Bella Union have just revealed their latest signing; Stockholm based artist Maria Lindén, who records under the name of I Break Horses. Undoubtedly named after the Smog classic, Lindén’s music couldn’t be further distanced from the morose folk laments of Bill Callahan and co. See, it’s not just sparkly pop music that Sweden excel at – there is also a very healthy shoegaze revival that’s been happening over the past few years. In fact Lindén’s other band, Blackstrap (who she plays keyboard for), have been at the heart of the scene for years now – though unfortunately haven’t made it over to the UK shores yet.
(Interesting fact?) Blackstrap were one of the very first bands I wrote about when The Line Of Best Fit was meerly a tiny blogspot account back in 2006! Memories, eh?
Currently the I Break Horses MySpace is the only place to hear Maria’s woozy, spiralling music. We’ll try and get an mp3 or two for you soon but for now head over to her page to check out ‘Hearts’, ‘Pulse’ and ‘All Of My Tears’: www.myspace.com/ibreakhorsesandhearts
I can offer you some Blackstrap mp3′s though. The epic call to arms that is ‘Winning Speech’, and ‘Rough Parade’ in which Lindén takes shared lead vocals with frontman Jonatan Westh. Both tracks are taken from the groups sophomore album from 2007 Steal My Horses And Run.
mp3:> Blackstrap: ‘Winning Speech’
mp3:> Blackstrap: ‘Rough Parade’
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