Peter Bjorn & John + Teddybears = Smile
What do you get when a couple of Sweden's brightest musical lights step away from their primary projects and come together under a new band banner? In the case of Joakim Ahlund of electro auteurs Teddybears and Björn Yttling of indie-pop heroes Peter Bjorn & John, you get Smile, a duo that incorporates elements of both men's main gigs while simultaneously creating something neither one would have done on their own. On May 29, the world will hear the full flowering of the pair's partnership on the album A Flash In The Night, via the newly minted Ingrid collective.
Ingrid is a label/grass-roots organization started by members of the aforementioned outfits as well as such Swedish acts as Lykke Li, Miike Snow, and others. The collective has other releases on its agenda as well, but the Smile album is bound to earn Ingrid plenty of attention. The first couple of cuts that have snuck out in advance of the album release show the band dipping into everything from Neu!-like, krautrock-inspired motorik pop to analog-sounding electro-rock instrumental cuts. By the time they're done, Ahlund and Yttling just may have upended all preconceptions about the kind of music they're capable of turning out together.
