North Carolina, US

I haven't written about any US states in a while, so I thought I'd take my first plunge into a state with strong country and Americana roots. North Carolina has brought the world quite a lot of excellent singer-songwriters, country bands, folk groups and indie rockers, but also funk bands, Afrobeat, and rockabilly artists. I don't really know that much about the life in North Carolina, but the music coming from that state suggests a great divide between the old and conservative country-cowboys and young hipsters doing their own thing. This definitely is good for the music scene and not many other posts in this blog portray as scattered areas. There is one weird thing about the bands I found. There's very little of electronic sounds in these bands. Most of the instruments are either acoustic instruments or more traditional rock n' roll instruments. Anyway, this is a great almost three hour playlist of music from North Carolina. Enjoy! Here's the playlist: North Carolina, US

Chile

World's music scenes are full of surprises. I had no idea that Chile had such a great psychedelic music scene and I'm happy to conquer a whole new continent. This is my first post of South America. Excellent cosmic rock, grunge, psychedelia and also more basic indie rock and pop. During my search I found a lot of more traditional latino rhythms and traditional latin American folk music, but I wasn't too pleased with it so this list sounds a bit more in tune with European and North American music. Still, Spanish language in many songs gives its own spice to these songs. Chile also seems to have its own, very unique sound full of great sounds and surprising melodies. I'm sure there would have been many more amazing bands I could not find, but I'm still quite happy with this list. So enjoy this almost two hour playlist of Chile's excellent music scene. The playlist is here: Chile

British Columbia, CAN

I've never visited Canada, but I have a feeling that Vancouver would be the most interesting place in the country. British Columbia has a throwing indie music scene with bands that are known around the world. This almost three hour playlist has some great songs from post punk revival to indie pop & rock to power pop, folk, country and gypsy music. Here's the playlist: British Columbia, CAN

Iceland

Iceland is a tiny nation far away from anything else. It's quite astonishing how many great artists and bands there are in this small population. Bands, such as Björk, Sigur Rós and Múm are known throughout the world, but there are a lot more of these great artists that have not received similar kind of popularity, although they possess all the keys for it. Iceland has a very specific sound. Its music actually sounds like Iceland. The cold and rugged environment, darkness and silence of the nature is present in beautiful and haunting melodies. most of the three and a half hour playlist can be described with these words. There's beautiful music ranging from folk to indie pop and to post rock. At the end of the playlist there are some less conventional Icelandic bands featuring rock, electro and funk tunes. Here is the playlist: Iceland

New South Wales, Australia

Australian music does not have a very good reputation. People usually only know artists such AC/DC, Nick Cave or Kylie Minogue. While the two first ones of these are actually quite good in their own genre, most of Australian music is not really that appreciated. It's true that there are a lot of awful bands and artists in this country. However, I was able to find a great deal of good ones as well by digging under the surface. I start my adventure to Australia from New South Wales, the most populous Australian territory. Most of these bands are from Sydney, but there are some artists from places less known as well. This three hour playlist has great songs featuring genres from folk to rock and from indie to electro. Hopefully after listening to this playlist, it's possible to give Australian music a new perspective. Here's the playlist: New South Wales, AUS

Scotland

Scotland is about to vote for their independence and I thought I'd celebrate this referendum by presenting my blog post on Scotland's fantastic music scene. This massive playlist of 105 songs by different artists contains music from very different genres. There's indie rock, indie pop, folk, rock, funk, ambient, post-rock and experimental rock to name but a few genres. Scotland's music obviously has a lot of things in common with the rest of the UK, but I think there are some distinctive features there as well. I especially enjoy strong Scottish accent that some of the artists use in their music. I tried to construct the list once again so that the playlist makes sense without the shuffle. This almost 7 hour playlist is great soundtrack to working days or for lazy Sundays at home. Enjoy! Here's the playlist: Scotland

New York

I am about to head to the Big Apple for the first time in my life shortly, so I decided to write my post on this amazing town now. Together with London, it's one of the biggest places in terms of music. There are so many different amazing artists and bands from this city. There's everything from indie rock to electro, folk, punk and soul; you name it. New York has blended many different cultures from all over the world to make it one of the music capitals of the world. This list is quite long but it makes for a great playlist to listen to over your work day (if you have one of those jobs where you can listen to music). I'm excited to visit this great city and this playlist will help me in getting in the mood. I'll start with the one band from NY that I couldn't find on Spotify and continue straight to the playlist. Here's the playlist: New York

West Sweden

The whole idea for this blog started almost six months ago from the notion that Sweden has so many amazing bands and only a fraction of them are known outside the country. My first post on Sweden is on West Sweden, one of the eight National areas of Sweden. The biggest city in this area, and one of the most active cities in Swedish music is Gothenburg. The artistic range is broad. There is everything from electro, to folk, to indie rock and ambient. Sweden is also known for its metal music, but since I'm not a fan of that genre, I decided to leave bands in that genre out. What strikes me in this list, is that there doesn't seem to be a distinctive Gothenburg sound. All the artists are really different, but still amazingly good. Here's the playlist: West Sweden

Alberta

In Canada, most of the bands that I know, come from Quebec, British Columbia or Ontario. These lists will be quite large, so I'm saving them for later and take on Alberta as the first Canadian province in this blog. I only knew one band from this province before work on this blog, but I found a lot more. As with the rest of Canada, Alberta also has quite good indie pop/rock bands, some electronic stuff, some folk stuff and of course those few oddities here and there. Most of the bands and artists on this list are from Alberta's two biggest cities, Calgary and Edmonton. Many of the most successful bands have moved to different parts of Canada or to US since they've gained popularity, but I'm listing bands here that have been founded in Alberta. This proofed to be an interesting list of music and a great playlist: Alberta, CA

Mali

I wanted to get out of the Euro-American music environment, so here's my first post from Africa. Mali is probably one of the easiest countries to cover, because they have a rich music culture with recognisable sound and many famous musicians. Malian music is mostly about artists. There are not as many bands there. The musical styles range from funky afrobeat to hypnotic traditional songs played with kora and masterful blues guitar sounds. Malian musicians use a lot of guitar in their music and there are some absolutely brilliant guitar players. Rhythm has a large role to play in most of these songs, but still they have great melodies as well. The melodies follow, for most parts, similar patterns as western pop music, but sometimes difference is audible. I haven't really familiarised myself properly with African music before this blog, so this is a chance for me as well to learn more. I don't really know that much about Mali as a country, but its music has reached my ears on many occasions, so this seems natural choice to begin my journey into African music. Here's the playlist: Mali

Belgium

One of the great things about making a blog like this is that I get to study new music from areas, that I haven't really known much about. I knew only few Belgian bands before starting this blog, but those bands were great, so I was curious to find if there's more brilliant music coming from the country. And sure enough, Belgium's music scene is really interesting with great melodic indie bands using innovative sounds and styles. A lot of the bands sound similar, but in this case, it's only a good thing. I have mainly included songs sung in English, since listening to Flemish is a bit weird. At least I could not enjoy the music with Flemish lyrics that much. It seems that the Flemish parts of Belgium are more active in making music than the French areas, but fortunately they make a lot of great English music. Here's the playlist for Belgium: Belgium

Alaska

After two quite massive lists of Helsinki and London, I wanted to plunge into something a lot smaller. Before embarking on this blog project, I had only ever heard of one Alaskan artist, but I was delightedly surprised to find a bunch of great beginning artists from this American state with a population of just under 750,000. As one could easily assume, Alaska has some great bearded folk artists in their lumberjack outfits. However, there's much more than that. There are some really great and modern-sounding indie bands and artists as well. It seems that Anchorage is one of those cities that have given birth to artistic environment and innovative new music. The playlist is just over one hour long, so it's a good choice for listening, when you don't have too much time on your hands. There are also a couple of bands that are not on Spotify, which I present first. Here's the link to the playlist: Alaska, US

London

This blog-post is about bands and artists from London. I currently live here and I find good new bands all the time. London has probably more bands and artists than any other city in the world, so making a comprehensive list is quite impossible. For me at least, London is the capital of rock and pop music. I aim to list all the good artists and bands that I can think of without using too much time in thinking whether I've included everyone. It's still going to be a long list and filled with great music. Since my past with music has had so much to do with Britpop, I'll start with that and try to move on keeping similar genres together. Many bands have moved to London once they've become more successful, but I aim to list only bands that have been founded here and artists that have started their musical career in London. But before I move on to the bands on the list, I'll handle those few bands that cannot be (at least yet) found on Spotify. Heres the link to the Spotify list: London

Helsinki

My first post is about Helsinki, the capital of Finland. I have lived in the vicinity of this city most of my life and I personally know many of these artists and bands. Helsinki has an amazing music scene for such a small city. Only a bit more than 1,3 million people live in the metropolitan area of Helsinki (all the surrounding suburbs included). In Finland terms though, Helsinki is by far the biggest metropolitan area. Almost one fourth of all the people in Finland live near the capital. There are amazing bands and artists featuring many different genres. Many of these bands are not widely known outside of Finland, but there are many that deserve to be. I start with introducing bands that sing in English, but move on to introduce some good Finnish singing bands as well. I don't know how some of those work for someone who doesn't know the language, but I hope you'll like them as well. I'm not sure whether all of these bands are actually from Helsinki, since it's sometimes really difficult to know where Finnish bands come from (Finnish Wikipedia sucks). If I'm mistaken, please correct me.