They built their lives like the ignorant build a rowing boat.
Plank by plank,
by feel and impulse,
the sea more of an afterthought.

Fundament is Markus Hauptmann’s new track –
a slow story from Tornedalen,
where two boys stayed behind when the rest of their class moved south
and no one even had the time to wave goodbye.

Markus’ voice is a fog you can get lost in.
The guitar carves out small, clear landscapes –
muddy, cracked, understandable.
Soft soil to leave lonely footprints in.

Recorded at home.
No producer. No filter.

Fundament

At ten, Jani Kaunis watched a man limp down a hill, swearing softly, yet steady enough to reach the phone booth and call SOS, the bloodied axe still jutting from his leg. No one panicked. No one strayed from protocol. But the bloodstain lingered in the grass for weeks — thick, sticky, and oozing, circled by the flies and the magpies.

That memory is the basis of Tyhjä Pullo, a cinematic, galloping singalong with a cutthroat twang. Released in collaboration with DigiNorth and Kunnon Musiikki Levy-Yhtiö.

Tyhjä Pullo

Loving Embers don’t do shiny. Their pop is worn-in, unpretentious, quiet but loaded, with a sadness that sneaks up on you. They started in Piteå, Sweden, back in 2017, making songs that feel like the warped cassettes in your friend’s first car, looped endlessly on roads you probably shouldn’t have been driving that fast on. The guitars have that restless edge of a guilty conscience, and the vocals come in soft but don’t let go.

They went quiet during the pandemic, as everything else, then came back with You Say It Like You Mean It. It’s not really a love song, it's the breath you take before you admit it. Music for when you’re not sure if you’re heading home or getting lost, and maybe that’s the same thing anyway.

You Say It Like You Mean It

A hymn to farewell and to what comes after

On August 19th, Kiruna Church begins its historic journey – a physical and symbolic migration from the old town center to the new. That same day, accordionist and riksspelman Fredrik Hangasjärvi releases Kiruna Kyrka – a musical portrait of a town’s heart in motion.

This is no protest song. Nor is it a rousing elegy. Kiruna Kyrka moves like a quiet procession along gravel roads and empty lots, past shuttered storefronts and fields of countless childhood memories. You can almost hear the bells ring for the last time, from the spire that has touched the northern sky for more than a century – a parting sound that rolls slow and steady through the land, each note heavy with history and light with mercy. From sacred soil where it all began, to a future not yet walked upon.

Fredrik is joined by some of northern Sweden’s most expressive musicians: Gunnar Sundström on piano, Daniel Wejdin on double bass, Anders Hällström on fiddle, Ismahni Björkdotter on harp – with sound gently recorded and mixed by Frithiof Stenvall.

The music sways between sorrow, faith, and the faint glimmer of promise. Like clouds breaking after hard rain. Like something you have to let go of so something else can grow. Kiruna Church comes to rest, at last, on the ground where tomorrow will be built – a new sacred place, meant to endure for a thousand years more.

The release is a collaboration with BD Pop/DigiNorth. The recording was sponsored by LKAB.


Kiruna Kyrka

Pump up the jam, but make it emotionally unavailable.

Tuulip’s Leave is a grime-infused breakup hymn for dead-eyed 4AMs. Hypnotic drum loops spin like ceiling fans in a room no one wants to be in anymore. The vocals? Resigned, laconic, out of hope and fucks to give.
Think: UKG breakbeats with the deadpan lyricism of an eye-rolling Fiona Apple — someone who saw the end coming months ago and finally stopped pretending otherwise.

This is club music soaked in urban melancholy. A heartbeat under the wreckage while everything else flatlines. The sound of hindsight hitting like a strobe light, freezing you mid-step as you realize your friends were right, the signs were obvious, and the last person to admit it was you. You already left — emotionally, spiritually. But the other person’s still going through the motions — the awkward dance of trying to save what’s already lost.

“Blow my mind / Waste my time / Say what I want to hear”

Formerly Enler & Tallen, Tuulip is Arvid Skyttberg, Herman Thalén, and Beatrix Becker — forged in the steel-gray glow of Luleå, carving out their own genre lane: garage noir for pine-dark forests, sweat-slick basements, and rainlit backstreets.
For fans of Burial at his most fragile, Disclosure at their most distant, and Overmono with a thousand-yard stare.

Leave

Mer en eftertanke is Markus Hauptmann’s first EP. Six tracks, recorded with modest equipment in the villages outside Luleå, with nothing but wooden walls and a persistent self-consciousness as filters. Three earlier singles appear alongside three new recordings: the ragged, Dylan-leaning “Ett Eko Hörs”, the fragile and quietly enchanting “Hösten” featuring guest vocals by Sara Wohlin Zerpe, and a stripped-back interpretation of her “Är det nu lyckan kommer”, first released on the deluxe edition of "Sara, vad har du gjort?".

The music exists somewhere between José Gonzales, Elliott Smith, Bon Iver and John Martyn. It is intimate, lo-fi, unvarnished and brittle – like a cold, clear day over a fractured landscape.

These are songs that circle around loss and the everyday weight of staying put. Stories from the North about remembering, about building a life plank by plank, step by step. And about accepting that the destination might always be more of an afterthought.

Hösten ft. Sara Wohlin Zerpe

Tack sol

Swedish newcomers Boniérs release their debut single Sometimes Being Alone — indiepop that feels like a scene from a TV show you swear you’ve seen, but no one else remembers. Acoustic guitars, Hammond organs and driving drums echo the turn of the millennium, somewhere between the naïve and the cynical. Not nostalgia, but a reboot of a series that never got its second season — a cultural glitch that lingers like a memory you can’t shake.

Sometimes being alone

On a summer night more than twenty years ago, a group of young adults drove aimlessly along gravel roads in northern Sweden when a mysterious ball of light appeared beside the car. It mirrored their every move—speeding up as they accelerated, slowing down as they braked—before vanishing into the endless forest, leaving behind a wave of quiet fear.

Ball Lightning is the debut single from The Cosmic Microwave Background, a duo blending storytelling folk ramblings, jagged guitar pop, american noir and the wistful romance of Roy Orbison. Imagine Ray Davies jamming with the Gun Club surrounded by car wrecks, bats and horseflies . It's a haunting reflection on youth, missed opportunities, and the illusion of control. The full debut album Shake Down the World will follow later this year.

Ball Lightning

bdpop

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