Poland is a bit of a surprise for being from Seattle. The town’s disposition, as I’ve noticed of late, is not really that sunny. Like the countless overcast, rain-filled days each year, the city itself has a dreariness, a darkness that is hard to miss outside the typical touristy areas. For calling Seattle home, Poland has a much sunnier, more upbeat nature than one would expect.

Aujourd’Hui Madame split their songwriting between English and French vocals, but the instrumentation is always pop. El Americano EP is the perfect representation of what makes international indie pop music great – it’s upbeat in all the right ways, and while there’s an obvious predilection toward France, it’s not really distinct to any particular nation.

Written by Fense
Check out this lovely little video by Sweden’s Sweet Sweet Concorde. It features stuffed bears and paper cutouts of trees. The group comes to us via a FensePost favorite, Series II Records, and their recent release is called Life In The Canopy.

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Listening to Music For In The Spaceship, one is tempted to label Anthony Rochester (MySpace) as a standard folk-pop artist. The melodies are simple and clean and slightly contemporary. Music For In The Spaceship is extremely accessible. Rochester’s release was included in the latest batch of albums from Series Two Records, the Nebraska-based CD-R label that put out an impressive number of albums in ’08.

I’m calling it a pReview, as Cleemann‘s release of 45 Minutes Mostly About Caring is not slated for official release until February 2009 at the earliest — a promo release featuring the cover below (by Franz Jacobi) was sent out in a limited batch in 2007 and 2008. Word on the street is that Series II Records, currently one of the best CD-R labels in the states, is planning a state-side release around 45 Minutes.

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I’m currently in bed. My eyes are half shut and half a bottle of Syrah is settling in my stomach. And in my ears are the pleasant pop melodies of Peace In Our Time (MySpace). Despite my current demeanor, I would not call Peace In Our Time bedroom pop. There’s too much going on — the songs too full of live for the genre of slumber. Even the slower side of Peace In Our Time features percussion too loud and guitars too …

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I covered Klas back in September after receiving a little compilation from Series II Records (read that coverage here) and noted how their style of folk-pop had twee-ish elements to it. But in listening to their full length, To Sleep And Love, I’m hearing a little country influence as well.

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I can get into this, no problem. The Big Picture plays soft, bedroom-y pop with emphasis on slow tunes that feature acoustic, or, at least softly electric, guitars and quiet melodies on keyboard. None of it gets too loud. And it sure is cutesy — like “About A Dog”.

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Flannel (MySpace) is one of those spacey pop bands, dabbling lightly in dreamy shoe-gaze-like moments. The music paints a colorful sunset much like that found on the cover of Dear Something, Dear Someone. It’s the perfect album to listen to through headphones while staring up at the sky as the sun is setting; it’s very peaceful.

Klas is a super lovable lo-fi twee-ish folk-pop group out of Malmö, Sweden and they write beautiful songs like “I Was A Janitor” that include lyrics like I was a janitor / And life was bad / But when I got my paycheck / Life was good. Their debut album, titled To Sleep And Love, is out now in Europe on Evil Twin and in the states on Series II Records.