Tag: Djustin Voyagers

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Club 8 Returns with Breezy “ooo”

Throughout the course of this site’s nearly 15-year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink on Stockholm-based duo Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård. And as you will likely recall, the JOVM mainstay act formed back in 1995, initially as a recording project, before expanding into a full-fledged touring band.

Throughout the Stockholm-based outfit’s three decade history, they’ve had a long-held reputation for being sonically restless and notoriously difficult to pigeonhole. Their full-length debut, 1995’s Nouvelle saw the duo tackling Bossa nova. 1998’s The Friend I Once Had saw the duo exploring electronic pop and electronic dance music. The Swedish outfit’s next three albums — 2001’s self-titled, 2002’s Spring Came, Rain Fell and 2003’s Strangely Beautiful — saw the duo dabbling with old-school-inspired soul. 

2017-2018 may have arguably been one of the more prolific and busiest periods of Angergård’s lengthy career: With his solo recording project The Legends, he released Nightshift. Djustin, his collaboration with Rose Suau released their full-length debut Voyagers. He closed that period with Club 8’s 10th album, 2018’s Golden Island, which featured “The Hospital,” one of the most industrial/goth-leaning tracks the pair have ever released. 

Last year, the Swedish JOVM mainstays released their 11th album, A Year With Club 8, which featured the Joy Division/New Order-meets-The Raveonettes-like “Something’s Wrong With My Head,” a woozily blissful and escapist song that continued a run of material dabbling in 80s New Wave nostalgia.

The Stockholm-based outfit begin the new year with their latest single, “ooo,” the follow-up to last year’s A Year With Club 8. “ooo,” seemingly continues where their 11th album left off — breezy and escapist, New Wave-inspired pop featuring shimmering guitars and driving grooves paired with ethereal yet expressive vocals.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed back in 1995, Stockholm-based duo Club 8 — Karolina Komstedt (vocals) and electronic music producer, artist and Labrador Records founder and label boss Johan Angergård — initially began as a recording project, before expanding into a full-fledged touring band.

Throughout their nearly three decade history, the Swedish pop outfit has a long-held reputation for being sonically restless and notoriously difficult to pigeonhole. Their full-length debut, 1995’s Nouvelle saw the duo tackling Bossa nova. 1998’s The Friend I Once Had saw the duo exploring electronic pop and electronic dance music. The Swedish outfit’s next three albums — 2001’s self-titled, 2002’s Spring Came, Rain Fell and 2003’s Strangely Beautiful — saw the duo dabbling with old-school-inspired soul.

2017-2018 may have arguably been one of the more prolific and busiest periods of Angergård’s lengthy career: With his solo recording project The Legends, he released Nightshift. Djustin, the Labrador Records founder and label boss’ collaboration with Rose Suau released their full-length debut, Voyagers. He closed that period out with Club 8’s 10th album, 2018’s Golden Island, which featured “The Hospital,” one of the most industrial/goth-leaning tracks the pair have ever released.

Over the past year, the Swedish duo have released a batch of singles, including their latest, the recently released “Sucker.” Anchored around incredibly catchy hooks, shimmering, reverb-soaked guitars and a relentless motorik groove serving as a lush bed for Komstedt’s ethereal croon, “Sucker” sees the Stockholm-based outfit dabbling in dance floor friendly, hook-driven 80s New Wave nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

I’ve written quite a bit about Stockholm, Sweden-based indie electro pop act Club 8 throughout the course of this site’s nine-plus year history. The act, which features Labrador Records label head and incredibly prolific and eclectic producer and electronic music artist Johan Angergård and vocalist Karolina Komstedt has a long-held reputation for being difficult to pigeonhole sonically: With the release of their debut album 1995’s Nouvelle, the duo initially was a Bossa nova-inspired pop act. However, with 1998’s The Friend I Once Had was a decided sonic left turn for the duo. with the material primarily being electro pop and electronic dance music.  The duo’s next three albums, which were released between 2001 and 2003 found them dabbling in old school soul.

2017 began an incredibly prolific and busy period for Angergård: his solo recording and production project The Legends released an album; Djustin, his collaboration with Rose Suau released their full-length debut Voyagers; and Club 8 released their ninth album Lost. Now, some time has passed since I’ve last written about the Stockholm-based JOVM mainstays — but this year has been busy for the acclaimed duo. They released a single earlier this year that landed on Hype Machine‘s Top 5. And following up on the momentum of that single, the duo’s latest track “The Hospital” may arguably be the most industrial/goth-leaning bit of material they’ve released in some time. Centered around thumping, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, layers of shimmering and arpeggiated synths and Komstedt’s breathy and ethereal vocals, the club banging track manages to subtly recall the likes of Depeche Mode and Soft Metals. And while being a dance floor friendly anthem, the song finds the duo at their most contemplative: the song’s narrator is in a hospital bed, acutely aware that the end may be near — but desperately hoping that it isn’t.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years of its seven year history, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts featuring the work of Stockholm, Sweden-based electronic music producer, electronic music artist and Labrador Records label head Johan Angergård, who’s best known for his work with Karolina Komstedt in Club 8, with Rose Suau in Djutstin and his solo recording project The Legends. Now, Club 8 Angergård’s collaboration with Komstedt has a long-held reputation for a being difficult to pigeonhole sonically or aesthetically.  The duo, which initially formed in 1995 began as a Bossa Nova-inspired act with the release of their debut effort, Nouvelle; however, their 1998 sophomore effort The Friend I Once Had, the duo went through a complete and radical change in sonic direction, with the album’s material being entirely electronic and electronic dance music-leaning. Further cementing a reputation for being musical chameleons, the duo’s next three albums, released between 2001 and 2003 were featured old school soul-leaning material.

Throughout the bulk of Club 8’s catalog, Angergård had been the taken up all production duties — until 2013’s Above the City, which had the band working with an outside producer for the first time. However, Angergård returned to producing the duo’s work with 2015’s Pleasure, an album that Karolina Komstedt explained was about “love, sex and jealousy.” And you may recall that I wrote about album singles, “Late Night” a melancholic look at a love affair that starts off passionate before eventually cooling off; “Skin,” a decadent song that channeled Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

2017 has been an extremely busy year for Angergård. His solo project The Legends released a solo album earlier this year, Djustin released their long-anticipated full-length debut Voyagers last month and Club 8 released their ninth, full-length effort Lost yesterday.  Lost‘s latest single, the slow-burning and moody album title track “Lost” pairs Komstedt breathily tender vocals with a production featuring chiming percussion and a chopped up and distorted vocal sample. As Komstedt explains in press notes “We’ve tried to step away from standard instrumentation and perhaps sound a little less typically western on ‘Lost.'” In fact, because of its chiming and propulsive percussion, the song possesses a hypnotic and Eastern-inspired quality reminiscent of Wolkoff‘s work with Icarus Moth — but a chilly yet sultry vibe.