The Persuader – Stockholm

Ostermalm's 25th anniversary and it has continuously set a high bar for deep house, matched by very, very few.

Looking out my window, seeing the Globe arena (nowadays aptly named Avicii Arena), a long overdue album review of this classic – the very first record entry in Discogs, by the very first artist entry The Persuader:
In the first tune, "Östermalm", when those synths hit, this is as Kraftwerk deep house ever gets. Extremely evocative – I envisage the neon lights of Birger Jarlsgatan glimmering by, reflected in cold puddles of water… "Vasastaden" is also extremely imaginative for a straight deep house track, with some nice phrygian-scale type oriental embellishments… Someone once said that Daft Punk were masters of repetition, introducing new melodic elements repeatedly but in ways in which one never gets tired of them. Same can be said about "Vasastaden" here.
"Kungsholmen" starts off as one of those trip-hop type tracks that were ubiquitous in cafés all around Europe around the millennium. Sort of like that tasty Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions™ double remix CD. But as the track gets going, you can see how Jesper Dahlbäck manages the keys with ease; the electric piano frills here are just so effortless. Nice.
"Södermalm" – now here we get to my own environs, and yeah I think this track goes hard… It's very sneaky, operating in that Mika Snickars digger vernacular and (towards the end) even throws in some rude bit-crushed sprinkles reminiscent of Daniel Savio. The "Norrmalm" track goes even more wild in this bit-crushed direction; detuned leads make me think of Boards Of Canada but with more disco-fied uptempo drums. This is the only weak track on this album, however, I don't think it has aged as well as the other tracks… Also, the repetition goes a bit more… repetitive here (in a negative way). Especially those disco cymbals.
"Gamla Stan" – ooh this is a lovely disco-sampling track though. Preceded the whole Norwegian fjord disco trend by at least a couple of years (although, admittedly, Bjørn Torske, Erot, Rune Lindbæk and a bunch of other norrmän including the inimitable Ole Mjøs were also doing this disco-house thing some time before the millennium).

Incredible album. Svek was one of the best. Grab this and your collection will be better, guaranteed.

In the words of the great Aubrey Drake Graham, "We started from the bottom now we're here"

Wow! This could be one of the best deep-house albums ever produced! Svek and Dahlback has never failed me with some genuine party-starters but this record applies on many different levels. It almost makes you want to move to sweden to find out what we might be missing! (it was very beautiful when i last visited)

One down, 9,999,99 releases to go. It shouldn't take long should it?!

the six boroughs ... . . . . . .

That strange moment when you search for the 1st release on discogs in your browser late evening, and it turns out to be a Jesper Dahlbäck EP called Stockholm, and you are actually planning to move to Stockholm....

The very first record listed on Discogs! Congrats Mr. Dahlbäck!