But, hey, we’re cool with that. The soothing and slightly melancholic sounds of Air France have always been a fave around here in Kunk-a-land — who cares if sometimes they sound like they were making the alternate soundtrack for the movie The Beach. For all i know, maybe they were… due to the high season tourist demographic, many Thai islands are known as ‘little Swedens’ after all. But enough about Thailand and movies with Leonardo DiCaprio… the point is that Air France actually hail from Gotenburg and make tropical pop music and they’re cool. Never Content was a track of their EP from 2006, while Karibien is a more recent effort, from what i can see. And both *definitely* call for a tropical drink at your side. Before the summer slips into fall, better make sure and do that!

Note: the picture totally is not a pic of the band and totally is taken from the Air France website — like, the airline one that flies out of Paris.

Air France - Never Content [zshare] //Air France - Never Content [ysi]

Air France - Karibien [zshare] //Air France - Karibien [ysi]

Sweden surely has talent but we’ve only been posting about the weird, alternative, indie band-music stuff. There are heavy electro criminals in the country as well. The Swedish House Maffia. Okay, really awful name but Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angelo got together, formed Buy Now! and made a dancefloor-killer house-hymn. If you know a lot about disco then you can find a classic song hidden inside it. According to Missingtoof it was around for the first time in 2005. WTF? 2005? This must be a wormhole-timemachine sick sci-fi thing.

Now, Streetlife DJs (on the right) are cool. They are from London. They made remixes for Cazals, Muse, Michael Jackson to mention a few. They actually edited Body Crash so it’s not that it’s exciting once again and a bit less irritating after 10 listens or so. Give Streetlife some myspace love and check the awesome and many remixes they made.

Buy Now! - Body Crash (Streetlife DJs remix) [zshare] // Buy Now! - Body Crash (Streetlife DJs remix) [ysi]

Back to Sweden. According to bio, The LK (full name is heavy: ‘The Love of Kevin, Colour, Chaos, and the Sound of K’) is a project of an abstract sound artist, Lindefelt, and a pop visionary songwriter, Fredrik (both of them have their own stuff). The description proves to be quite accurate when we check their album vs. The Snow which their label was kind enough to send us. Minimalistic pop melodies with a very strange atmosphere. Diverse and intense, the record is a melancholic trip through a collection of moods which result sometimes in an alternative dancey disco, pretended happiness and sometimes in post-rockish artsy sound. Childish and noisy, the album is the soundtrack of weird summer days when, at the same time, it feels and doesn’t feel like summer. A cold breeze, rain and other weird things can occupy the ruling place of hot sunwaves.

Give them myspace friendliness, check their video and read the full review on Pitchforkmedia (7.9 rating is high, of course, of course it’s Pitchfork but worth a read) and order it at The Kora Records.

My two favourites are below. Funny, the chorus of the latter reminds me of Toy Soldiers by Martika (you know the sample Eminem used haha…)

The LK - Eurovision (zshare) // The LK - Eurovision (y. s. i.)

The LK - Tandem Bikes (zshare) // The LK - Tandem Bikes (y. s. i.)

Okay, something must be going on in the cold North with the long winters, winds, and snow because they are just going crazy. Sweden is for the UK what Australia is for France…umm…or the other way around? Or not? So yeah, here’s Kleerup, Andreas. I think he was hyped first when he did the collaboration with Ann…I mean Robyn on ‘With Every Heartbeat’ (video) What is it with hearts, beats and music from North? Next big thing is gonna be that he got Lykke Li featured on his album along with other Swedish pop singers, including Lisa Milberg from The Concretes. Swedes do it to each other, nice “intensive farming”.

Funny thing is, I think the better part of the album is when he’s on his own. Then the atmosphere is like Neverending Story. Or maybe the obvious association could be La Boum-esque dancing with a headphone alone on a crowded dancefloor with 80s discoballs. But these songs are truly perfect for days full of ugly hangovers when you just wish to sit on a glacier above everything with cold winds clearing your aching head. Superman sitting on the icy top of the world, sadly holding and staring at some cryptonite in his hands.

Kleerup - Thank You For Nothing (zshare)

Kleerup - Thank You For Nothing (y. s. i.)