Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Received a handful of discs yesterday from a hitherto unknown to me label out of Sweden, Slottet. Interesting variety:

Boots Brown - a quartet that includes Mats Gustafsson and Johan Berthling, creating an odd, improvised "chamber jazz" with Kenny Wheeler-ish overtones.

Jean-Louis Huhta - Enjoyable, rhythm-driven but relaxed set of tunes from this refugee of Swedish hardcore bands.

Santa Maria - ex-lead singer of the (apparently, though not to me) well known Swedish pop band, The Concretes, Maria Ericksson. Only slightly odd, often overblown, occasionally effective.

I see they have upcoming releases scheduled by Tetuzi Akiyama with Gul 3 and a Gustafsson/Christian Marclay collaboration.

btw, I can't recommend Charles Mann's "1491" highly enough for anyone with an interest in pre-Columbian American history. Fascinating stuff, not the least due to everything you learned in school about the period being pretty much wrong.

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