Summer turns to snow

Several albums I'm looking forward to but aren't release for a while are available for preorder, two Swedish (well, one technically American, but Swedish in many of its aspects) and one French.

First, Erik Hassle's Hassle was supposed to be released March 25. Then the release date was pushed back to April 29. Just today I found out that now it's apparently June 10 (preorder it here). Despite having the album for months, I'm still going slightly crazy to have a physical copy in my hands, but I suppose the fact that Erik still hasn't had a proper breakthrough in Sweden yet--he's been floating around the edges of consciousness for a year now without fully breaking through--means that the decision to delay release makes sense. The tracklisting is the same as the one we all know by now, so I won't bother reprinting it here (though check it out here if you're not familiar with it).

Swingfly's similarly long awaited debut album (technically even longer than Erik's or Velvet's since the lead single came out in January 2006, though the "awaited" period can't rival Velvet's for me) is still set to come out on the second date Erik's album was set to be released, April 29 (preorder it here). Titled God Bless The IRS, it features singles "Something's Got Me Started," "Save The Trees," "Winner," "Singing That Melody," and "Touch And Go" and production work from Andreas Kleerup, the Åhlund brothers, RamPac, and Thomas Rusiak. I've yet to see an official tracklisting for it, but from what we've heard so far the album from the voice of Teddybears' "Hey Boy" is shaping up to be great. Watch the video for "Touch And Go," which I still love and think everyone in the world should, too (just as I still love "Singing That Melody"), below.



Christophe Willem's second album, Caféine, is still set for a May 25 release date (preorder it here). He lists the "collaborators" as "Kylie Minogue, Guy Chambers, Zazie, Jean-Pierre Pilot, Jennifer Ayache [of] Superbus, Corinne Bailey Rae, Skye, Alexandre Azzaria, [and] Jamie Hartman [of] Ben's Brother" The tracklisting has been released, too, though it doesn't include the one song we haven't heard that I was expecting to be on it, "L'or est tombe du ciel" (which I think is the French version of Britney's "State Of Grace")--maybe it's been renamed? Audio for electro-rock lead single "Berlin," which I wrote about a few weeks ago, is embedded below, followed by said tracklist.



1.) Ouverture
2.) L’homme en noir
3.) Sensitized (Duet with Kylie Minogue)
4.) Berlin
5.) La demande
6.) Entre nous et le sol
7.) Plus que tout
8.) Coffee
9.) Fragile
10.) Trash (Duet with Skye)
11.) Tu te fous de nous
12.) Heartbox
13.) Yaourt et lavabo
14.) Si je tombais (Acoustic)

Caféine Bonus Deluxe Edition :
1.) Holé Holé (Original Version of "L’Homme en noir")
2.) Berlin (Alternative Version)
3.) La Demande (Remix)
4.) Si je tombais
5.) Walk away (Duet with Skye)

You might be able to listen to clips of the songs here, though I'm not able to.

Multiple versions of the album are available for purchase, as you can tell from the above: a regular CD version, a deluxe CD version, and mp3s of all the songs on the deluxe version (I think--I don't speak French, so please correct me if that's wrong!). If you preorder Caféine, you'll get the English version of "Berlin" on the day of the album's release. You also can sign up for free for access to some sort of "backstage" area of the website.

Christophe is offering "Trash" as a free download if you subscribe to his newsletter. If you want to get a feel for what you'd be subscribing for, there's a clip here. "Trash" is much more electro than "Berlin," complete with verses that have a vaguely Prince-y feel to their synths. It's album track type material, but it does continue to show how interesting Christophe can be. It and "Berlin" have been all well and good, but if I'm being a worrywart, I do hope when the album comes around I'm not just left saying "interesting."