there's a couple of songs more on the Strawberry Sadness Urørt page

Taking My Breath Away (left click)

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

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I first heard about this group from for the eardrum's no longer updated subsection norwegian eardrums.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)

SIN

After a short hiatus due to a visit home I'm back with an entry on a band introduced to me by For The Eardrums last week ^^



SIN is a Norwegian duo making soft electronic music. Though I don't think they had published any material till this month both members are still fairly wellknown in the Norwegian indie scene through their previous bands such as Jaqueline (Marius Drogsås Hagen) and The Wombats (Tord Øverland Knudsen).

According to For The Eardrums, German guy Maximilian Hecker will appear on their debut album next summer so keep your ears open for more awesome material from these guys in the future!

Lost in a Span