Last Thursday I dropped a few hints about the upcoming slate of releases from my favorite Swedish Indie-Pop labels in that Lykke Li post. One label in particular, Hybris Records, piqued my interest in an especially significant way. I’ve been a fan of the label and their artists for some time. But my heightened excitement is due in no small part to the fact that their Spring release schedule includes a new full-length from Juvelen, a former Blogarhythms featuree. I’ve been clamoring for more from the one-man-band since his self-titled EP dropped early last year. So sufficed to say, I’m psyched!
Of course, that’s not all the Stockholm / Malmö-based company has up it’s sleeve. But even I was surprised by the label’s newest release, a nine-track LP titled Explode From the Center by a girl-on-girl duo, comprised of Simone Rubi (vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Terri Loewenthal (vocals, bass), called Rubies. Not because it’s incompatible with the established aesthetics of the label, but because the artists responsible for it call sunny California, not chilly Sweden, home. Before I had time to grow incredulous at the knowledge that the newest Swedish Indie-Pop record in my collection isn’t Swedish at all though I was totally disarmed by how good Explode From the Center actually is.
A collection of slinky, sexy and sublime Pop songs that fuse singer-songwriter Folk, Soft-Rock and Jazz-Pop with funky basslines, soul-inflected guitar & keyboards, vintage-sounding synths, shuffle-step Disco beats and lush orchestral arrangements, Explode From the Center reminds me of my favorite tracks from Feist’s breakthrough Let It Die LP. This should make perfect sense if one considers that lead vocalist Simone is a friend and sometimes collaborator of Feist’s, and that Feist herself makes a guest-appearance on the album’s lead single and video, the Euro-Disco-influenced dance-Pop ditty “I Feel Electric.”
Other notable personnel involved in the project include Eirik Glambek Bøe (of Kings of Convenience) who guests on the sun-drenched “Too Bright” and the melancholy “The Truth and the Lies” (which also features Feist), musician and producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist (of Blood Music), and Maria Eriksson (of The Concretes) on the Country-tinged Folk tune “Turquoise.” And while compositions like “Room Without a Key” (which cites Betty Wright’s “Clean Up Woman” on the bridge), “Signs of Love,” “Stand In a Line” and “Silver Mornings” might betray Rubies’ influences (Soul, Jazz, ’70s Soft-Rock, the Bee-Gees, Abba, Blondie) or call to mind the work of other contemporary artists (Feist, Phoenix, Kings of Convenience, N*E*R*D) they illustrate how sweet the girls sound even when their more famous friends aren’t earning a “featuring” credit.
Rubies - “Room Without a Key”
Already one of my favorite releases of the year Explode From the Center is an album that doesn’t aim specifically at the dancefloor, the bedroom, the living room, the lounge, the car, the iPod or the coffeeshop, but works perfectly in all of them. And even if it took Scandinavian contributors to make it and a Swedish label to release it, it’s proof-positive that the Swedes don’t have a monopoly on Pop goodness after all.
- El Keter