Half Moon Run – Dark Eyes (2012)

The British Summer Time concerts in London have a great concept. Basically, how they work is they get one big name to perform and then they gather a bunch of other similar acts around that artist to form a one day festival. I was there some years ago when Neil Young was booked as the headliner and supporting him were bands like The National, Phosphorescent, Lucy Rose, Caitlin Rose etc. One of the first bands of the day was Canadian Half Moon Run. I did my research quite well beforehand and I really liked Half Moon Run's folk influenced indie rock. Some of the songs are maybe slightly too produced, but otherwise the music is great. It somehow reminds me of Radiohead in places. When the band played live, I already knew quite a few of their songs, it was sunny outside and I just have a very positive memory of that gig.

Well Well Well – Dangerous Dreams (1988)

This is again one of those albums where I'm not really sure how I ended up owning it. It must have either came from my grandmother's house and used to belong to one of my uncles, or alternatively it's one of the albums my friend bought me at a flea market. In any case, it's fairly safe to say that I haven't listened to the album that much. It doesn't help that it's not available on Spotify and this vinyl of mine is lying in a box at my grandmother's place at the moment. Fortunately I could find this album on youtube. Well Well Well plays fairly mainstream 80's rock music with big electric guitar sounds and heavy synth element. The band seems to be a prime example of the genre called AOR (adult-oriented rock). There are not many surprises in the production and it's just as cheesy as most of 80's radio music was.

Eels – Daisies of the Galaxy (2000)

This is one of my all-time favourite albums. However, it's perhaps still not the best Eels album. Where the second album of Eels, Electro-Shock Blues was this super intimate and melancholic album related to Mark Oliver Everett's personal life tragedies, Daisies of the Galaxies is a warm, cozy and even quite happy album. E himself had commented on this change of style in the following words: "if Electro-Shock Blues was the phone call in the middle of the night that the world doesn't want to answer, then Daisies of the Galaxy is the hotel wake-up call that says your lovely breakfast is ready". I think this really does a good job describing the mood of the album. Daisies of the Galaxy was my personal first plunge into the music of Eels, which has become one of my dearest bands in the world. I own every single one of their albums.

Rubik – Dada Bandits (2009)

Rubik was one of the most ambitious Finnish bands ever to exist. Their music could be described as indie rock with some progressive rock elements, but the sounds are really modern and sound new even ten years after the release of this album. The band has very rich sounds filled with orchestral elements such as trumpets, strings and electronic synth sounds. Rubik was also one of the greatest Finnish bands to perform live. Their live performances were carefully planned with excellent light shows and big sounds. It's a real shame that Rubik was unable to draw more attention abroad, since this is one of the bands I had most faith in to make it internationally. Perhaps it was again the problem of not being able to market the music in a right way. This has been the flaw for many Finnish bands and the sole reason why they haven't made it abroad.

Broder Daniel – Cruel Town (2003)

Broder Daniel (Brother Daniel) is a Swedish alternative rock band from Gothenburg. I first got to know the band in the mid-00's when one of my friends played this album at one of our evenings dedicated to listening to new music. Around that time I really liked melancholic music so Broder Daniel's sad and melodic indie rock fit just my musical taste. It was only later on when I realised that I must have heard this band before in Lukas Moodysson's film Fucking Åmål (Show Me Love). That film was really popular at least in the Nordic Countries, but I had completely forgotten the music until I got introduced to the band properly. The early career of the band was quite endearing, since the sounds were quite simple and the pronunciation of English was not that great, but it just made the music more likeable. Cruel Town already shows a more confident sounding band.

Kathryn Williams – Crown Electric (2013)

Kathryn Williams is one of those artists that I found largely by accident. I don't know if I first heard her music in a Spotify playlist, recommended by a record shop, or just doing research for one of my blogs, but I remember that her music made an impression on me. She makes singer-songwriter style folk music with interesting melancholic melodies. I don't know what it is, but I have difficulties in recognising her sound if I don't know what I'm listening to. Pretty much always if I'm listening to my iPod on shuffle and I hear beautiful female folk artist play her songs but I don't know what I'm listening to, it's Kathryn Williams. In a way that's a bit negative as it means she's not that recognisable, but on the other hand, she has been able to make very different sounding music that's all very interesting. At least enough, to make me dig out my iPod and check who's singing.

Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)

It took me way too much time to understand Pavement, but I'm really glad I finally did. Few of my friends were already listening to Pavement in the early 00's but for some reason I didn't really get them at that time. I've mentioned many times before that my musical taste was much more conservative when growing up and even as a young adult, I had hard time getting into lo-fi sounds and melodies that weren't exactly in tune. Around that time, Pavement sounded too noisy for my taste and I never really gave it a proper chance. Approximately ten years later, I was introduced to Stephen Malkmus' solo records, which I liked more. They weren't as lo-fi as the old Pavement records. I still had some problems with the lack of beautiful melodies. I guess my father had inflicted on me his musical taste that always requires music to be beautiful.