Category: Nordic Music

Boy Destroy – Beautiful Crimes

One of the most exciting exports to emerge from Sweden recently, Boy Destroy returns with a vibrant, emotive and nostalgic fusion of emo and alternative RnB.

“Everybody longs for connection. Togetherness. A need that can be fulfilled with flesh or love or peace or whatever. I used to be in a twisted relationship with a person that I didn’t really love. I wasn’t a very good person to her but I made it look like I was. I felt like the devil, but then and there it felt like it was exactly how it should be. She hates me now, and I deserve it. You can fix yourself if you’re lucky.”

Boy Destroy

Christopher – Fall So Hard

A long-established beacon in the Danish pop scene, wildly popular Christopher returns today with a summery slice of optimism; a song about how something (or someone) can step into your world and change your focus in life for the better.

To date, every single he’s released has been certified as Gold or Platinum, with ‘Fall So Hard’ looking set to join that illustrious record in a matter of time.

“‘Fall So Hard’ is a song of optimism and change. About how all of a sudden, something or someone can step into your life and make it fundamentally different. But the thing about this cliché is that it’s really true. I recently became a dad for the very first time and from one single moment I was a subsidiary person in my own life. Everything is turned upside down. It’s just a brand new and overriding dimension which is indescribable.”

Christopher

New Music: Peaceful James

An immensely catchy track from Ugandan and Danish talent Peaceful James. Despite the fact that listening to James’ blend of pop and rap on ‘Still Not Good Enough’ is a cheery affair, the track mixes those feel-good beats with sad lyrics that focus on those feelings of self doubt we get after an unsuccessful date. An all too relatable topic for most of us!

“I found myself staring at my phone for half a week to see if she had written back or was online. I really liked her and actually thought our date had gone super well! So it was an even bigger blow when it dawned on me that she probably did not felt the same way. But like so many times before, I luckily got my frustrations out through the music and only when I had written the song ‘Still Not Good Enough’ it was as if I could let go and move on”.

Peaceful James

New Music: Jørgen Engebret

Hailing from the Norwegian city of Bergen, newcomer Jørgen Engebret’s style of minimal RnB and hip hop makes it easy to enjoy (and fall in love with) – even when you’re not a native from the Nordic nation.

Translating as ‘Are You Awake?’, the song takes nuanced lyrics and lays them over a smooth melody to create a sound that is not only beautifully mellow and emotive, but also feels inviting and charming.

Jørgen Engebret

New Music: Astian

Swedish artist Astian initially broke in to the music scene back in 2016, having been discovered by national radio show P3 Osignat where his track ‘Like it’ was voted as the number one song several weeks in a row.

Now heralding a new era for himself as an independent artist, he launches this next stage of his career with the release of ‘Pain’.

The song is a finessed blend of Astian’s soulful vocals, and a catchy melody that balances elements of Scandinavian pop and RnB in a subtle and delicate way.

“On the surface ‘Pain’ is a song about an infectious love relationship. But for me the song is about the love/ hate relationship I’ve felt towards making music for some year’s now. The song is an outlet for me to write all the anxiety and hurt away. Though this song is very much about my past, it reflects my future, and I’m starting to write that with the release of this single.”

Astian

Ola Village – Love To Cry

Norwegian wonder kid Ola Village returns today with a song that’s mesmerisingly beautiful in it’s own uniquely charming way.

‘Love To Cry’ is a poignant and heartfelt study of emotions, sketched over a canvas of joyous indie-pop balladry.

It’s really no wonder that this talent has already garnered recognition from the likes of The Line Of Best Fit, EARMILK and Clash Magazine since his debut last year.

“I generally don’t like sharing too much about my songs, which I think becomes obvious if you listen to the lyrics. So by saying that I guess you can imagine what this song is about. You might think: me, an emotional being with the lack of will to show those emotions to others, would be a bad fit. But I have to say that I like it that way. In a time where all of our lives are so public, it’s nice to have something that is just mine.”

A debut EP is due for release in Autumn 2021.

Ola Village

Off Bloom – Hit & Run

Today’s lesson of ‘Good Things Come To Those Who Wait’ is served to us by Danish duo Off Bloom, who have finally released their debut album, ‘In Bloom’.

And it’s a big record; they’ve worked with the likes of CJ Baran (Panic! at the Disco, Carly Rae Jepsen), and George Reid of AlunaGeorge. There’s even a song which was co-produced by the pop legend that is Max Martin.

To celebrate it’s release, the duo have released ‘Hit & Run’ as a taster of what to expect from the record.

“‘Hit & Run’ is a hot vibey track full of attitude! We wanted to reminisce the guitar sound of the 00’s and we even turned up the gain for the first ever Off Bloom guitar solo! The song is very Britney in her way of saying ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ and it’s about when you end up hurting someone because you’re just not into him or her emotionally – and basically, you just wanna have fun.”

Debut album ‘In Bloom’ is out now.

Off Bloom

SHY Martin – Break With Me

Regular visitors to Alfitude will know that there is no introduction needed for Swedish artist SHY Martin. I have been a huge fan of this talent for quite some years, and still she never fails to impress with her releases.

Now back with the stellar ‘Break With Me’, this song looks at the mixed emotions that arise when two people become strangers, and serves as the debut to her new record label, SHY Recordings.

“For the first time in years, I have spent a lot of time with myself and taken the space to reflect. I have thought a lot about how these strange times we are in have changed so many relationships, some that have become stronger, and others that have broken down. We started writing ‘Break With Me’ one summer evening in the car on the way home from a lake, but I relate to it now more than ever.”

SHY Martin

New Music: Possimiste

I can safely say that Possimiste is the most exciting artist to come out of Iceland so far this year. This is emerging electro-pop talent at it’s most premium – fun, cheeky, slightly quirky and totally infectious.

“‘Paradise’ is a journey towards dreams that all eventually end up in disappointments as the dreams lose their glimmer and reveal their dark side when we get close to them.”

Possimiste

New Music: Debranch

A beautifully structured Scandinavian sound that fuses an essence of melancholy into the subtle beats of dreamy dance-pop.

‘dancing away from you’ gives the listener feelings of both introspection and euphoria in equal measures.

“The lyrical content consists of a relationship going back and forth as a never ending cycle.”

Debranch

New Music: Orions Belte

A refreshingly original sound from Norwegian 3-piece outfit Orions Belte. Their trademark style of blending underground pop, psych, rhythmic instrumentation and world music creates a mysterious yet infectious mix of sounds which are totally mesmerising to experience.

“We feel like we have a really strong connection between us. That’s why we can write stuff on the fly and record whole songs in one take and use all the parts from all three of us.” – Blomstrøm, Orions Belte

Orions Belte

New Music: Ann Christine

This is some of the most exciting Danish talent to emerge so far this year. Ann Christine‘s experimental approach to pop fuses elements of rap and turns it into something refreshingly crisp, original and catchy.

You can hear a strong sense of boldness and confidence radiate through her sound, which inevitably leads you to totally falling in love with this kid.

“’CCC’ is truly about deliberation. About living out loud and not apologising for it. Chaos is such an inevitable importance to our lives: It’s where we both break and make ourselves – and isn’t that the beauty of it? I’ve always been a bit loud in my way of living – especially spending most of my twenties in the Berlin subculture – and through the old sayings of cats and dogs, I’m telling it as it is: Cats cause chaos that dogs don’t do. I want that my listeners feel it, breathe it in and go out in the world with a strong spine and head high.”

Ann Christine

Zara Larsson – Look What You’ve Done

Swedish power-pop at it’s finest from the superb Zara Larsson. It’s a little retro, a little kitsch, a little camp, and totally fabulous.

“I love this song so much. I wanted to write about heartbreak, but in a way that was also empowering and positive. In my world being vulnerable is being strong, but on this one I’m saying ‘just LOOK at what you’ve done – I’m shining! You look like a piece of shit! It was important for me to have a song like this on ‘Poster Girl’.”

Zara will play an exclusive online concert on International Women’s Day (March 8th) in association with Ikea. Find out more here.

Zara Larsson

KOPS – If Not You Then Who (with Emelie Hollow)

This gorgeous new collaboration from Danish talent KOPS and Norwegian songstress Emelie Hollow is a truly Scandinavian affair. It was written in Stockholm, taken to Oslo for Emelie’s contribution and finally finished in Copenhagen.

“This is a song about that one person in your life who can’t be replaced. Your mom or dad, an ex, a good old drinking buddy, your math teacher in high school or the guy at the grocery store – that special someone, who eventually came into your life and changed it. If this song was a movie, I guess it’d be a proper tear jerker! Well, at least, I got emotional writing it and having Emelie singing the words with me literally made it the emotional pop anthem, I think we both hoped it would be.” – KOPS

KOPS | Emelie Hollow