Browse by Label: HAPNA (SWEDEN)

Artist:	CARL & SVEN-ÅKE JOHANSSON, RÜDIGER
Title:	Djungelmusik med sång
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 002CD

Year 2000 release. Rüdiger Carl: accordion, clarinet; Sven-Åke Johansson: accordion, drums and voice. "Recorded 1997 at the book and record store Andra Böcker och Skivor in Stockholm. This CD featuring two of the most innovative improvisors in Europe is the first released recording of the duo since 1985. Carl and Johansson's music isn't tied to any genre, but instead flows freely over both known and unknown territories, in it's own unique way. Sound-wise, the CD has a special focus: every track on Djungelmusik med sång features at least one accordion, an element that holds the diverse material together."

Artist:	SHERIFF
Title:	Sheriff
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 004CD

Repress of this early Hapna release. Magnus Granberg: guitar, piano and vocals. Henrik Olsson: drums and cymbals. "Deconstructing the music we know as rock, just leaving the essentials -- a chord, a phrase, a simple drum figure -- and repeating it till something else appears...Swedish duo Sheriff works with limited material and creates a world of their own. The intimate recordings create a restrained atmosphere where every beat on the guitar strings and strike on the drums is heard and vital to the whole. Their use of repetition suggests a link to minimalist composition, but is totally outside the academic world. Comparisons could be made to Palace Brothers, Gastr del Sol and others working in the field of low-key rock, but Sheriff has a strong integrity of their own. These seven quiet and skeletal pieces, with the setting of just guitar, drums and sometimes piano and vocals, together provide an insight into these two uncompromising musician's minds. Drummer Henrik Olsson is one third of Swedish improvising trio Gul 3 (debut album Soul on the Crazy Wisdom label) while Magnus Granberg has a background as a sax player. Both of them are living in Gothenburg, Sweden."

Artist:	SAGOR & SWING
Title:	Orgelfärger
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 005CD

"In the living room of a small house in Dalarna, the Swedish countryside, Sagor & Swing has recorded this timeless music evoking the surrounding landscape -- the forests, mountains and lakes. Moody and simple melodies with echoes of old Swedish folk tunes and the nature in the paintings of John Bauer. Some years ago, Eric Malmberg was given an organ from legendary Swedish organ player Bo Hansson, one half of the 70´s drums/organ duo Hansson & Karlsson. This organ was the very one used on Hansson´s epic record Lord of the Rings, an influential record which combined jazz and rock together with minor key melodies of Swedish folk music. Sagor & Swing makes a more minimal journey. The melodies unfold at a calm pace and the whole album has a mesmerizing feeling to it. This is music which could only have been made in Sweden. While the music of Björn Olsson, another Swede influenced by folk music, is connected to the archipelago of the Swedish west coast, Sagor & Swing has it's spiritual home in the old forests deep in the middle of the country."

Artist:	PILLOW
Title:	Three Henries
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 006CD

"Following Pillow's self-titled debut CD (BoxMedia) and last year's terrific, LP-only Field on Water (hereforeveralways), Three Henries presents Pillow's unique, complex-yet-minimal music with the greatest clarity and sharpest character we've yet heard from this group. With careful attention to details and emphasis on the group as a collective, Pillow's way of playing and creating structures organically carries in it's body/spirit elements of Morton Feldman, AMM and even the flowing electronics of the A-Musik/Mego/Sahko school of macro/micro-sound bliss/challenge. Communication is the keyword here, and, at it's best, Three Henries captures the near-telepathy achieved by these four talented musicians. Stunning, graceful, abrasive, gentle -- all of these things are Pillow."

Artist:	SUNDIN, RONNIE
Title:	Morphei
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 007CD

Year 2002 release. "Morphei is a soundtrack to a dream. A nighty-night record designed to make you wake up and listen. Inspired by that in between state of wake and dreaming, when you're not quite sure whether you're asleep or not, this record presents a stream of realities seamlessly floating into each other, layers of events of acoustic and digital nature mingle; hear the Light-switch singing a duet with the Feedback-mixer, traces of Scandinavian wildlife intertwine with a tropical forest of digital insects, or hear the timestretched Teaspoon having a conversation with the Snow-balls of Thonk... you get the picture. Ronnie Sundin (b.1973) is trained in visual art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå, Sweden and mostly works with sound or sound-related matters in a borderland between the art-scene and the music-scene."

Artist:	SAGOR & SWING
Title:	Melodier och fåglar
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 008CD

Year 2002 release. "Sagor & Swing is Eric Malmberg on Hammond organ and Ulf Möller on drums. This is the follow up to their debut album Orgelfärger. Melodier och fåglar (melodies and birds) is minimal and timeless, naive and simple. Eric calls his melodies 'Nothing music'. Something to listen to when you almost want it to be quiet. When you are so affected by the noise from the media that you no longer bear with real silence. Then you may listen to Melodier och fåglar. By the time the record has ended, you may stay in the sofa and finally enjoy the quietness and stillness."

Artist:	SAGOR & SWING
Title:	Allt Hänger Samman
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 012CD

"The myth of Sagor & Swing tells that they are children of nature that grew up in the forest. That they at an early age built their first instruments and isolated from the noise of civilization invented a music of their own. What we know for sure, however, is that they make wonderful organ music and have been doing this for some time now. This is their third album, Allt Hänger Samman. The woods have thickened. The melodies have become more intricate and the idyllic scenes now have a darker tone. One slips away on excursions in the faintest sounds through passages where the organ is a tone generator built to recreate the sounds of the forest -- the wind, the singing of birds, the creaking of roots. As soon as the majestic introduction 'Återkomsten' begins, one senses that something is going on. In 'Lövverk' echoes are heard of Kraftwerk and their endless ostinati and the final 'Alla sagor har ett slut' is a magnificent, minimalistic bookending. The moods that are summoned in between the songs keeps one helplessly in the world of Sagor & Swing."

Artist:	CONNORS & DAVID GRUBBS, LOREN
Title:	Arborvitae
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 013CD

"The most surprising part is that it hadn't happened before. Loren Connors and David Grubbs first performed as a duo on May 30, 2003 at the Green-Wood Cemetery Chapel in Brooklyn, N.Y. Green-Wood Cemetery is one of Brooklyn's landmarks -- it's the highest natural point in the borough, and an unexpected expanse of tranquility in the midst of the city. The stone interior of the chapel makes the quietest of sounds audible, and Loren and David played a remarkably quiet yet extraordinarily varied hour of improvised music. Energized, they repaired to the studio to record Arborvitae. Arborvitae opens and closes with the pairing of David on piano and Loren on an electric guitar played so quietly that at times his pedal-stomping is wondrously distinct. 'Blossom Time' and the title track positively float, with Loren alternating between soaring single-note lines and playing the rough, barnacled anchor to David's relentless tide. David's approach to the piano recalls his playing on Palace's Arise Therefore (Drag City) and his own Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange (Table of the Elements). Loren hypnotizes throughout. This is one of the rare instances in his career that he's recorded in a commercial studio, and his playing time and again rewards such a detailed representation. 'The Ghost of Exquisite' and 'Hemlock Path' are two slow-motion lockings of guitar horns. 'The Highest Point in Brooklyn' isn't the place to be in an electrical storm -- but it rolled in all of a sudden and there we were, uncovered and open to the elements . . . "

Artist:	SAGOR & SWING
Title:	Orgelplaneten
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 016CD

"The new record by Sagor & Swing is quite different from their earlier low-key, melancholic records. Their characteristic sound is still there, but Orgelplaneten is more direct and joyful, more pop perhaps. Their basic instrumentation, organ and drums, is completed with Moog and accordion. This aspect of Sagor & Swing has always been there as a parallel track, but Orgelplaneten is the first time it is expressed on record. This is the fourth album by Sagor & Swing (all released by Häpna)."

Artist:	MATHIEU, STEPHAN
Title:	On Tape
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 018CD

"Stephan Mathieu is an electronic musician from Saarbruecken, Germany. Starting out as a drummer in various improvised contexts he made the switch to working mainly with computers in the late 90´s. Since then he has released a string of highly acclaimed recordings on labels like Ritornell, Fällt and Orthlorng Musork. His music is mostly based on acoustic instruments but so far it has always been more or less heavily computer processed. On Tape is a pivotal work for Mathieu as this is the first time we hear him leaving his source material unprocessed. Mathieu started building this record from recordings provided to him by Swedish trio Tape and saxophonist Magnus Granberg. Adding his own subtle drumming, field recordings and electronics this is a beautiful album that weaves elements from the electronic and acoustic worlds to a seamless whole. A very clear and uncomplicated atmosphere around this piece distinguishes it from a lot of electronic music."

Artist:	PITA
Title:	Get Off
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 019CD

"This is the fourth solo album from groundbreaking sound artist Pita (real name Peter Rehberg). His previous solo albums as Pita (all on the Mego label) have all been landmarks in electronic music. His sound ranges from furious to minimalistic, but always with the same uncompromising attitude. To be true to ones ideas when trends come and go is something admirable in every artist. Get Off is his most varied album to date. Apart from his solo work, he is also a member of several groups,\\ notably MIMEO (with Keith Rowe, Rafael Toral, Marcus Schmickler, Jerome Noetinger and others) and Fenn O'Berg (with Christian Fennesz and Jim O'Rourke). He is also one of the persons behind the influential Mego label."

Artist:	A TASTE OF RA
Title:	A Taste of Ra
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 023CD

Cryptic new-folk experimentation from Häpna. The accompanying information only describes the music as such: "Imagine a spirit awaken when it's too dark to see, but the bright lights that make you pass through life's octaves burst the gates of heaven with a tune that fills one's chest, and can be seen as a gospel for the glory each morning tells you about. If you listen carefully his friends are everywhere. They make the soil bend beneath your feet while the sharp light reaches your soul like spears (di spears). So beware and inhale, when you finally embrace A Taste of Ra." What we hear is pleasant-enough singer-songwriter blues backed by gentle guitar strum, harmonium hums, echoed piano and distant pipes. A Taste of Ra conjures up the bluesiness of Jeff Buckley, the trilling howl of Devendra Banhart, with found-sound droning instrumentals reminiscent of Pelt, Joshua Burkett or Six Organs of Admittance. Some might find the anonymity of the artist frustrating, but this release is a prayerful exercise in gentle, low-tech bedroom-folk with just enough of a touch of weird to make it interesting.

Artist:	TSUNODA, TOSHIYA
Title:	Ridge of Undulation
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 024CD

A new release from Japanese sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda who was the first artist to be released on Häpna in 1999 with the album Extract From Field Recording Archive #2: The Air Vibration Inside A Hollow. This household name in the art of field recordings has produced a discography of highly sublime recordings capturing the finest details of sound. This new work is no exception. The work of Toshiya Tsunoda is concerned with the relation between sound space and cognition space, and often investigates stationary waves formed by fixed conditions in closed systems. Toshiya Tsunoda is a founding member of the influential WrK collective and has previously released CDs on the WrK, Selektion, Sirr, Korm Plastics and Lucky Kitchen labels. He also works with sound installations. As Toshiya elucidates, "The vibration of a thin metal plate and the huge waves of a vast seashore... similar phases can be observed between them... like wrinkles on clothes remind us of mountain ridges."

Artist:	3/4HADBEENELIMINATED
Title:	A Year of the Aural Gauge Operation
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 026CD

This Italian quartet makes music based on equal parts rock, electroacoustic composition and field recordings. This is their first release for Hapna, following their 2004 Bowindo debut as a trio with the recording 3Quarters HadBeenEliminated. Adding fourth member Antonio Arrabito, Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli are already known on the experimental electronic scene for their previous solo releases. Pilia's first solo recording Healing Memories in Present Tension out on Last Visible Dog Records, shows his ability in combining minimalist guitar drones with slow emotional riffs, while Rochetti's debut album The Work Called Kitano (on Barlamuerte) reveals his personal collage style and Wagnerian turntablism. Valerio Tricoli released his first work on Bowindo last year entitled Did I? Did They? unveiling intimate poetic concrete electroacoustic composition. References could be made to groups such as This Heat or Sigur Ros, though this group's filmic sound has a specific identity all its own.

Artist:	DAHL, ANDERS
Title:	Hundloka, flockblomstriga 1
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 027CD

This is Sweden-based Anders Dahl's first release on the Häpna label. From documentary audio recordings of his travels to India, electronic manipulations of toxic ooze, to "wildlife" recordings of digital birds, Dahl goes places where the natural and the digital world meet and obfuscate one another. Using steel bowls, bouzoukis, bottles, pans, drums, guitars, electronics, and anything else on hand or in his surroundings, Anders Dahl, much like his esteemed botanist compatriot of the same name, seeks to minutely observe, identify, and record even the smallest environmental event. Hundloka (cow parsley) is a common meadow flower; a weed whose distribution is restricted with great difficulty. Hundloka is also the name of three pieces of music which, in similarity to their namesake, grow in areas between the wild and the cultivated, 'twixt nightly woods and lit up cities. Hundloka is the music of the late afternoon, a catnap of civilization where waking and dreaming can hardly be distinguished from each other.

Artist:	IELASI, GIUSEPPE
Title:
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 028CD

Giuseppe Ielasi is an Italian experimental guitarist and electronic musician, and this is his second release for the Häpna label. Known from his improvisatory work with Dean Roberts, and his highly inventive guitar explorations in the vein of Oren Ambarchi and Loren Conors, Ielasi also founded the well-respected Fringes label. The new untitled album by Giuseppe Ielasi lives in a land of light and shade. The mist lies thick but close to the ground, and it's glowing and sparking. Reflections shoot wildly in encrypted tongues. The log-cutters are working with their timber. This is Ielasi's most complex work to date, both in regard to instrumentation and compositional form. A well-prepared decoction of dark cinema, wanderlust and experimental sound manipulating techniques.

Artist:	BELFI, ANDREA
Title:	Between Neck & Stomach
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 029CD

This is Italy-based Andrea Belfi's second full-length release. Belfi is the drummer of Rosolina Mar and is a member of Medves along with Giuseppe Ielasi, Stefano Pilia, Renato Rinaldi and Riccardo Wanke. In 2002, Belfi embarked on a vast project, which, in time, would become Between Neck & Stomach. The first recordings took place at Valerio Tricoli's (member of 3/4HadBeenEliminated) house in Bologna. Between Neck & Stomach is grounded on two core elements: the first is the material collected during the unique experiment of turning a house into "a living creature with its own voice" (just one example: a synth emitting one continuous note shaking a cupboard filled with pots, pans and plates). The second core element is the choice of just one thematic note per song, around which each track is built and balanced. In this challenging album, the acoustic elements and the electronic ones mingle, intertwine and sometimes switch places: the acoustic sounds are treated as if they were electronic, and the actual electronic sounds are played at the very moment. This album sketches imaginary landscapes where drums, guitars and voices blend into a bunch of eclectic tracks, which, in spite of their radical minimalist roots, are definitively worthy of the name "songs."

Artist:	A TASTE OF RA
Title:	A Taste of Ra (II)
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 030CD

The mysterious pseudonym remains, in this, the second release in the Taste of Ra trilogy. The accompanying information describes the music as such: "When your ears are gates and they're wide open. Levels of sound will chase you down, collide, kiss and fight. In the yard that you now found; The past will meet the present, you're paying past with present. When you finally hear her voice that makes you leave your body behind and meet as gods...Sound will evolve and something that was once heard by the keeper of the horizon is now heard by you." The familiar song titles on this record imply that this is a stylistic continuation of the first album's cryptic new-folk experimentation. One hopes for further promise of pastoral Swedish psych weirdness, acoustic tranquility and harmonium drones topped by a troubadour's trilling howl, that served to put Banhart and Chasny to shame.

Artist:	APPELQVIST, HANS
Title:	Naima
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 031CD

This is the third full-length release for Sweden's Hans Appelqvist, after two previous release on the Komplott label. Naima is an entity who in different ways is present to the persons on the album. Sometimes she interferes with their lives and speaks directly to them, sometimes her presence is only communicated through her musical theme, "Naimamelodin" (Naima's melody). Somewhat pretentiously expressed, the album is an answer to a longing for more fixed references. In 2004, Hans Appelqvist released the album Bremort which got a lot of attention and among other things won Swedish radio's "Pop Record of the Year" award. The record was staged in a fictitious small city in Sweden, where one as a listener could follow daily life during three days for some of the people living there. Hans Appelqvist has previously released Att Möta Verkligheten on Häpna.

Artist:	SCHMICKLER WITH HAYDEN CHISHOLM, MARCUS
Title:	Amazing Daze
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 032CD

This is a collaborative release by Cologne experimentechnician Marcus Schmickler (aka Pluramon) and New Zealand-based saxophonist Hayden Chisholm. Schmickler is internationally well known in heterogeneous contexts of contemporary music. He is closely associated with the a-Musik label and over the last years he has worked in different fields of electronic, instrumental, improvised, experimental and new music. His latest releases feature choir and chamber music pieces, a new computer music composition, as well as a new release under the banner of Pluramon with Julee Cruise. His continuous collaborations feature settings with analog synth wiz Thomas Lehn and British pianist John Tilbury. He has received numerous prestigious prizes and his work has been represented all over the globe. Hayden Chisholm is a saxophonist and a composer internationally well known for his work with the artist Rebecca Horn and as a performer in jazz and contemporary music. Originating from New Zealand where he won the Young Achievers Award, he studied music and philosophy in Germany, India and Japan and has since performed at major festivals all over the world. He currently performs with Burnt Friedman, Root 70 and Pluramon as well as creating music for several of Rebecca Horn's installations. He currently lives in Barcelona and Cologne. Amazing Daze tracks the intersections where Chisholm's striking sax punctuations and Schmickler's slabs of electroacoustic wall-building meet.

Artist:	SUNDIN, RONNIE
Title:	The History of Electronic Music
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	Book
Price:	$36.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 033BK

Sweden's Ronnie Sundin has produced electronic and experimental music for the last 15 years, released on labels such as Häpna, Ground Fault, Fällt and Antifrost. His latest release was on the Swedish label Komplott, the Amateur Hermetic from 2006. He has been educated at the Art Academy in Umeå, Sweden. His book The History of Electronic Music is a subjective history book based upon his background as a musician and record collector. It consists of portraits and drawings of fellow electronic composers, influential persons he has met, several key figures and events, records and instruments. This edition has 100 pages, and measures 21 x 14,8 cm, with a print run of 300 copies. The book is designed by Lasse Marhaug.

Artist:	MALMBERG, ERIC
Title:	Verklighet & Beat
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 034CD

This is the second solo release from Sweden's Eric Malmberg, former songwriter and organist for the now-defunct Sagor & Swing. Featuring guest musicians such as Goran Kajfes, Lars Skoglund, Johan Berthling, Cecilia Österholm and legendary organist, Bo Hansson. Malmberg-fan and Häpna label-mate David Grubbs describes Verklighet & Beat thusly: "'Till Minne Av Lilly Lindström' is the album's effortless high-water mark in providing instrumental coloration for what had previously been implied by Eric's bare-bones melodies. Are those guitar strings fifty years old? Sleigh bells haven't sounded so good since the first Stooges album. Then the descending disco strings carve up the dancefloor. The other surefire smash in the Top 40 of my mind or dreams is 'Söndagskonsert,' which holds its own when compared to the most moving of Peer Raben's scores for films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Verklighet & Beat suggests that an impeccably programmed movie theater has opened in Eric's neck of the woods. The album's opening track, 'Finalen' is a signature gesture of Eric's, wherein stirring, nearly martial melodies are rendered with maximum Hammond mellowness. A number of these pieces are essentially marches, and yet they could hardly be less bellicose. 'Finalen' is another in a series of Malmberg earworms: melodies that after a few listens seem as if you've known them since childhood. 'Min Kompis Anton' is another bittersweet, inward-turned march. It incorporates the musicality of distantly-heard recordings of kids' laughter -- an intuitive gesture that seems so right as to preclude further comment. Synth is used sparingly, to merely indicate the stratosphere. 'Slutet På En Epok' is hard-rocking and frantic, much more like the S & S live sets, and a style only occasionally hinted at by previous studio recordings. Ascending modulations are handled in the style of a surf instrumental. The brushes are out on 'Leksand, Tidigt Nittiotal,' a series of reexaminations of a single melodic line. A key fiddle can sound as lonesome as any harmonica. Verklighet & Beat is paradigmatic of Häpna in that its execution is improbably beautiful. It's better in practice than in theory. And Eric Malmberg's vision now radiates color." --David Grubbs, New York, March 2007

Artist:	A TASTE OF RA
Title:	Morning of My Life
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 036CD

This is the third and final album in the A Taste of Ra trilogy. Nicolai Dunger, and the cloak of mystery behind the Taste of Ra project has captivated many with its various incarnations of free-folk meanderings, Tim Buckley jazz-howl and Swedish pastoral indie-hum. Dunger describes Morning of My Life as follows: "When we moved to the tent and the light was golden and we were young, and the magazine was all there was to bring, and you woke in the night when the birds were singing just for you and the smell of soil and the warm breath over through you, ohh it moved you. All there was to it, was the morning of my life." He also describes that the overall idea behind the first two A Taste of Ra records was for pure vocal and instrumental experimentation -- using recording techniques on a more personal level. On this final record in the trilogy, he takes a different approach, starting off with one song that he developed together with Swedish musician, songwriter and producer, Jari Haapalainen. The song naturally broke up into six movements, creating a film-like, dramatic pattern, and Johan Berthling made some beautiful arrangements for three of the movements. Starsailor-esque vocals, jazzy horns and loose, clattering drums mix with piano, harp and guitar arpeggios -- just as much of an Impressionistic song cycle as Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

Artist:	JARVINEN, ANNA
Title:	Jag Fick Feeling
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 038CD

This is the debut solo full-length release from Stockholm-based Anna Järvinen, former member of Sweden's Granada from 1998-2004. Granada released three albums and one EP on record labels such as Universal, V2 and Look Left Recordings, and were produced by Björn Olsson and Mattias Glavå, who also heavily contributed to this record. Jag Fick Feeling was recorded in the Kungssten industry area in Gothenburg during a rainy summer and cold winter with members of Dungen and The Works, amongst many others. For this record, Järvinen tried to make music she has always loved, with melodies that she grew up hearing: "...the soundtrack to Brideshead Revisited, The Carpenters, Elton John's darling '70s tunes, Vesa Matti Loiri's interpretations of Eino Leino's poetry, Woody Allen movies, Pentti Saarikoski, nature poetry, drug and alcohol abuse, nostalgia, the Finland of my dreams, falling in love, sorrow, homesickness." As a result, Jag Fick Feeling is full of longing, made with delicate orchestration, flute, vibraphone, piano and autoharp. On top of it all, Anna Järvinen's clear-as-a-bell voice rings with a tone not unlike The Sundays' Harriet Wheeler. Each song is sung in Swedish, but the heart doesn't need any translation.

Artist:	TAPE
Title:	Opera Plus
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 040CD

Opera Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2002 full-length debut Opera (HAPNA 009CD), with three new tracks taken from the original 2002 sessions. Tape are Johan Berthling, Andreas Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten: guitars, laptop, pedals, synthesizers, harmonium, melodica, field recordings, percussion, harmonica, zither, piano, flute, bells, glockenspiel, accordion, trumpet, paper, styrofoam, yongmei. As Stephan Mathieu wrote at the time of this release, "Tape's music lives at the intersection of a 21st century chamber music and an imaginary folklore. Slowly passing by vast yellow rape fields and ancient, abandoned factories, the music on my headphones seems to fit almost too perfectly. The sun and nature are certainly core ingredients of Opera and its slowly floating melodies carry the spirit of travel, not on an aircraft, but submerged in a landscape instead." In the meantime, Tape have distilled their sound with their albums such as Milieu, Rideau, as well as collaborations with Tenniscoats more and more into an organic song-like format. While all of them are excellent, Tape's essence can be found in Opera. Listening to Opera again after almost six years, it proves to be a truly great and timeless album. Now in a digipak with new cover art.

Artist:	TAPE
Title:	Milieu Plus
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 041CD

Milieu Plus is a reissue of Tape's 2003 second full-length, Milieu (HAPNA 014CD), with four new tracks taken from the original 2003 sessions. When this album first came out, it sounded like nothing else. Seemingly improvised but still so tenderly composed, it took cues from both the most gentle free jazz and Brian Eno's ideas of ambient music, but at the same time leaning against both Swedish folk music and broken pop balladry. Milieu -- together with its forerunner Opera -- became something of a stepping stone for, if not a new kind of pop, at least a new way of approaching it and a new way of seeing what it could achieve. Tape had very little to do with traditional experimental music, they never fitted into jazz and -- although many tried to -- their beautiful songs could not by any means be labelled electronica. Instead it was the genuine gentleness itself of Tape's music that spoke to their soul mates across the world. Milieu opened a door to a musical heart their contemporaries had been trying to reach for a long time. As Andres Lokko describes of this release, "Tape stir up such forgotten feelings, they restore fading pictures we don't really want to share with anyone else. Or in some cases have forgotten they were ever there in the first place. The aching slowness of these melodies awaken reluctant nostalgia; a forced sentimentality. And they do so without the aid of words, only with the purest music; the electricity in the air that surrounds the captured moment." Now in a digipak with new cover art.

Artist:	JARVINEN, ANNA
Title:	Man Var Bland Molnen
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 043CD

This is the second full-length album by Sweden's Anna Järvinen, the follow-up to her debut Jag Fick Feeling. Man Var Bland Molnen ("One Was Among The Clouds") is produced and recorded by Gustav Ejstes (Dungen), who also plays a variety of instruments on the album. Other musicians include Reine Fiske, Fredik Swahn, Johan Holmegard, Leo Svensson, Mattias Bergqvist and Anders Nygårds. The collaboration with Dungen already began on Anna's first record, who participated on the main part of the album. Concerning the choice of Ejstes as producer, Anna says in Sonic magazine (Sweden) that "nobody has like Gustav, silently and immediately, understood my music. I wanted to try and leave the songs with him so he could put his mark on and in them." Seldom has there been such a breakthrough for an artist on a small label in Sweden as with the release of Jag Fick Feeling. Anna was nominated for a Swedish Grammy and P3 Guld prize, awarded Stockholm City's music prize, and was interviewed in virtually every Swedish paper. The record also got a lot of attention in Finland and Anna toured in both countries during fall 2007 and spring/summer 2008. The first single from Man Var Bland Molnen is the track "Äppelöga," ("Apple-Eye"), a song with an almost countrified, Americana swing. All tracks, of course, feature Anna's sweetly breathy voice in Swedish, and a wholesome helping of piano, harmonica, flute, strings, and laid-back acoustic guitar -- lending the whole affair a soft/light rock/California morning sunniness. Once again transcends all pop language barriers through its apple-cheeked charm.

       "i wrote some songs
       about sex, sorrow
       abuse,
       falling
       in love and
       pure summery frustration.
       then
       i lost my way.
       you and i are
       the only ones left now
       here, among the clouds.
       come." --Anna Järvinen

Artist:	TAPE
Title:	Revelationes
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HAPNA 044CD

This is the eagerly-awaited fifth full-length album from Sweden's Tape. Tape has been around since 2000, making music in between experimentalism, pop and folk. Their first album Opera was released in 2002 by Häpna and in 2003 they did their first Japanese tour. Since then, they have toured the U.S., many European countries, China, Japan and Taiwan. They've toured together with people like Bill Wells, David Grubbs, Tenniscoats, Ass, Efterklang, and many others. This is Revelationes: Register. A. Obstinate. Pyramid-shaped body. A scent of camphor around him. Prefers mashed food to firmer consistencies. Thrives in the evenings. B. Past occupation as deckhand. Odd first look. Rests during daytime if given the opportunity. Kind but has high demands concerning one's friendship even in, to him, less flattering circumstances. C. Tubby and lively, gleeful -- but with sad false bottoms. Carries untreated ballast that rolls when the light is put out, screamed wildly in sleep once. Unexplainable interest in fruit cultivation. Applied working method. Information is written to the environment. Stimuli, atmosphere, delicate movements. A few channels are recorded, these trigger reactions, semi-automatic overdubs, complementary actions from others. Carried-out work seems to define new building structures. Instincts, learned patterns and responses, spontaneous additions and supplements. Two chords are played, then two again, four, they are lust-permuted, four, a metal whistle, a faint howl is cut in, the elements are permuted, permuted, lust-permuted.

Artist:	OHAYO
Title:	The State We Are In
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HAPNA 045CD

This is the debut album by Sweden's Ohayo, which includes members Andreas Söderström (Ass), Johan Berthling (Tape) and Per Eklund. At the end of a tour as the backing band for Swedish artist El Perro Del Mar, these three musicians decided to form a new band and make music on their own. They started with just improvising in the studio and after several sessions, their sound began to form: a soft, somnambulant music with an underlying threat. Guitars intertwine with each other, Hammond organ, drums, double bass and trumpet create space in the music. This is music that plays itself and speaks for itself.

Artist:	MUSETTE
Title:	Drape Me In Velvet
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HAPNA 046CD

This is the third album from Musette. The starting point of Drape Me In Velvet was a large collection of cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes from the 1950s and 1960s, many inherited from relatives. During the three years the album was recorded on these tapes, they were treated and mistreated with tools and violence. New sounds and instruments were recorded over the older recordings. The tapes were mistreated again, scratched, wrinkled. Layer upon layer of melodies and tape memories were brought together to a whole where music for silent films, exotic easy listening and French chanson are some of the strands in the braid. The result is a historical collage where the passing of time is heard in anachronistic piano melodies and disintegrating chords. Ghosts of former recordings whisper in the warm background noise. This is music for amusement parks with neglected maintenance. Drape Me In Velvet is an album so particular in nature, that one gets ecstatic. The melodies and production are instantly recognizable as Musette's own. A new language is created. What's perhaps the most unique is the marriage between the world of melodies and the lust to experiment. Seldom have we heard music with original ideas about sound and sound-making coming out this melodious, lovable and accessible. Joel Danell is Musette. Already with the last album Datum (2009, Tona Serenad), Musette showed that he had a unique musical character, but this is a work of an even greater magnitude. Participating on the album are Joel Danell, Andreas Tengblad, Christopher Cantillo, Lars Ekman, Johan Jonsson, Linus Hillborg, Anders af Klintberg, Oskar Moberg and Nick Clifford.

Artist:	MUSETTE
Title:	Drape Me in Velvet
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	LP
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 046LP

LP version. This is the third album from Musette. The starting point of Drape Me In Velvet was a large collection of cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes from the 1950s and 1960s, many inherited from relatives. During the three years the album was recorded on these tapes, they were treated and mistreated with tools and violence. New sounds and instruments were recorded over the older recordings. The tapes were mistreated again, scratched, wrinkled. Layer upon layer of melodies and tape memories were brought together to a whole where music for silent films, exotic easy listening and French chanson are some of the strands in the braid. The result is a historical collage where the passing of time is heard in anachronistic piano melodies and disintegrating chords. Ghosts of former recordings whisper in the warm background noise. This is music for amusement parks with neglected maintenance. Drape Me In Velvet is an album so particular in nature, that one gets ecstatic. The melodies and production are instantly recognizable as Musette's own. A new language is created. What's perhaps the most unique is the marriage between the world of melodies and the lust to experiment. Seldom have we heard music with original ideas about sound and sound-making coming out this melodious, lovable and accessible. Joel Danell is Musette. Already with the last album Datum (2009, Tona Serenad), Musette showed that he had a unique musical character, but this is a work of an even greater magnitude. Participating on the album are Joel Danell, Andreas Tengblad, Christopher Cantillo, Lars Ekman, Johan Jonsson, Linus Hillborg, Anders af Klintberg, Oskar Moberg and Nick Clifford.

Artist:	APPELQVIST, HANS
Title:	Sjunga Slutet Nu
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HAPNA 047CD

Sjunga Slutet Nu (trans. "Sing The End Now"), the new long-awaited project by Hans Appelqvist, consists of both an album and a film. The work is about the angst and silencing of death and the meeting with the final end. The film and album have the atmosphere of a fairy-tale that feels both natural and original, a world where talking levitating spheres seem as ordinary as man. In it, we meet Theodora, an elderly woman that lives in a lonely house by a lake somewhere in Sweden. We also meet her friends: the six-years-old boy Vissen and the levitating sphere Sot that often stays close to Theodora's house or rests in the pile of flour that lies prepared for him in the kitchen. Both the music on the album and the film originate from the same world. Part of the dialog, background sounds and musical scenes of the film are used to deepen the atmosphere of the album. The structure is complex -- threads are picked up and woven together in a way similar to the free, nonlinear narrative of dreams. Once again, Hans Appelqvist invites us into one of his oddly-constructed worlds, where you don't know what is dream and what is reality, and through this, he makes us face ourselves.

Artist:	TENNISCOATS
Title:	Papa's Ear
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	HAPNA 048CD

Japanese duo Tenniscoats have been running together for more than ten years, and their music is all about catching the moment. They are true improvisers inside their own musical world. The music on this record adds a new facet to their universe -- deeper, more intense, but with still-visible signs of their trademark playfulness, despite the fact that the album was recorded during dark winter-time. This is the second time they went to Stockholm, Sweden, to record their music. Musicians around the group Tape and label Häpna gathered together with producer Johan Berthling during a week in the studio to record most of the music for Papa's Ear. Compared to the recording of Tan-Tan Therapy (2007) which was very haphazard, everything started on a new level. There was already a plan on how to work, ideas around the sound that was aimed for. In typical Tenniscoats fashion, Saya completed some of the lyrics in the last minute. There is always a new song to record, the flow of new material seems inexhaustible. Welcome to Tenniscoats' magical, mystery world. Participating on the album are Saya, Ueno, Johan Berthling, Tomas Hallonsten, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Lars Skoglund, Andreas Söderström and Andreas Werliin.

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Artist:	STACKENÄS, DAVID
Title:	The Guitar
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 003CD

Artist:	TORSSON, PATRIK
Title:	Kolväteserenader
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 015CD

Artist:	SINISTRI
Title:	Free Pulse
Label:	HAPNA (SWEDEN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	HAPNA 020CD