Paved new world

The Concretes survive a slippery transition via downtempo disco

Mirroring the vibrant mid-’90s music scenes in the U.K. and the U.S., Sweden was a hotbed of underground rock (aka “Swindie”) when Stockholm’s Victoria Bergsman, Lisa Milberg and Maria Eriksson founded the Concretes in 1995. Over five years, they boosted their power trio sound with bass, organ, extra guitar, horns and harmonica. Having seen a number of record deals go sour, they also launched their own label, Licking Fingers. Bergsman’s girlish vocals and the band’s re-imagining of the swinging ’60s was an easy sell, and yet, despite releasing a handful of EPs and an LP, 2000’s Boy, You Better Run Now, the band didn’t appear on North America’s radar until 2004. Their self-titled album, and its 2006 follow-up, In Colour, were rock-solid, rose-tinted pop gems. Even if you think you don’t know the Concretes, their 2004 singles “You Can’t Hurry Love” (not to be confused with the Supremes song of the same name) and “Say Something New” may have infiltrated your subconscious via TV or movie screens.

But in 2006, the band was shaken, and nearly shattered, by Bergsman’s departure. (She’s since launched a new project, the Pakistani-flavoured Taken by Trees.) They lost their international deal with Astralwerks/EMI, but forged on regardless, if only in Sweden, by releasing Hey Trouble in 2007. “We were talking about whether we should go on at all,” admits organist Per Nystrom, “but we had to prove that we still existed.”

Milberg became the band’s singer as well as their drummer, leading the band as they experimented with softer textures, slower paces and sadder lyrics. But this proved to be a transitional phase.

In the fall of 2010, the Concretes re-emerged with the album WYWH (“wish you were here”), released by Brooklyn label Friendly Fires, featuring Milberg at the mic, a new drummer, Dante Kinnunen, and a new emphasis on downtempo “disco.”

“The drummer really influenced the sound,” Nystrom says, explaining a stylistic shift that’s familiar but not retro. “I love that production from the early ’80s. We joke that the first album was ’60s-inspired, the second one was ’70s-inspired and this one is ’80s. So next time, expect the ’90s.” ■

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