Dance of the Peacock Phantom

Rites of Spring

White on White

Melodic, experimental folk three-piece consisting of one songsmith (F), one sound-painter (O) and one conceptual artist (A). All three of them live and work in Malmö, Sweden and create music in a secluded 19th-century garden shack. Some people call their music surreal. A lot of people call the music soothing. Almost everyone says it makes them think of trees.
The band returns April 12th with their third full length album, Flora. Recorded in their ramshackle garden studio, Flora marks a departure from the wintry moods of the band's first two outings as according to Fredrik, flower season is anything but limonades and hammocks. The music paints a vision of summer as the darkness beneath, a busy, feverish, sprawling organic chaos. The three members build songs from dense, wavering textures of voice, strings, brass and twinkly home-made folk instruments, all couched on top of a smattering of haywire orchestral drums and swirly electronics.

Vattenfront

Chrome Cavities

North Greatern

Caleido Kalahari

Inventress of Ill (and Everything)

Naruto and the End of the Broken Ear

The Shape and Colour of Things Gone Blind

I'm Pretty Sure He Said Killdren

Axis

"The core of Fredrik is the duo of Fredrik Hultin and Ola Lindefelt, a pair of Malmö-based musicians who also happened to form the band the LK. The music they create on Na Na Ni, however, is quite a different animal from that group's buzzy electronic pop, applying the same ear for sonic detail and an unerring penchant for melody to a more folk-inflected and more resolutely understated set of compositions. The results are nothing short of enchanting, using a consistent, gently evocative sound palette -- Hultin's acoustic guitars, voice, and accordion, and Lindefelt's bells, drums, cello, and delicately wheezy electronics -- to balance deceptively complex, layered arrangements with a charming, lo-fi intimacy. March-like singalong "Black Fur" opens the album on an especially cheery note, which is taken up more modestly on the calmer but amply catchy "Alina's Place" (whose poetically cryptic lyrics make it somewhat less reassuring) -- no less winsome, though, are the more abstract instrumental pieces which make up half of the track list. The title of one, "Angora Sleepwalking," succinctly captures the softness and sweet, dreamlike strangeness of the prevailing mood; another, "Morr," intentionally or not provides a clue to Hultin's musical aesthetic, suggesting their similarities to the less overtly electronic end of that German label's output, and the work of Múm in particular. One might also draw comparisons to the gentle, textural experiments of Silje Nes, or, to name some non-Scandinavians, the fractured folk of Animal Collective, Tunng's woodsy whimsy, and even Sufjan Stevens' antiquarian-minded indie pop. Fans of any of these artists would do well to investigate Hultin's fine debut; they will discover not just a handful of hummable songs, but a curious and comforting sound world that's at once familiar and unique unto itself. Also worth noting is the Kora Records' elegant package design, which makes Na Na Ni a joy of a thing to hold, and the appropriately intriguing booklet etchings by Warren Hilt."

Allmusic.com 



Black Fur

Alina's Place

Na Na Ni

11 Years

"Trilogi, Fredrik's second full-length outing, is so named because its contents were originally issued as a series of the three limited-edition EPs, self-released by the band on 3" CDs with handmade origami packaging. Despite some flowery language in the accompanying press release about "contemporized viewpoints of the Lovecraftian dream passage," the knowledge that this music was at one point presented in three discrete installments in no way alters the effect of hearing it as a single 50-minute whole -- there are no appreciable musical distinctions to be made between the three segments, which were all recorded in the same six-month span. However, the image of those few delicate, distinctive objects that were initially created to hold these songs does resonate nicely with the particular character of Fredrik's music: intimate, tactile, small in scope, and lovingly crafted with careful attention to detail. These qualities, which made their debut album, Na Na Ni, such a charming and unassuming surprise, are very much still present on Trilogi, which treads similarly evocative sonic territory, blending a cornucopia of organic musical (and non-musical) sounds with sparse electronic touches to create a creaky, ancient-sounding, surreal sort of folk music. This time, though, the tone is notably darker -- right from the eerie, mildly menacing opening notes of "Vinterbarn" -- and the songs, while typically gorgeous and affecting sonically, aren't quite as memorable. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly has shifted, but the deft balance between melody and atmosphere that Fredrik  achieved so exquisitely their first time out is not quite as compelling here, with only the uplifting, quietly anthemic "Flax" standing out as a clear highlight."

allmusic.com 

Milo

Holm

Den Sista Fabriken

Vanmyren

Flax

Under Vattenverket

Trilogi, Fredrik's second full-length outing, is so named because its contents were originally issued as a series of the three limited-edition EPs, self-released by the band on 3" CDs with handmade origami packaging. Despite some flowery language in the accompanying press release about "contemporized viewpoints of the Lovecraftian dream passage," the knowledge that this music was at one point presented in three discrete installments in no way alters the effect of hearing it as a single 50-minute whole -- there are no appreciable musical distinctions to be made between the three segments, which were all recorded in the same six-month span. However, the image of those few delicate, distinctive objects that were initially created to hold these songs does resonate nicely with the particular character of Fredrik's music: intimate, tactile, small in scope, and lovingly crafted with careful attention to detail. These qualities, which made their debut album, Na Na Ni, such a charming and unassuming surprise, are very much still present on Trilogi, which treads similarly evocative sonic territory, blending a cornucopia of organic musical (and non-musical) sounds with sparse electronic touches to create a creaky, ancient-sounding, surreal sort of folk music. This time, though, the tone is notably darker -- right from the eerie, mildly menacing opening notes of "Vinterbarn" -- and the songs, while typically gorgeous and affecting sonically, aren't quite as memorable. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly has shifted, but the deft balance between melody and atmosphere that Fredrik  achieved so exquisitely their first time out is not quite as compelling here, with only the uplifting, quietly anthemic "Flax" standing out as a clear highlight.

Tretusen Violer

Viskra

Locked in the Basement

Omberg

fredriktheband

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