Ever since ABBA, the Swedes have been remarkably reliable at producing melodically-gifted acts, known to often coat their songs in the most sugary of musical arrangements. The last couple years have been especially fruitful for the European nation’s music community, with Peter Bjorn and John, Jens Lekman, Robyn, and a wealth of other bands and artists achieving respectable levels of international indie stardom. A Camp, the awkwardly named solo side-project of Cardigans singer Nina Persson, unsurprisingly offers no great deviation from the irresistible melodic pop of the aforementioned artists. On Colonia, Perrson pays tribute to the girl groups of the 60s like The Crystals and The Ronettes musically – “Here Are Wild Animals” goes so far as to start off with a round of harmonic “ooooh weeee ooooh ooooh”s accompanied by the classic “Be My Baby” drum beat – though lyrically it’s a different matter.

Though Persson sounds just as starry-eyed and adorable as her predecessors, she delivers her sentiment from the perspective of one who’s been there, done there, been hurt, and learned her lessons the hard way. “Darling, darling/The moon went out to the night/And I’m caught like a doe in your headlights,” Persson sings in “My America,” which essentially spells out the thesis of the album: this “love” thing is gonna be the death of me. “Don’t you know love can kill anyone?…You know love can do you like a shotgun,” she sings in “Stronger Than Jesus”/ If the old-school girl groups made their money off songs about the hope and promise of young love and romance, Persson is out to make hers by destroying all those old fashioned illusions.

From a casual listen, the album sounds sunny and cheerful with its array of lush orchestration, harmonies and tinkling pianos, when really, it couldn’t be more cynical and bitter. For starters, you won’t hear a line like, “Let us raise our glasses to murderous asses like you/may you sleep soundly,” from the song “The Crowning”, delivered in a more elegant manner anywhere else this year. Then in the heartbreaking “I Signed the Line”, a song about getting divorced, Persson sings, “Don’t send me letters in bottles anymore/And don’t come a knockin’ or darken my door/We’ve got a contract, devotion nevermore…I signed the line that was dotted/I like to end what I started/I signed the line and I realized a lot of lies.” Titles like, “Love Has Left The Room” don’t require much explanation. And so on it goes.

While Persson’s cynicism and smart-ass approach to romance is endearing to some extent, a whole twelve songs of it soon becomes grating, with Persson offering no hope or respite from her bitterness, but simply continuous proclaiming that love is a tantalizing, torturous presence on Earth that makes life intolerably miserable. Though every track sounds really, really pretty, Colonia’s lack of musical and lyrical diversity make it a difficult album to sit through.

Tracklisting:
01. The Crowning
02. Stronger Than Jesus
03. Bear On The Beach
04. Love Has Left The Room
05. Golden Teeth And Silver Medals
06. Here Are Many Wild Animals
07. Chinatown
08. My America
09. Eau De Colonia
10. I Signed The Line
11. It’s Not Easy To Be Human
12. The Weed Had Got There First

A Camp: website | myspace | @ the record bar

If you’re still stuck in 90s mode listening to “Lovefool”, by the Caridgans, it is time to get with the present. Nina Persson’s, of the Cardigans, current project, A Camp, has blossomed into a strong alternative pop group filled with lush instrumental landscapes and Persson’s distinctive voice that blends the best of Andrea Corr with Jenny Lewis.

Currently touring behind the release of the group’s second album (first in US), Colonia, A Camp played the Record Bar for a small but enthusiastic audience. Canada’s Gentleman Reg opened. The white-capped Reg sang indie rock tunes in a high-range voice that almost sounded falsetto, without really being falsetto. When his female keyboard player joined him on vocals, the group sounded a little like Los Campesinos if Brian Aubert of the Silversun Pickups was the singer in place of Gareth. The group was tight in their skills, but lackluster in their lack of movement and stage dynamic.

In contrast to the opener, A Camp made use of every inch of stage and treated each song almost as if it were a theatrical performance. Persson threw her arms up over her head, clutched her heart, and reached for the crowd in time with the music. Her husband, Nathan Larson, on bass would matched her twisty arm movements with dance moves as his own and guitarist Niclas Frisk, popped his collar and raised his guitar up high. Often their songs were constructed and presented in such a way that it would have been just as easy to have used A Camp songs to do a musical and movie instead of Abba.

Although the Record Bar is already an intimate venue, A Camp made it even more so by decorating the stage in hanging lanterns, partitions, and a sparkly sign over the keyboard reading “A Camp.” The Victorian decorations worked well with the feelings and emotions behind the music and when even the stage decorations were not enough, Persson’s would ask “Dr. Light” to bring down the lights even more.

The set was a balance of songs off Colonia, A Camp and the soon to be released Covers EP (out June 9). While songs like “Angel of Sadness”, “Algebra”, and “My America” were crowd favorites, Nina Persson’s duet with opener Reg on “Golden Teeth and Silver Medals” was the heart of the performance. Holding hands and pulling each other close, Persson ended the heartfelt song about “how you can’t sometimes get what you’re hoping for, but you get second best and that can be fine” by resting her head on Reg’s shoulder in a tender moment.

A Camp ended with “Stronger than Jesus” before returning for a two song encore and genuinely thanking the audience asking them back and for saving them from the smoking patio. Perhaps continuing the theatrical trend or perhaps simply because they are one of the nicest and sweetest bands you’d ever see, A Camp completed the show with a bow and a curtsy.

Check A Camp out on tour and look out for their Covers EP on June 9th featuring covers of Daniel Johnston, Grace Jones, David Bowie and more.

Set List:
The Crowning
Love Has Left the Room
Frequent Flyer
Angel of Sadness
Walking the Cow (Daniel Johnston)
Golden Teeth and Silver Medals
I’ve Done It Again (Grace Jones)
Bear on the Beach
I Signed the Line
Algebra
I Can Buy You
Chinatown
My America
Stronger than Jesus
//
Song for the Leftovers
???

A Camp: website | myspace

Photos by: Scott Spychalski

What exactly do Abba, Robin Thicke and Akon have in common? Very little other thank this exclusive Popwreckoning giveaway.

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SlotMusic: website
Robin Thicke: website | myspace
Akon: website | myspace
ABBA: website