Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Film & Music

Scandinavian trio Peter Bjorn and John look seriously suave Photo: Peterbjornandjohn.com

Moreso than any other Scandinavian nation, Sweden has produced an astounding number of talented musicians from diverse musical backgrounds, many of whom have found varying degrees of international success.

The Swedish music scene is as diverse as the burgeoning scenes of the United States and United Kingdom, an incredible feat considering its relatively small population of approximately 9 million.

One of the most recent success stories is that of indie rock group, Peter Bjorn and John who found their single "Young Folks" from the 2006 album Writer's Block on just about every prime time TV show montage scene in North America with its signature whistle also employed to sell everything from video games to polo shirts.

The band formed in Stockholm in 1999 and were immediately a hit with critics, but it wasn't until "Young Folks" that they were propelled into the mainstream.

In March 2009, Peter Bjorn and John released Living Thing, their official follow-up to Writer's Block - discounting 2008's instrumental album Seaside Rock which was a release limited to 5000 copies. Living Thing saw the trio embrace a more abrasive approach to their already dark take on pop-songwriting. One music critic from Pitchfork Media likened the album to Nirvana's In Utero, their significantly more aggressive and less radio friendly follow-up to Nevermind, which was perceived as a reaction to their new-found fame.

The band's drummer and vocalist, John Eriksson still sees their music as fundamentally pop despite the jarring and gloomy music found on Living Thing.

"While we were recording we had made each other mix CDs that had a bunch of music that we had listened to as teenagers. There was a lot of 80s synth pop on those CDs so that was a definite influence while we were writing the new songs. I still think that when we're together as a band we always write classic, retro sounding pop songs, when we are working on our own solo projects that's when we'll do more experimentation," he says.

Each member of the trio has a successful solo career: in 2008 Peter Moren released a stripped down, folk influenced album while Bjorn Ytlling produced fellow Swede Lykke Li's debut Youth Novels. Eriksson is currently working on material under the moniker Hortlax Cobra. He describes the sound as "dirty beat collages with string arrangements and synth." The name "Hortlax" comes from the rural town where Eriksson grew up before he moved to Stockholm.

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