Anyways, if you don’t know The Swell Season then you really should check them out! The duo consists of Glen Hansard, singer of the Irish rock band The Frames, and Markéta Irglová who is an actress and musician. The couple became internationally famous for their roles in the fantastic movie Once and subsequently won an Oscar for best original song.

Their new album Strict Joy was released back in October, and except for having a wicked album cover, it sounds really good. Here is a mix with two tracks from the new album, plus a collection of previous stuff they have done. I hope you will enjoy it.

Watch a trailer for the new album here.

Listen to Strict Joy on

Tracklisting:

1 Bricks And Mortar /Editors
2 Only If You Run /Julian Plenti
3 My Will Is Good /Port O’Brien
4 Two Weeks /Grizzly Bear
5 It Don’t Move Me /Peter Bjorn and John
6 Daniel /Bat for Lashes
7 11th Dimension /Julian Casablancas
8 Hard Times /Patrick Wolf
9 Young Adult Friction /The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
10 Songbird /Theodor Jensen
11 Airport Surroundings /Loney Dear
12 I’ll Fight /Wilco
13 Cornerstone /Arctic Monkeys
14 One More Chance /Bloc Party
15 Feel It All Around /Washed Out
16 Deadbeat Summer /Neon Indian
17 Collapsing At Your Doorstep /Air France
18 Perfection as a Hipster /God Help the Girl
19 French Navy /Camera Obscura
20 Bicycle /Memory Tapes
21 Seven /Fever Ray
22 Kiss my name /Antony & the Johnsons
23 Every Path /Alela Diane
24 Gimme Sympathy (Acoustic) /Metric
25 Bluish /Animal Collective

Head over to 8tracks.com and create your own mix - don’t forget to share a link! :)

After his debut on Irish soil in Whelans in December last year, the Swedish king of Indie pop, Jens Lekman, is returning to Dublin, this time with full band to play the Village venue on Sunday 25 May. Having seen him on stage twice, once with and once without the band, I cannot say which one I preferred more. Alone on stage he is the centre of attention and plays more on his charm and witty style which really pulls in the crowd throughout the show. But with the band there is whole other show on offer; he is then able to take on songs which are not possible to perform alone with nothing but a guitar and a sampling box. Did I forget to mention that his band consists of almost entirely female musicians?

I took this picture of Jens playing on the parking lot
outside Inkonst in Malmö, Sweden

Part of Jens’ appeal is his humble appearance and friendly approach. I will see him again live at ATP in two weeks, before his gig in Dublin. At the end of his last concert in Dublin he told the crowd that he was permanently moving to Melbourne and would probably stop playing for a while, so I’m pretty happy to catch him as long as he is around this part of the world. Do not miss it!

I watched the movie last year for the first time and received the DVD as a birthday gift on Saturday; I can’t stress how much I love this movie and can’t wait to watch it over and over again. Set in Dublin, the movie is a must for all film and music lovers.

Personally I find Love Is All most interesting in the line-up, but if I was asked to choose the line-up (which I honestly think I should have been…) then I would fly the following bands to Dublin and let them do their thing for the Irish Indie crowd:

Marit Bergman

Jens Lekman wrote: “My friend Marit is the best dressed woman in Sweden. This may seem insignificant to some but it is a welcome addition to the whole picture and her music. It’s as if she’s always dressed up to attend a wedding, funeral, birthday party or any kind of ceremonial celebration of life, loss and love.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLcBPB-PFpQ[/youtube]

Billie The Vision And The Dancers

Billie the Vision and the Dancers haven’t just played in standard clubs in Sweden. They have also toured at high schools and made a series of gigs at prison institutions around Stockholm. The entirety has always been important for the band, to offer something more than just text and music. The third album Where the Ocean Meets My Hand got released in April 2007 – still on their own label Love Will Pay the Bills.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsuXEuD5ckU[/youtube]

Niccokick

At a visit to his hometown Båstad, Andreas Söderlund was beaten up for being too happy, and was looked after by Martin Stääv and Philip Hall when they found him in the gutter outside Pepes Bodega. As a thank you Andreas asked them if they wanted to join the best band in the world, and since that day the two friends have regretted saying yes.

Their new album “The Good Times We Shared, Were They So Bad?” was released in February.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD1AS0-vfMI[/youtube]

Gabriel Munck

I didn’t mange to find any info on Gabriel Munck or the label BOW Music Production…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppqN6XCuB4[/youtube]

Club 8

Club 8 is a Swedish pop duo formed in 1995 by Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård. They’ve released six full length albums. The last one is called ‘The boy who couldn’t stop dreaming’ (2007) and was released by Labrador.
 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVC-Sag5Qxo[/youtube]

I’ve obviously excluded a few big names such as Jens Lekman and The Radio Dept. here, but hopefully you are familiar with them by now!?