Day 467

The Slow Summits: I love the band from Linköping. They know how to craft perfect pop songs. I don’t understand yet how come they haven’t released a record. They should. A 7″ would be wonderful. There latest song “Then Again” is a fine pop slice. Would be a great single!

Starry Eyed Cadet: the San Francisco band doesn’t need an introduction. They are wonderful. They are another favourite band of the blog. They know how to make gorgeous songs. Their latest is no exception, “Feathers”, which is also their first release on Lilystars Records.

Pelopincho: I shared a video a few posts ago for one of the songs from Pelopincho’s latest album “Loop Adolescente”. Well, now the whole album, all 8 songs, are up on Bandcamp for us to enjoy. The Buenos Aires band is also another favourite, one of the best of Argentina. Just wish their releases were available in physical format!

Subterfuge: now we head to Düsseldorf, Germany. “Stephanie Said” is the first song the band has released since 2017! This song will be included in the band’s forthcoming album “Dots”. We don’t know when will it be released, but it will mark 30 years since the German popsters starting making music back in 1991!

Spearmint: the classic English back will be releasing a new album on September 10th on the fine WIAIWYA Records that our friend Jerv runs in London. The album will be available as a double gatefold 10″ vinyl. Pretty pretty. Right now we can preview one of the songs, “Walk Away from Hollywood”, out of 14! Yeah. This is great. I can’t wait to hear all songs. I’m sure it will be great as al previous records by “Britain’s best kept secret”.

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15 or so years ago I discovered Stella Rocket from Stockholm. It was the time of Myspace and that’s exactly where I found about them. I really liked them then and since I haven’t listened to them much. But yeah, I was a fan, and I think it would be a good time to revisit them.

The band actually had formed much earlier, in 2001. I think I must have discovered them around 2004. The band was formed by Tove Leander (vocals, guitars and strings), Tobias Larsson (bass), Andreas Lindkvist (drums) and Linda Portnoff (vocals and keyboards).

The band’s first release was the self-titled album from 2004. It was self-released (SR 001) on CD. It was recorded at Studio Gröndal at Dubious Studios and mastered at Polar Studios. The album included 11 songs, “Stella Anthem”, “Animals”, “Regret”, “Tokyo”, “Distance”, “I Don’t Want it”, “Why Don’t You Love Me?”, “Empty Hands”, “Bapada”, “Speed” and “With You”.

The engineers for this record were Björn Hansell, Christoffer Roth, Johan Gustanfsson and Pelle Gunnerfeldt. So many! For mastering we just see the credit for Henrik Jonsson. The producer was the great Jari Hapalainen from Céleste, Mary-Go-Round, The Bear Quartet and more.

Other credits in the record include Jezzica Sunmo on photography and Lisa Rydell for the sleeve artwork.

But one thing I notice is that Jenny Kai-Larsen was the vocalist (as well as doing the art) on this record.

In 2004 the band would release the “Animals” CD single. This one was released by Planekonomi (PLAN6). The recording credits are the same as in the album. The CD single included the title song as well as the lovely track “Lips”. One thing to note is that the band made a video for the song “Animals” which I actually uploaded myself to Youtube back in 2006!! And it is still there!

In 2009 the band would release more records. They would also sign to a new label, Fashionpolice Records.

Not sure if the album or the CD single came first. But I’ll start with the CD single “Keep On”. This one was released by the aforementioned label (FP0032) and included the songs “Keep On” and “Gothenburg Boys”. The songs were mixed by Mattias Glavå and were mastered by Alf Håkan Åkesson at the Cutting Room.

Lastly the band released the album “To the Birds” on Fashionpolice Records (FP0036) in 2009. This album included 11 tracks, “To the Birds”, “Keep On”, “Tomorrow”, “Old Nuns”, “Black Rabbit”, “Single Inga”, “Thérèse”, “My Princess”, “A Face Without Eyes”, “Sebastian” and “Stella Anthem #2”.

According to the Swedish Wikipedia I am missing another releases, a CD single from 2007 with the song “Armstrong”. I haven’t been able to find any information about it.

And yeah, no compilation appearances.

Not great. Not much info. I start looking for the band members, if they had been in any other bands. I don’t see Tove to appear on any other bands, though she did do backing vocals on the second album by Jari Hapalainen’s band Heikki. It is the same case for Linda. No other bands but backing vocals on the “Open Field” album by Taken by Trees.

That’s strange. No other bands for any of the members of Stella Rocket!

I keep looking. I believe the band played some gigs or a gig with The Tough Alliance back in 2004. That same year the band performed at the famous Emmaboda Festival. Another gig I find about is one from 2010, on March 22nd at the Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.

I don’t have an account on the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper and can’t get behind the firewall. But there I notice that Jenny Kai-Larsen left the band after the first album, and it was the remaining members who continued and released the second album.

And that’s all the info I could gather. I am sure many of my Swedish friends remember them. I believe there was a buzz about the band, people thought they could have been bigger than they ended up being. Would be great to know what are they up to these days.

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Listen
Stella Rocket – Animals