Dinner Music: The weekly lineup
Scandinavian dark nostalgia, lofi “new sounds,” what I shazam’d in Sweden
Hej från Sverige! Hello from Sweden! This newsletter is coming to you a day late, because I forgot what day it was. C’est la vie. The music this week centers around Scandinavia, much of it from Swedish artists, but with a few recent artists from Norway and Denmark. We begin with Dina Ögon, a quartet out of Sweden, whose sound perhaps defies what we’d expect from a Scandinavian group. With a similar ethos to music making as Khruangbin, the album draws inspiration across genres to build an album that slinks away from definition. Is it soul? Rhythm and blues? Bossa nova? At once, it’s none and all. This is unlike blómi from Susanne Sundfør, whose album is less about genre and more about the sensation of living — the instability between what was and what is to come. If you are considering yourself, a life, a world, listen to this album and the way it unfolds, musically, like a Norse god sending a message to the earth. If you’d like to think about anything except the futility and instability of life to come (dark, practical feelings are very Scandinavian), Anita Strandell is your salve. The album is perfectly Eurovision, with it’s Balearic beat, disco groove and sweet vocals over uptempo synths and dad-inspired guitar riffs. This is not, however, a shopworn pop album. It rocks. Flowers of Your Youth, by Copenhagen-based Oilly Wallace, is an easy listening, jazz-pop album that will pull poetry from your heart without you ever knowing. The album calls to mind fellow Scandinavian Jens Lekmen with it’s nostalgic sound, like a mid-century radio play with a velvet voiceover, a drum machine and ethereal saxophone. We end with something more like anti-listening — an album from an early pioneer of computer music in Sweden. Hans Edler’s voice speaks over indefatigable beeps, bops, pitch swings, hems, haws and hums, like a LoFi-Eurovision-East Berlin-Windows ‘98 lullaby.
Enjoy.
The playlist is here.
Monday
Dina Ögon - Dina Ögon (2021)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Tuesday
blómi - Susanne Sundfør (2023)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Wednesday
Det är jag som är… - Anita Strandell (1977)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Thursday
Flowers Of Your Youth - Oilly Wallace (2023)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Friday
Elektron Kukéso - Hans Edler (1971)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Pair with:
Bun and cheese. Last time I was in Copenhagen, I ate these nearly every day. It’s just bread, cheese and butter. It’s so easy! It’s so good!
Swedish meatballs. This recipe comes from Sweden. Literally, the recipe is from the official website of the country of Sweden. Sweden asks that you make and eat meatballs!
Tubarão Pet Nat. This wine was described to us as “raspberry soda” and it was indeed like drinking raspberry soda, but why wouldn’t I want that?
HAY wine glasses. I can’t, in good conscience, write this without adding at least one piece of Danish design. Does anyone make more interesting looking wine glasses than the Danes?
These pants. They are the best pants. For better or for worse, I’ve been wearing them every other day. But, they have a nice cut, easy fabric that does not wrinkle so easy and so they are just what I’m wearing during travel pretty much all the time despite bringing many other pants that are technically nicer looking.
While I wrote, a butterfly, that critic, rode my wrist.
- From “Summer Letters” by Lewis Meyers
Tack, ha en bra vecka!