monophon will be at the World Music Expo 2016 in Santiago de Compostela!
The expo is held in the spectacular Ciudad de Cultura (October 19-23) with showcases and concerts all over beautiful Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. We are joining forces with a lot of other Swedish artists, labels, promoters etc in the Export Music Sweden stand (1.52-1.54).
We are looking forward to meet new friends and perhaps some new collaborations, and of course to find some new channels for our connected artists. So, hopefully – see you there!
We are proud to bring you 232 Strängar with their first album Spunnet. It will be released 2016 07 29 for download and streaming on all the usual services like iTunes / Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, etc.
232 Strängar (which means 232 Strings) duo will take you on a journey from northern Sweden’s forests down to the open plains of Skåne, where the piano’s tone colours are woven together with the violin’s intricate harmonies and together create a different and exciting form of folk music today.
The music tells of emotions, highs and lows, shaped in beautiful waltzes, groovy schottis, melancholic polskas, where no one is left untouched. The duo’s penchant for improvisation and other genres such as jazz, creating interesting arrangements, delicate soundscapes and curious rhythm.
Although the number of musicians not more than two, the width of the music is great and the colours are many.
Frida Höfling & Emma Engström met at Skurups folk high school and have in recent years been performing at festivals, dance halls, churches, schools, nursing homes, cafes, jazz clubs and trains throughout Sweden.
Album credits: Frida Höfling, violins and cow horn, Emma Engström, piano. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Johannes Lundberg at Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg.
Sexteto Bandango are here with their first EP called Oblivion. It will be released 2016 03 01 for download and streaming on all the usual services like iTunes / Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, etc.
#01 Michelangelo 70, Astor Piazzolla #02 Oblivion, Astor Piazzolla #03 Tanguedia, Astor Piazzolla #04 Prologue (Tango Apasionado) from The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night, Astor Piazzolla
Sexteto Bandango is a band where musicians from different genres – tango, jazz, improvisation and classical music meet to jointly embark on exploring the concertante tango repertoire of Astor Piazzolla classics to to- day’s Tango Nuevo. With a slightly different instrumental composition and a hint of jazz the main thread is tango and improvisation.
Right now the band’s material is based on Astor Piazzolla but Sexteto Bandango also play music by John Coltrane, for example, but also Alberto Ginastera and other new Argentine composers Ramiro Gallo, Pedro Giraudo, Julian Graciano and Andres Lynetzky.
The four tracks on the EP Oblivion are all written by Astor Piazzolla, and they range from the meditative to the heavy and brutal, with many contrasts and moods simultaneously.
Juanjo Passo, who leads the group, is also leading tango orchestra Orquesta Tangarte and was portrayed in Swedish National Television program series “Doreen comes home” 2015.
Album Credits:
Sexteto Bandango: Juanjo Passo, bandoneon | Dante Hidemark Boström, piano | Peter Olsson, electric guitar | Viktor Auregård, double bass | Joakim Jensen drums | Mårten Lundgren trumpet.
Here is a great and brand new video from Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye (Label: Maestro Music). We are proud to have been a small part in the project – the band recording was done by us in our studio I/O studios. They also recorded their first album Debyut with us.
MIR LEBN EYBIK – We’ll live forever – is a powerful song, originally from the ghetto in Vilna, with a message that’s once again current. With this song Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye call for humanity and respect in our dark time of growing xenophobia.
Today is the day of the release of the new album Simmerin’ from Alligator Gumbo on monophon. It is available for download on iTunes and other download services and of course for streaming on Spotify etc. You can order the physical CD in our shop here and also on their website www.alligatorgumbo.com.
Alligator Gumbo – unpolished and honest cajun music from the heart! Cajun music is a world heritage that was born and developed with the french immigrants in South Western Louisiana during the 19th century. Alligator Gumbo is a band with it’s roots in South Western Sweden, with their love for music from the South they have devoted themselves for the cajun tradition. With the right instruments and interpretations Alligator Gumbo invite for dancing but also something to enjoy for a seated audience. The lyrics are in ”Louisiana French” – passionate with thematics such as unanswered love, hard living, but of course also the joys of life.
“This music makes me want to dance,” said my wife, Pat, when she listened to Alligator Gumbo’s new CD. I first heard about the band a couple of years ago. I was reading news from the “old country” and noticed that a local Cajun band (AG) would perform at the annual festival in Malmö, Sweden. I eventually found a few clips on You Tube, and heard pieces from a self-produced CD with eight traditional Cajun numbers. The music was definitely Cajun and the vocals were sung in Cajun French. Maybe the musical dialect was a little different, but the language was definitively the same. I thought, “why not… why shouldn’t a band of Swedes be able to interpret the music of rural south Louisiana”? After all, one can listen to some great New Orleans jazz in Copenhagen , Denmark, just across the sound from Malmö. A couple of months before this CD was recorded Thor visited Louisiana’s Cajun Country for the first time. He was able to sit in with local musicians at jam sessions in Eunice and Lafayette. It was at these places that he introduced a novelty at the jams, bagpipes. The pipes were played alongside the French accordions and the fiddles, and easily fit the mix. So here’s Simmerin’, Alligator Gumbo’s second album with French music, as the Cajuns call their music. We get twelve tunes. Ten of them are traditional songs. Two of the numbers are Thor’s compositions. Le Long Voyage was written just before he departed on his journey back to Sweden. Cold Cajun was written as an afterthought when he returned to the north. Alligator Gumbo adds bagpipes to their take on the Cajun gumbo on two tracks. The Cajun gumbo is necessarily not hot with pepper, but it’s well seasoned. Thor’s bagpipes add another seasoning to the simmering gumbo pot. Simmerin’ is a good example of the music of south Louisiana. It’s social music, made for family gatherings and other parties. This is how it sometimes sounds on back porches, or at the dance halls here. So let’s boil some crawfish, ice down the beer and let’s dance!
Bengt Lindell, Welsh, Louisiana
Recorded & mixed by Jakob Gustafsson and Per Tidstrand at I/O studios, Malmö, Sweden.
Rio de la Plata Tango. I do not know if it’s a coincidence that 2012 has become a year of tango in Sweden, while New Tango Orquesta released tango for Tide. Not that Orquesta Tipica Tangarte are a new phenomenon, this Argentine-Swedish band formed in Malmö in 1999. It is rather that their newly released fourth CD Rumores de orquesta confirms my tango synthesis. Orquesta Tipica Tangarte play a magical string-based tango as it since the birth of tango has been played and developed in Rio de la Plata, which we Swedes know as Carmencitas homeland. My references to Evert Taube, when I listen to Rumores de orquesta don’t stop there. Argentine Juan José Passo (yes, that is the group’s founder and bandoneonist Juanjos father) sings in a Taube-like way for instance in Los Cosos de al Lao. And just like Rolf Nilsén thought when he in Lira No. 5-2007 reviewed Orquesta Tipica Tangarte’s last album Lo que vendrá, it’s the tracks where the older Passo sings that stick most. Mentioned should also be that the album was produced and released on violincellist Per Tidstrand’s label Monophon. Newer band(oneon) members are Lars Hansen from Copenhagen and Mercedes Krapovickas from Finland. Guest performers on the album are pianists Juan Esteban Cuacci and Cristian Zarate, and guitarist Leonardo Sanchez. Rumores the orquesta was the most passionate and strongest of tango CDs that came in 2012.
Lennart Olausson
(Freely translated) from Swedish music magazine Lira, nr 1-2013
Emilia Alvarez third single is “Hold Me”. Again we have filmed a nice little video for that song. The EP “Move On” was first released 15 July 2011 and it contains five great songs, all quite different but we are sure you will like them all. The single as well as the EP is available on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp and a zillion of other stores, as well as Spotify or whatever your favourite streaming service might be.
This is how Emilia describes herself:
“I love art and have been singing, painting and creating ever since childhood. It was not until I was 25 years old and after spending a year in Australia that I started to write music. All of a sudden it felt natural to express words that flew from my thoughts and in to my writing hand. The words belonged together with a rhythm and meaning, reflected from my emotions, experiences and dreams. It is with great pleasure that I present my first recorded songs. I’m hoping you will love my music just as much as I do. That it will speak to you in its own unique way, comfort and give you strength.
I hope you like my music, I have put a lot of myself, my heart and of course much effort in it. My first tracks are recorded and mixed in I/O studios in Malmö, Sweden. The mastering of the tracks was done at Abbey Road Studios, London, UK (You know, the famous Beatles Studio?). I have many more songs coming up, I am really looking forward to play them to you. I wrote most of the tracks together with my sister Sofia, and some I did all by myself.”
Hold Me: Written by Emilia Alvarez & Sofia Alvarez Tidstrand. Emilia Alvarez vocals, backing vocals, Sofia Alvarez Tidstrand backing vocals, Per Tidstrand electric bass, electric guitar, Rhodes, CS-80 V, Minimoog V, Moog modular V, vocoder, programming. Recorded & mixed by Per Tidstrand at I/O studios, Malmö, Sweden. Produced by Per Tidstrand. Mastered at Abbey Road Studios, London, UK.
We are very proud to present the new album from Orquesta Típica Tangarte: Rumores de orquesta. It is available for download on iTunes and other download services 2012 10 10. Or order it here at www.monophon.se or www.tangarte.se
We are very proud of this new album as it also features some very nice moments with visiting guests Juan Esteban Cuacci, piano, Cristian Zarate & Leonardo Sanchez, piano and guitar, and Mercedes Krapovickas, bandoneon together with the full orchestra and our vocalists Juan José Passo and Sofia Alvarez Tidstrand.
Orquesta Típica Tangarte is an Argentinean-Swedish tango orchestra, founded in 1999 in Malmö, Sweden. The orchestra’s music is the tango from Rio de la Plata, a repertoire with a great variety from the 1940’s and -50’s up to this date. Well-known composers like Villoldo, Canaro, Fresedo, Di Sarli, Troilo, Pugliese and Piazzolla, to mention a few, are part of this repertoire. The music is primarily played for dancing; for people to meet in the embrace of the tango and to be carried away by the music.
Orquesta Típica Tangarte – Rumores de orquesta credits:
Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye (Label: Maestro Music) are releasing their album Debyut today. We are proud to have done the band recording in our studio I/O studios.
With her first album, DEBYUT, singer Louisa Lyne breathes new life into songs and poetry that have lain forgotten for many years.
With enchanting emotion and warmth she and her music welcome us into a new world, where we are invited to share an evocative journey through the old and the new, through sadness and laughter – a musical experience that will linger long afterwards.
Louisa’s passion for language and music is revealed throughout this album, and DEBYUT is undoubtedly the start of something big.
