SOTD #16 // Club 8: 'Western Hospitality'

Just what we need on a miserable, rainy day such as this – a dose of tropical sunshine from Labrador records head honcho Johan Angergård (The Legends, Acid House Kings) and his musical partner Karolina Komstedt. I’m of course talking about Club 8 who have finally gotten round to recording the follow up to 2007′s magnificent The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming. The duo, who amazingly have been playing together since 1995, release their new long-player The People’s Record on May 12th – just in time to greet the Summer sunshine that permits throughout the albums 10 songs.

Opening track “Western Hospitality” sounds perversely like someone has kidnapped The Concretes, injected them with neat Vitamin C and Amyl Nitrate, then (blind-folded and tied to a chair) drip fed Afro-beat and Latin America into their skulls until their heads exploded….(then recorded the results). No surprise really, seeing as the pair hired Camera Obscura and The Concretes producer Jari Haapalainen (also guitarist in The Bear Quartet) to work on the album, which ultimately results in a huge kaleidoscope of sounds. A very un-Swedish sounding Swedish record that has more in common with swinging 1960′s London and Latin America than the usual balearic tones of Sweden.

For many years Labrador Records have been purveyors of some of the finest, jubilant indie pop Sweden has ever produced. Whether it be the eighties influenced Mary Onettes album, the sweeping orchestrations of Sambassadeur’s latest or the dream-like arrangements of The Radio Dept. In 2010 alone, Labrador have already earned their chops and, as you’d expect from the man behind the label, the latest from Club 8 continues on with Labrador’s ethic and spirit ten fold.