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Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom, oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.

After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her music into new territory. The resulting work, Un-American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.

Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.

While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-best- thought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed, slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout, however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.

Un-American Activities is the 11th Studio album by Molly Nilsson. Written and recorded entirely on location in California at the former home of writer, poet and early opponent of the National Socialist regime in 1930s Germany, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. An album of experimentation, genre-mashing and, above it all, Nilsson’s instantly recognisable melodic skill and empathy, it continues the songwriter’s explorations of power, freedom, oppression and its opposing force, a love unbound.

After accepting an artist residency as part of the Villa Aurora program, Nilsson began work crafting a new album from scratch in a new environment, afforded the freedom, space and time to challenge her practice and take her music into new territory. The resulting work, Un-American Activities, is a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an “enemy of the state” by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought and the human spirit that pervades all of Nilsson’s best work. It is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.

Along with the novel use of colour and photography in the artwork for Un-American Activities, there are swathes of new techniques, genres and timbres new to Molly Nilsson’s music in evidence, 16 years into her music career. On Jackboots Return is an icicle-cold New Beat track that deals directly with the current situation in Germany and the resurgent Nazi-affiliated AfD. The question the song asks is, what’s the timeframe we’re talking about? Is this the 30s, or somewhere a lot closer to home? The beat is picked up on The Communist Party, Nilsson’s deepest bow to House music, evoking the early 90s Rave pioneers, Belgian 80s music and Vogue-era Madonna. Here the lyrics are direct quotes from the McCarthy-era, anti-Communist pamphlet 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the U.S.A. The Beauty Of The Duty does to pounding Electro what Nilsson’s last album Extreme did to Metal: subsume it into the Molly Nilsson aesthetic. It goes hard.

While Un-American Activities finds Nilsson experimenting, creating instinctive music on a first-thought-best- thought basis there are still “classic” Molly moments liberally spread throughout. Excalibur feels like the Molly of old, an absolute star of a chorus refrain smudged with the vaseline of fuzz and hope, Red Telephone is wide-eyed, slathered in reverb and chorus effects, distorted with soaring melody, a heart-tugger that tugs the body upwards to the heavens with each evolving wave. Glistening digital tones wash through the album, providing a Y2K etherealness to Nilsson’s audacious Stars and Stripes reference to Wetcheeks. Perhaps the album’s standout, however, is Palestine (Somewhere Over The Rainbow), which is suffuse with empathy, solidarity and, in referencing the classic socialist-penned canon song from The Wizard Of Oz, speaks directly to the tradition of fighting oppression with full hearts of hope.

Als die amerikanische Indie-Pop-Koryphäe Clairo Spin sagte, sie würde sich vom Lärm der Musikindustrie zurückziehen und ein asketisches Leben in den Bergen von New York führen, befürchteten die Fans, dass sie für immer wegbleiben würde. Drei Jahre später taucht die rätselhafte Singer-Songwriterin, geborene Claire Cottrill, mit ihrem bezaubernden dritten Studioalbum wieder auf: Charm. Charm wurde mit Hilfe von Leon Michels (von The Dap-Kings und El Michels Affair) produziert und ist eine Sammlung warmer Grooves im 70er-Jahre-Stil, die sich geschmeidig zwischen Jazz, psychedelischem Folk und Soul bewegen und an laue Sommerabende erinnern.

Passenger feiert das 10-jährige Jubiläum der Veröffentlichung seines Multi-Platin-Albums und des weltweiten Phänomens "Let Her Go" mit Neuaufnahmen und namhaften Kollaborationen.

Vor einem Jahrzehnt veröffentlichte der britische Singer/Songwriter Mike Rosenberg, besser bekannt als Passenger, sein Durchbruchsalbum "All The Little Lights" mit dem Welthit "Let Her Go". Die Jahre vor der Albumveröffentlichung waren voller persönlicher und beruflicher Veränderungen, die ihn als Straßenmusiker durch Großbritannien und schließlich nach Australien führten, wo er das Album aufnahm, das sein Leben veränderte. Mit Milliarden von Streams, Nummer-Eins-Alben und zahllosen ausverkauften Welttourneen ist Passenger nun bereit, diese Ära mit einem neuen Album, "All The Little Lights (Anniversary Edition)", zu feiern, das am 10. November erscheinen wird.

Mit einem Jahrzehnt mehr Erfahrung und zahlreichen geschlossenen Freundschaften hat Passenger das Album komplett neu interpretiert, arrangiert und aufgenommen. Dabei haben ihm Wegbegleiter wie Foy Vance, Gabrielle Aplin, Nina Nesbitt und sein langjähriger Freund Ed Sheeran geholfen. Der Charakter der Originalsongs bleibt dabei erhalten, aber Passenger haucht den lang gereisten Stücken mit den neuen Versionen neues Leben ein. Musikalisch vielfältiger, stimmlich stärker und von einer kühnen Schönheit durchdrungen, strahlt "All The Little Lights" heller als je zuvor.