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

Waste my life

It always starts as a good idea. A bit of speed, a bit of life. Seven kilometers on a hard bike rack just to find the party is as dull as the place you left. So you move on, chasing passion in your blood, wanting to explode just to know you’re alive.

“Kaospilot” is Dunderkarlsson’s second single: a sweaty hymn to idiocy and the hunt for sparks — crooked, honest, sometimes ugly. Glam in sweatpants. Punk for night-wandering grown-up kids. Like wearing your helmet backwards and still gunning straight into the night.

Kaospilot

“Aldrig ur tiden” was born on a summer day in Dalarna — a bike ride with a secondhand bag on the handlebars, the stillness like a faded photograph. Recorded in an old barn with warm air and swaying curtains, the song carries traces of country and bluegrass, but also Swedish summers, milk stools and open fields. A reminder to leave the phone at home, roll the bike out of the shed, and find something timeless in the everyday.

Aldrig ur tiden

After more than three decades as one of Sweden’s most in-demand backing vocalists, from Eurovision Song Contest and Melodifestivalen to Så mycket bättre and Allsång på Skansen, Britta Bergström has begun writing her own chapter. Last year she released I Mina Ögon, a song that captures how music weaves memory and emotion, blurring past and present. On that recording, some of Sweden’s most celebrated artists stepped in to sing backing vocals for her, a symbolic role reversal after years of Britta lending her voice to theirs.

Now she returns with I Mina Ögon (Acoustic Version). This stripped-down reimagining removes the layers and lets the song breathe. No choirs, no elaborate arrangements, only Britta’s voice and the story at its core.

With this acoustic version, Britta shows that I Mina Ögon still has more to tell. It is an intimate, unadorned and timeless performance from an artist whose voice has enriched and resonated through Swedish music for more than thirty years.

I Mina Ögon (Acoustic)

Some songs feel small until you realize they’re bigger than the room you’re in. Vera Vinter’s “Lyssna,” from her forthcoming album Från mitt berg, is one of those songs. Produced by Hanna Ekström, it’s a delicate indie folk ballad built on the simplest of frameworks – voice and acoustic guitar – subtly layered with plucked violin, cello, kantele and background vocals. It traces the connection between the vast and the minute, the way a single seashell can hold the memory of an entire ocean.

Lyssna

Once buried in a dead band’s drawer, alongside unmarked flash drives and empty Bic lighters, this warped splice of twang-soaked noir-pop and psych-blues clawed its way back into daylight. TCMB wrap it in new skin, drums pounding like they’re summoning ghosts, while Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar bleeds through every line. It’s like a demented Roy Orbison lost in a graveyard, asking the stones for directions to The Gun Club’s rehearsal room. Ray Davies waking up in a feverish sweat going 'oh dear'.

Brainless Blues

“Sånt är livet” feels like stepping into a cabin while the rain falls outside, the room warm with the scent of wood and fresh coffee. Ludvig Svartholm sings of love not as fireworks but as something lived quietly in the everyday. A steady hand, a calming voice. With Björn Rautio on drums, co-production and mix, the track carries an intimate warmth, recalling the gentle ease of Jack Johnson, Amos Lee and Ray LaMontagne. A song for when the world moves too fast.

Sånt är livet

“Det tar emot nu” is Markus Hauptmann’s latest step into fragile lo-fi folk, somewhere between John Martyn, Nick Drake, José Gonzales and Bon Iver. Recorded at home in Smedsbyn, the song drapes layers of ghostly voices over hollow guitar percussion and a restless shaker — as if your demons threw a party to celebrate your anxiety. It’s intimate, brittle, and unflinching, turning everyday unease into crystalline, fractured landscapes.

Det tar emot nu

October 31, Jani Kaunis returns with his new single Venetsia. A tale of restless romance, set where the stars burn above the canals and the moon drifts like a witness to a love already fading.

The lovers lay themselves bare, stripped of guard and guise and rubber. The melody drifts through the night, half-dream, half-curse. Passion burned to ash. What remains is the restless soul, the sleepless fate that claims its due.

As Kaunis himself puts it: “Venice smells like perfume and rot. That’s how I like my cities.”

With Venetsia, Kaunis and The Puukot carry their rautalanka far from the Arctic Circle into the crumbling romance of Venice. A song of beauty and ruin, a hopeless lament that wrung itself from the twisted void of Kaunis’s memory. And now it’s yours too.

Venetsia

bdpop

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