Day 272.
Stephen’s Shore: a few days ago we were very excited to listen to “Brisbane Radio” by our Stockholm friends! Now the band has finally unveiled a second song from their upcoming 7″. It is called “Skogen” and again it is really good. Jangly, elegant, just what I needed to listen today. This 7″ will be out on January 22nd and they are already taking pre-orders.
The Hannah Barberas: wow! A new EP by the Hannah Barberas! And it is one that is perfect for this season. The “Winter EP” is out now digitally with three perfect Christmas songs, “Happy Winter”, “Can You Hear the Snowfall?” and “Holiday Hymn”. Add them to your Christmas mixtape!
The Catherines: another band that has a Christmas song is the Hamburg duo The Catherines. The song is called “I’ve Heard They Called Off Christmas” and is being released as a digital single with “I Doubt He’s in a Good Mood” as a sort of B side. Both tracks are nice, as one person commented in their Bandcamp, perfect indiepop tunes!
The Fisherman and his Soul: “The Last Wasp of the Year” is another X-mas single, this time from Münster, Germany! It is a great video as we see a lot of familiar faces in it! The song is fun too, and it is also available on Bandcamp here. Don’t miss it! It is being released as a CD single and it is verly limited. Only 9 copies are available at the time of writing this!
The Lousy Pop Group: the latest release on the Thessaloniki, Greece, label Melotron Recordings is a CD by this great Indonesian band, a Cloudberry favourite for a long time. The CD seems to be sold out already, and it will include 4 songs. We can preview one of them, “Days”. On top of it, the record has art by our friend Casio van Doesburg. Top release.
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So a Swedish band that took their name from the song “Punky’s Dilemma” by the American duo Simon & Garfunkel (from their 4th studio album, “Bookends” from 1968). A Swedish band that was around in the 2000s and, released a few CDs and then went silent until 2013 when Jigsaw Records put out a posthumous album. So join me and see what we can find out about them!
For many the introduction to Punky’s Dilemma was through Shelflife Records and their CDR series. The 11th CDR on the series was the “‘neath The Staring Skies” by Punky’s Dilemma and a lot of us fell in love with the swedes. This EP had 6 songs, “Airliner”, “Not if I Lose”, “Dream MTV”, “For Sale”, “Century of Time” and “Grace”. There were only 100 copies of this CD made, and I still don’t have a copy myself! But thanks to Discogs we know some of the credits.
So the main songwriter was Mikael Calner. Then listed as choir are Björn Stegmann, Hanna Calner, Camilla Sjeren, Carl-Otto, Lena, Lisa, Markus and Martin. It also says that the CD featured The Beautiful Aircraft Choir.
This CD was released in 2003 and you wonder how did Shelflife find out about them. Perhaps there was a demo CD before it? It would be good to find out. In any case there next release was a self-released album called “Scandinavia” in 2005.
This seems even rarer. The cover art shows a building and its windows. Maybe somewhere in Sweden? We know the CDR album had 10 songs, “Radiosonic”, “Century of Time”, “A Side Effect of Violence”, “City People”, “Airliner”, “Dream MTV”, “For Sale”, “Scandinavia”, “Not if I Lose” and “Grace”.
Then in 2006 the band would sign to Junk Musik, a label that had released the terrific Brainpool, and put out the “Echelon EP” (JNKS 0518). This one had 5 songs, “Shooting Stars”, “A Side Effect of Violence”, “Echelon”, “Century of Time” and “Scandinavia”. The photos for this EP are credited to both Mikael and Hanna, and the design to Markus Slivka. Christoffer Lundquist mastered, mixed and produced.
Something that may answer how Shelflife heard about the band is that the band appeared on the compilation “The Sound of Young Sweden – Volume 3” from 2002. This compilation was put out by Labrador Records (LAB034) and they had two songs on it, “Century of Time” and “Dream MTV”
Another compilation appearance would be on the “Puzzle Pieces” double CD comp released by Jigsaw (PZL05). There the band would contribute “City People”.
So now let’s get back to the 2013 album that Jigsaw released. It is called “Remote Sensing” (PZL029) and that one is still available. I recommend everyone to get a copy. It has 11 songs, “Shooting Stars”, “Dream MTV”, “Echelon”, “Radiosonic”, “A Side Effect of Violence”, “Scandinavia”, “For Sale”, “Century of Time”, “Grace”, “Halfway” and “Airliner”. According to Jigsaw this release revisits older songs, older songs that were re-recorded the way it it should have been. So what does this mean? That they recorded them again when? 2013? Would be a good thing to find out.
The CD gives a little bit more information. It says all music and lyrics are credited to Mikael Calner but “Shooting Stars” and “Grace” which were written by Mikael and Hanna Calner. Were they husband and wife? Maybe brother and sister? In any case most of the songs were recorded, mixed, and mastered by Christoffer Lundquist in the Aerosol Grey Machine Studio in Vallarum. Vallarum seems a very small town sort of in the middle of nowhere in Skåne. The songs “Radiosonic”, “Grace” and “Halfway” were produced, recorded and mixed by Björn Stegmann in a few places, the same studio as before, in an apartment on Sturegatan street in Malmö and at Tongeneration Studio also in Malmö. I wonder then if the band hailed from Malmö? It could be.
Other info worth mentioning is that the photography on this CD is credited to Michael Martin from Germany, the sleeve design to the band and the strings on tracks “Shooting Stars” and “Scandinavia” were played by Christoffer Lundquist. You can listen to the album here too.
I find then that Björn Stegmann who produced the band was in the band Thirdimension who had a few records on Telegram Records.
Then a blog called Le Journal des Mouches has a 2006 post about the band. Here they mention the band started in 2001 a s a trio with Mikael Calner on vocals and guitar, Hanna Calner on backing vocals and percussion and Camilla Sjeren on keyboards and piano. They also mentuin the band has played around in Malmö in venues like Inkonst, KB and Glassfabriken. Dear… I feel old reading these names that at one point I dreamed of visiting and attending. It’s been a while since I visited Malmö. When will I go again?!
And then one amazing thing I didn’t remember. Punky’s Dilemma played in Malmö alongside my friends of The Sunny Street on November 30, 2007, at Blekingska, in Lund. Really wow. That must have been a beautiful gig.
I keep digging and finally find what I was looking for. The early demo! So, in 2002 the band released a demo CD produced by Björn Stegmann. This CD had 6 songs, “Airliner”, “Not if I Lose”, “Dream MTV”, “For Sale”, “Century of Time and Grace”. I knew there was a release I was missing!
Okay, so that was good detective work. Still it’d be great to know more about the band. What happened to the band members? Are they still making musi
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