The first choice on my list is The Radio Dept. Its a band that has followed me during the years and i have never grown tired of them. The soft, dreamy sound suits my every mood. I find them underestimated and not very well know of outside Sweden. Therefor i spread the word of this brilliance!
Their new album ”Clinging to a scheme” will be released this autumn, and it will hopefully have the same high quality as the rest.
Biography (from Labradors site)The Radio Dept. was formed by Elin Almered and Johan Duncanson in 1995 who were in the school together in their early teenage. The name was taken from a gas station/radio repairer in Lund {Sweden} which had a large sign with the name »Radioavdelningen« {The Radio Department in Swedish...} hanging outside their shop. Just like today Elin and Johan hung out with people who, if they didn't play music, were into photo, film, art and the likes. The Radio Deptartment was a suiting name as it became a department of it's own among their friends' activities.
Since 1995 members has been coming and going and at some points there has never really been a Radio Department at all. Martin Larsson and Johan Duncanson started playing together in 1998 and decided to use the name The Radio Dept. Since then the band has done lots of gigs and lots recordings. The Radio Dept. has recorded on 4-tracks in friends' living rooms or at home, in smelly wharehouse, in demo studios with blinking fluorecent lightning and at schools.
In the autumn of 2001 Lisa Carlberg, bass player and the love of Martin, and Per Blomgren, drums, joined the band and they started rehearsing in the way bands so often do. The latest recordings were sent to the music magazine Sonic and got a nice review. They were also on the free CD sampler that comes with the magazine. That's when Labrador Records discovered and signed the band.
Their debut album "Lesser Matters" which was released in the spring of 2003 was an underground success internationally and Labrador's first entrance in the sales charts in Sweden. The buzz that slowly grew to give the band worldwide recognition with a little help from XL Recordings who released the album in large parts of the world, and the release of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which featured "Keen on Boys, [from "Lesser matters]" "Pulling Our Weight, [from the EP with the same name, 2004]" and "I Don't Like It Like This. [from the EP "This past week", 2005]"
Their highly anticipated second album, "Pet grief", was released in the spring of 2006 and showed a slightly more dreamy, and less noisy, side of the band. The album reached #11 in the Swedish charts and continued to give the band new fans all over the world.
In the beginning of 2007 people started talking about new material from The Radio Dept. There was even a rumour going on that they were working on two albums simultaneously and that both would be released in May the same year. In other words; two albums merely one year after the release of the previous album ”Pet Grief”. Those who had followed the band for a few years and know how they work probably suspected this would not happen.
The single "Freddie and the Trojan Horse" was released in May 2008 and it's a first taste of their upcoming album ”Clinging to a scheme” due to be released in the fall/winter of 2008. The new songs are said to be influenced by minimalistic post-punk, krautrock, repetitive "motorik" beat and ambient noise.
Picture: Press Material, Labrador
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You can find more to read and free downloads at last.fm---
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