The Record Union expedition to Peace and Love was a huge success. The Record Union team had great responses from all the people coming to chat to us at the Record Union tent. However, the highlight of the festival for us was undoubtedly the 3 extraordinary performances by Boris Valdes, Frantic Sunday and Lissi Dancefloor Disaster, who took the stage at the Record Union P&L Showcase on Saturday. The turn out was impressive and the bands definitely did not disappoint.

The crooning accoustic melodies by Boris and his band captured the audience as if in a spell. Frantic Sunday, with their incredible onstage energy and quality delivery certainly gave their audience more than they could ever have bargained for. And Lissi Dancefloor Disaster, well, their talent combined with the guest appearances of Sophie Rimheden and rapper Henry Bowers quickly turned the dancefloor into a riotous effervescent frenzy.

Check the slideshow below for some pictures. We would like to thank Joakim Kvist ans Oscar Omne of Rock Foto for taking them. If you are having trouble with the slideshow, you can check them out on our Flickr page.

Lissi Dancefloor Disaster are the third band joining us at Peace & Love this week. The Uppsala based electronic dancepunk duo of Josefin Lindh and Johan Tilli have been making infectious, danceable music since November 2007. They have been described as “punk meets sleek electronica” and create enough energy in their live shows to power a small african country. Here is the video for their latest offering featuring Henry Bowers who will be joining them on stage at P&L.

Check out more of their music over at their myspace then put on your dancing shoes and head over to the Orion stage on saturday at 1:15am to catch them. Oh, and don’t forget to come find us for a chat at the Record Union tent in the middle of the festival ground… we have snacks!

Here comes a little update on the second of the bands playing for us at Peace & Love, Swedens biggest festival later this week.

Frantic Sunday are a four piece from Uppsala in Sweden who have been making people jump around to their brand of explosive pop-rock since 2008. They have just released their new EP ‘Sunday School’ via Record Union and the boys have been getting compliments left, right and center from the bloggers and critics over here. We can’t wait to see them on stage later this week!

If you can’t make it to the festival then you can listen to the new EP “Sunday School” here … turn it up, close your eyes, jump around, throw some beer over yourself and imagine you are there!

They will be gracing the Orion Stage at 23:15 - 23:45 on Saturday night.

Check out more at their myspace

As you may know by now, we have a few artists from the Record Union camp playing at the Peace & Love festival in Borlänge next week. We want to introduce those of you who are lucky enough to have a ticket to one of our acts Boris Valdes. We will be introducing you to the other two acts over the coming week.

Malmö native Boris plays acoustic guitar and will be joined on stage by a full band at P&L. The music is made up of soulful, acoustic melodies, his voice filling each song with emotion and depth. Fans of José González, Ben Harper etc will find their influences in his music, but it is fair to say Boris brings something quite special into the mix. You can give him a listen in the video below.

Boris will be releasing his new album via Record Union later this year for those of you who want to get your hands on some more of his music. He will be playing on Saturday the 27th at the Orion stage from 21:15 - 21:45. Make sure you come find us at the RU festival tent, near the center of the festival ground!

It’s really nice to see so many of you using our service and visiting our pages. We like to take a peek at the music artists who are using the site are uploading each day too. The standard of music so far has been incredibly high and we have each found ourselves some new favorite musical nuggets.

One such ‘nugget’ is the Swedish label Knoppar who have uploaded a great debut album by their artist Tvärvägen. Titled ‘Sånger från Tvärvägen’ it features 9 tracks of acoustic pop with a wide range of instrumentation. Check the album page out here. The highlight of the album is the single ‘September’ which you can watch the video for below. It is a simple, warm, melancholy song which makes you feel like someone just wrapped you up in a duvet, handed you a hot chocolate and told you not to go in to work today.

Tvärvägen - September from Henrik Ohberg on Vimeo.

Good friends of Knoppar and outstanding artists in their own right are Winter Took His Life, Euphoria & The Lazy Boy, and of course the amazing Hajen who has been receiving praise left, right and centre in her native Sweden and will be performing in a church at this years Way Out West festival… a gig not to be missed if you are there! The artists are building up their followings after the very succesful Dirtfarming and Logging tour around Germany and Sweden last month. You will be hearing a lot more about these artists all over the internet in future. Tvärvägen is currently still touring, so catch him if you can!

Look out for releases from all these artists coming up on Record Union very soon! For now though, sit back and enjoy the Tvärvägen video and don’t forget to head to iTunes in a few weeks and buy the album.

Dear friends. Record Union is pleased to announce that we will be collaborating with the Peace & Love festival this summer, selecting artists to perform at infamous P&L Showcase. Peace & Love is the second largest music festival in Sweden, drawing tens of thousands to the cosy Swedish city of Borlänge to enjoy 5 days of music and festivities.  The festival runs from the 22-27 June, and this year´s line up is looking as good as ever, with a diverse selection of quality acts taking the stage.

The P&L Showcase expresses Peace and Love´s commitment to nurturing up and coming independent and unsigned talent. This year, three organisations are collaborating with Peace and Love to fill the P&L showcase scene with the best upcoming artists in Sweden – Record Union is honoured to be one of these organisations. We are looking forward to giving 3 artists the chance to take the stage and show their stuff in front of thousands of eager festival goers.

We call on all bands wanting to hit the indie stage at Peace and Love this year to contact us at the following email address: peaceandlove@recordunion.com. Please cite the motivation for why you would you would like to be chosen for this opportunity, and provide a link to your myspace page or website. Record Union will evaluate each application in correspondence with our A&R network, and announce our selection at the beginning of June.  For all the rest of you, see you at the festival!

Hello people! Two and a half weeks after our “trial run” we are happy to say that you can now purchase the music of Motherpearl on iTunes, Amazon, Peoples Music Store, Rhapsody and soon many others. The Gothenberg based band are, as you can imagine, really happy about the news, as is Record Union. Time for champagne perhaps? Not QUITE yet…there is still much to be done! We are eagerly awating the beta launch of our distribution platform, which will be up and running shortly. However, this news is still a call for celebration!

Record Union has distributed our first album! But before you start rushing to the website to upload your own music, you should know that this was just a trial run! We needed to test that all the technical stuff is working, which it is! Wohoo!

So who was chosen for this journey into the previously unchartered realm of Record Union distribution? The band in question was none other than Motherpearl, a great rock outfit playing out of Gothenburg (Sweden). They have been creating quite a stir on their local circuit with their powerfull live performances and quality delivery. These guys are seriously talented, combining well thought out catchy rock riffs and energetic vocals with what can only be described as a groovy, funk vibe.  Their new album, “Long Time Comin” is already available on a few music shops (find them on Amazon here), and will be available for purchase on all partners, and all over the world, in about 4-6 weeks time.  We caught up with bass player of the band, Daniel Sjöstrand, to see how he feels about their new online release. We post the Q&A here for your reading pleasure.

Kind of cliché I know, but “Motherpearl” is an awesome name! what inspired it?

“Good question actually, and cliché indeed! (laugher)”

To be perfectly honest the name is a re-writing of the seashell-stuff ‘mother of pearl’. When the band got started we had just got our eyes on a guitar brand called “Warrior” that used exclusive materials, like mother of pearl, in their instruments. To us, mother of pearl was a sweet material and a little luxurious in a cool way

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Francis and the Lights, a New York based band (whose music is best heard or seen than described – it’s really quite special) did something very intriguing recently. Feeling no pressure to sign to a record label, who may wish to exert external control over their creations, they decided to incorporate themselves into a company. They then raised $100,000 from the normative music company, as an investment. This move was not so much an alternative to signing a record deal, more a way of orientating themselves towards their future development.

The partnership between Normative and Francis and the Light reflects a joint understanding of the place of independent music, and a shared regard for music as an art form not open to compromise. The promise of independent music, says Jake Lodwick, the manager of Normative, is that of “unmolested artistic integrity”. This art begins with a vision, a “spark in the musicians mind” and must be “absolutely realized, irrespective of cost“. Such dedication to a pure aesthetic ideal is surely something to be commended on both sides, especially in the age of mechanical reproduction and the homogenizing effects of the culture industry.

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Billy Salisbury a.k.a The Undercover Hippy is a ruthlessly independent musician originating out of the UK. He creates studio quality music out of his own bedroom, which he showcases and sells from his own personal website. The Undercover Hippy is an inspirational example of how musicians now have the power to make music on their own territory, on their own terms, and in their own way. This creative freedom is reflected in the tone of his music. If you like your music enlightening and dealing with issues facing the world today, while at the same time sounding great, then this guy is right up your street. It´s nice to have a change from the monotonous sensationalist feel good nonsense which they sometimes play on mainstream radio, and this guy fills that void brilliantly. It is difficult to locate The Undercover Hippy within any particular genre, so its best quote the man himself, who describes his music as “Ben Harper meets Mos Def… at a Drum n Bass night… hosted by Delasoul”. Hmmm, that clarifies things…a little. Pressed on the matter, he describes his music as “acoustic jazzy bluesy hip-hop reggae with a drum n bass flavour”. Whatever his music is, it sounds great. Combining pointed and clever lyrics with an almost spiritual acoustic guitar, the emotion and truth in his words pierce deep. His is the kind of music which makes one want to quit their job, grow dreds, become good at something creative, and just chill out. He has recently released a single called “money money money” on vinyl with an independent German label Agogo Records, and we wish him the best of luck. Check him out at www.undercoverhippy.com.