Last Wednesday MeroMero&More's favourite Kanazawa label Rallye released an excellent snapshot of today's Swedish semi-alternative music scene. I talked to Rallye´s Fuminori Chikakoshi, the Swedish coordinator Kristofer Lecander, aka Panache, and the participating Stockholmers of Lo-Fi-Fnk. The feature was aired last Wednesday by P3 Musikjournalen, and you can listen to it by clicking the "Onsdag" link on their homepage. That is until Wednesday August 31. It starts at around 34 minutes into the show and lasts for about 14 minutes.

If this makes you wanna hear more about Rallye, check out our feature show on the label here.

Read also the great article on Swim Sweet Swedish in the Swedish morning paper Sydsvenskan by Marcus Joons. It's not published on the web yet, but it should be up here any time soon I hope.

Earlier this summer I went to Paris and had the pleasant opportunity to have a chat with Alan Braxe, the excellent French house producer. Swedish public service radio's music show P3 Musikjournalen broadcasted the interview on Tuesday this week. You can listen to it until August 23 with RealPlayer by using this link and then clicking "Tisdag" on the left side of the page. The interview starts at around 37 minutes into the show and lasts for about 12 minutes.

...but turns out to be a Finnish wannabe-Russian. This one is rather explicit if you're in the know of the Swedish language.

Time for the elepop show to turn up at MeroMero&More!! It features interviews with Macdonald Duck Eclair and NYC's very own pico pico-guru Trevor Sias of Music Related.

Now it's over 4 months since the show was made and when re-listening to it I hear a lot of things that easily could be improved, radiowise. Great to hear the MDDE members again though, they just seem to be the nicest people! I really hope the work with their 2nd album, re-scheduled for a fall-release, is coming along well.

The MDDE interview was made in Japanese and translated/presented in English, the Trevor Sias-one was all in English and the rest of the show was presented in Swedish.

Some guy left a confusing message on my voice mail a couple of days ago. I think he speaks in Swedish, German and English and tries to put a Russian touch on everything. MeroMero&More goes a little more private and shares it all.

The second MeroMero was originally broadcasted on February 9 and featured an acoustic live recording of the legendary Flipper's Guitar from December 1989. Keigo Oyamada (Cornelius) and Kenji Ozawa performed half a dozen songs as a duo at the Yoyogi Chocolate City. We also had a live report of a gig with Yuka Honda (ex-Cibo Matto)'s performance band Panikaraqs, and a rather negative review of Capsule's latest album. All in Swedish though.

We've finally got something we can call summer here in southern Sweden, so it's time for MeroMero to go on a short break. During this time the back catalogue will be made available in mp3-format here at MeroMero&More. Every month, two episodes from earlier this year will be uploaded. First out, the opening show of 2005, a retrospective of the Japanese music year 2004. The show is made in Swedish and as it's the first one, expect some teething troubles.

Songs by among others Kazumasa Hashimoto, Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, Tommy February6, Sonic Coaster Pop, Electroacoustic Jazz Trio and Nomoto Karia.

He is not just the younger brother of Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Play Paul also makes the funkiest electro at the moment. But what does he really think about Human After All?

"I love it.. hehe.. but I know that 90% of the people who talk about the album don't like it. I think the only people who like it used to listen to rock, and that's also why I love it!"

Paul is fed up with house and r'n'b. He accepts that he has a Justin Timberlake-like voice, and that he's not as much of a dancer as Michael Jackson. Yet. Hear him talk, sing and play!

If you're in Sweden or Denmark you can catch him live this week. Tonight Malmoe, tomorrow Stockholm and on Saturday Copenhagen.

A feature on the brilliant Rallye Label, including interviews with the main man Fuminori Chikakoshi, and his new Swedish signing Panache. For fans of beautiful electronic pop music and The Avalanches.

Playlist Update
Akt Apart - Lazy
Folon - Lostpony
Pandatone feat. Midori Hamada - Wondering
Pop Levi - Rude Kind Of Love
Certainly, Sir - The Vacant Lot Of My Heart
Coralie - Cloudy
Differnet feat. Action Biker - Albuquerque
Panache - Disco In The Sky
Panache - Remington Blues
Panache - When There's No Tomorrow (pt. 1)
Panache - When There's No Tomorrow (pt. 2)
Lifelike - Running Out (Extended Version)

This week's show includes two interviews. Apila, a japanese songwriter and guitarpop artist, who has worked with Teenage Fanclub and The Pastels tells us about surprising recording habits in Glasgow and her relation to football. Okii Reiji, who was the main man behind The Cymbals, informs us on future plans and lets us listen to one of his new demo recordings. Extras: Music from Asako Toki(also ex-Cymbals) and Citrobal.

This time in English!!!

Playlist update
Apila - One More Kiss
Apila - Gentle Sound
Apila - Snow Dome
Apila - Beckham Song
Annie - Me Plus One
Apila - Puzzle
Neil&Iraiza - Human Dust Bin
Cymbals - Show Business
Cymbals - Wingspan
Cymbals - Mr.Noone Special
Cymbals - Do You Believe In Magic?
Okii Reiji - Diver (Demo)
Citrobal - Gimme Gimme
Asako Toki - Another Star
Citrobal - Youth