SXSW Preview: Those Dancing Days

From KCRW DJ Marion Hodges:

Day parties at SXSW are the best. You almost never need a festival pass to get into one, so if you plan smart, you can see pretty much every band you would hope to see without spending a small fortune. Plus, they almost always have free beer.

One name from the day party circuit this year really jumped out to me — Those Dancing Days.

They’ll be playing Filter Magazine’s Culture Collide party on Saturday, that’s sponsored by KCRW, along with fellow Swedes Little Dragon.

A friend turned me on to Those Dancing Days a few years ago. I remembered it being ultra-polished sounding indie-pop with touches of quirk in the instrumentation and the lead singer’s white girl afro.

Gone, these days is the fro, and Linnea Jönsson (the singer attached to it) seems to be using her incredibly soulful voice to produce songs that are deriving their charm less from cute eccentricities and more from straightforward pop hooks.

Kind of like Adele lending her voice to a Peter, Bjorn, and John track.

Check out the video for “Reaching Forward” from their new record “Daydreams and Nightmares”

— Marion Hodges