skweeelicious!

“We should have our own skweee awards” said a poster on Nation of Skweee.

“Every skweee record is an award!” said another.

Indeed. And two lovely new skweee awards — both on limited edition seven inch vinyl, are newly available. The new Markis Sage single is the debut skweee release and ninth overall on Mesak’s Huge Bass label.

Markis Sage is an anagram of Rigas & Mesak as is the photo above. Mesak says, “the tracks were produced on both sides of the Gulf of Botnia, Helsinki and Stockholm, with hints from Swedish slager music and Finnish tango. Swing is set to 50-75%, and just like in the end of season sale – everything must go!”
You can order direct from Huge Bass.

If you are anywhere in the skweee universe you probably know that there was a jubilant skweee showcase at the Sonar International Music Festival in Barcelona, Spain this past weekend. Participants from Flogsta Danshall battled those from Harmönia in sound klash, and from all reports the results were pure sickness.

To celebrate skweee at Sonar, the first Flogsta Danshall – Harmönia split single has been  released. The Harmönia side features “Must ‘amamba” from Boyz of Caligula, (which I believe is a collaboration between Mesak and Randy Barracuda) and is a squelchy skweeechy masterpiece. 

I haven’t had a chance to hear the Flogsta side “Tower of Murdur”, but the return of Vakttornet is exciting indeed.

The split also comes with a written prose poem which will surely add to the lore of skweee. It appears to address the music’s beginnings:

Sometimes things burst out of the collective consciousness. A fragment
of an idea comes to life and fixes a tiny hole in the gigantic spider
web of being.

In September 2004 I was constantly hanging out in a dark, stinky
basement next to an old Thai Massage parlour. To be honest, I was
mostly thinking  of sex and new shoes, but one evening I started
thinking of music.

Immediately weird events started taking place.

I phoned a friend of mine in Sweden, and guess what?

He had been thinking of music as well!

And not only him, but also lots of other people. Even people I didn’t
know before I started thinking about music.

It seems that sometimes You just have to stop what you’re doing and
think again. That’s how people invent shit, I guess. There’s mostly
dirt in our hearts, but if you let it wallow freely, it will start
forming STATUES.

So, think about it.

TAGS: Markis Sage, Mesak, Rigas den Andre, Randy Barracuda, Boyz of Caligula, Vakttornet, Flogsta Danshall, Harmönia, Sonar

Filed under: skweee
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A bit of history is about to go down. Saturday June 28, 2008 will be the date of the first ever Canadian skweee show when PJVM meets Slow Hand Motëm live in Sound Klash @ The Rocky Saugeen in Hamilton, Ontario.

pjvm.org
myspace.com/slowhandmotem
myspace.com/rockysaugeen

Meanwhile enjoy two tracks by Slow Hand Motëm, the Canadian proto-skweee artist.

TAGS skweee, Slow Hand Motëm, PJVM, Limonious

Filed under: Uncategorized
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Now a little bit about skweeelicious… We’ll be covering the international skweee scene in all its manifestations. Tell us what you’re doing and we’ll post it here, whether it’s a vinyl release, new skweee tracks on myspace, a skweee event in your area or anything else skweee related.

We’re going to publish articles, interviews, and reviews. Soon we’ll be launching the skweeelicious podcast, and of course we’ll always have fresh tracks for you.

Send all digitally encoded matter to skweeelicious@gmail.com.

Enjoy a hard to find skweee classic from Rigas den Andre and a new jam from PJVM:

TAGS skweee, Rigas den Andre, PJVM

Filed under: Uncategorized
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“What in the name of all that is holy” you may be asking, “is this strange music I keep hearing?!?!”

Then again you may have somehow missed the clatterous din pervading every corner of the internet (if indeed the internet has corners), or maybe you heard the din but haven’t asked about it…

We call it skweee — the synthetic funk. It’s a new style of electronic dance music, and the first to originate in Scandinavia. Born in Sweden in 2006, it spread like wildfire… to Finland! And then — well the fire wasn’t that big so there really is no “and then”. They are not so used to starting worldwide trends in electronic music in Scandinavia, in fact this is the first time it’s happened. But skweee is slowly but surely becoming international, with producers and DJs bringing the sound in from the cold in the UK, France, Norway, the Netherlands, the US, Canada, and who knows where next, even as the Swedish and Finnish innovators continue to lead and inspire.

Skweee has been described as “conflict R&B” and has a multi-rooted history, drawing from techno, IDM, C64/SID chip/Gameboy sounds, and most importantly electro-funk. Tiny melodies poke through gritty textures, like plants growing from cracks in an old parking lot. It’s thoroughly modern music which reaches back for essential bits from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Skweee features slow uneven grooves, beckoning you to dance, and to contemplate. Tempos are mostly around 100 BPM, but have been known to dip as low as 65 and as high as 120. Skweee has a distinctive sound yet remains wonderfully diverse – captured in skweee record label Harmönia’s slogan, “You know that it’s skweee when you feel that it’s skweee”.

Two record labels are primarily responsible for the recorded output of the skweee genre. Flogsta Danshall was the first, and it’s founder, Swedish electronic music producer Pavan is often credited as the father of skweee. Hot on its heels came Finnish label Harmönia, run by Mesak from the eclectic duo Mr. Velcro Fastener, and Randy Barracuda from electro outfit Imatran Voima. These skweee pioneers have released their own tracks as well as stellar tunes from a combined stable of about twenty skweee producers. One of these is Daniel Savio aka Kool DJ Dust, often credited with coining the word “skweee” in addition to being the first skweee DJ.

The recorded format of choice for skweee is seven inch vinyl records, and both labels have released several classic sevens. Harmönia has also released three skweee compilations on twelve inch, while Flogsta Danshall has just released their second CD compilation.

In my next post I’ll get into Skweeelicious and what we’re going to do here –- it’s all very exciting! But before you go be sure to download some skweee classics below, and check our links section for more information and to get connected to the skweee community.

TAGS skweee electro-funk synthetic funk Harmonia Flogsta Danshall Mesak Randy Barracuda Pavan Kool DJ Dust Daniel Savio

Filed under: Uncategorized
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