
The Tough Alliance dig Dr Dre
We wrote about hot Swedish electro duo The Tough Alliance a little while back, so we thought it was time we had a chat with Eric Berglund, one half of the group. There’s a distinctive early UK rave sound coming through in some of New Chance. Was there much of that in Sweden when you were growing up ‘What’s UK rave? We don’t know much about genres and those kind of things’. You talk a lot about your shows being an interaction with the audience rather than you versus the crowd. Is there a tendency for bands to distance themselves whilst playing live? ‘Not as much as they’re controlling the situation and acting. We want a TTA performance to be a unique situation and something real, not a scripted show that’s the same wherever or whenever, whoever is there and whatever happens. We want it to be a part of reality’. You say you’ve never worked with anyone who isn’t a friend. What part of the friend dynamic are you reliant on to make music? ‘Love’. Would you consider working with other artists if an offer came in from someone whose work you respect, but who you don’t necessarily have a relationship with? ‘Dr Dre maybe, it feels like we had some relationship in a former life’. What were the reasons for breaking with Service and starting your own label? ‘We felt we had to be able to stand for everything about Service and when we didn’t feel like we could do that anymore we simply had to leave. Then after a while Sincerely Yours just happened by itself and we just played along’.
Listen to The Tough Alliance track, Something Special.
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Tagged: electronic music, electronic pop, Sweden, Swedish bands
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Passion Pit remix Shout Out Louds
We love this remix by Cambridge’s electronic-pop sensation Passion Pit of Sweden’s Shout Out Louds’ first single, Fall Hard. Evidently so do Pitchfork who described it as being ‘synthed up’. Indeed! We have a free download in our Music Download section. Listen to the Passion Pit remix of Shout Out Louds and then download it!
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Luke Jackson’s debut album, And Then Some
In the Spring of 2006, a seven-year email correspondence culminated in the meeting of Luke Jackson and Magnus Börjeson. Jackson had long been a devoted fan of two of the Swedish musician’s former bands: Beagle and Favorita, and the two songwriters finally met in Paris where Börjeson was mid-tour playing in The Cardigans. By the end of the weekend, Jackson had accepted an invitation to record in Sweden, which he took up in January 2008. He set to work in the studio with Magnus on bass and Christoffer’s Brainpool bandmate Jens Jansson on drums. Upon his return to London, he sent the rough mixes of the songs to renowned London-based string arranger Robert Kirby (who has orchestrated works by Nick Drake, Elvis Costello, and Elton John). Kirby loved the songs and offered to write orchestrations for the album and accompany Jackson to Sweden to conduct the necessary recording sessions with nine players from Malmö’s Opera Orchestra. It is the collision of these two worlds which makes his album, And Then Some, so compelling. Densely layered guitars and vocal harmonies fuse with sweeping string lines, none of which ever draw the ear too far from what lies at the heart of Jackson’s music.
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Also by FRANCIS ANDREWS

Irina Werning’s Back to the Future photo series
Argentine photographer Irina Werning has complied this beautiful and poignant collection of portraits of adults re-enacting images of themselves as kids. From what I gather, she has asked people to submit photographs of themselves and then returned with them to these same spots at the same times in their lives. She’ll take this project round the world, from Baghdad to Eurodisney, and is looking for willing participants. Read more

Bug fighting in South East Asia
Of all the little idiosyncratic activities I’ve come across since living in Southeast Asia, this nears the favourite. The bug fights are held in a cemetery about half an hour outside of Chiang Mai late in the year when the stags are at their randiest. It pulls an impressive crowd who bet some hefty dollars on the winner, claimed by the beetle who throws its opponent off the revolving log and struts (or crawls) to victory. Read more

What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner
All hail the magic 8-ball of cooking; the answer to those painful moments of indecision that plague every shopper at around 6pm on a hectic Monday evening. It’s not the nagging voice that questions every decision you make, but the blunt, obnoxious hollering of an online Gordon Ramsay. The kitchen abides.
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If you have a Twitter feed that focuses on cool pop cultural things and you’d like to swap Tweets with Lost At E Minor and other like-minded Twitterers, drop us a note (with Tweet Swap in the title). We have a system in place and we’d like to have you in on it! [illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick]
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