DIY Musician: A Conversation with Music Ambassador Peter Åstedt + The Magnettes Acoustic Showcase
Supported by CD Baby
In Collaboration with Fort Knox Studios
Music Ambassador Peter Åstedt, Add-more, Musichelp and Dead frog records, DistroSong CEO, joins us for a conversation about key cultural considerations, the music business environment in Sweden and look at how the Nordic regions are ideal and feasible to pursue as a potential market.
Acoustic Showcase: The Magnettes
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DIY Musician: A Conversation with Music Ambassador Peter Åstedt + The Magnettes Acoustic Showcase
Supported by CD Baby
In Collaboration with Fort Knox Studios
Music Ambassador Peter Åstedt, A&R at Add-more, Musichelp and Dead frog records, DistroSong CEO, joins us for a conversation about key cultural considerations, the music business environment in Sweden and look at how the Nordic regions are ideal and feasible to pursue as a potential market.
Acoustic Showcase: The Magnettes – A Biography
‘Say what you want to say. Do it as loud as you want. Be different, be weird, be ugly, be too much, fuck as much as you want and question everything’.
The Magnettes’ Manifesto
Pop music is one of Sweden’s major cultural exports and over the years it has given us a wide diversity of talented artists such as Robyn, ABBA, The Knife Lykke Li, Icona Pop, The Cardigans, Swedish House Mafia and Zara Larsson. Ten hours from the hit making hub of Stockholm, above the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn’t rise during winter, lies the sleepy town of Pajala, home to 2000 residents…and The Magnettes, a fearless 21st Century fuck-pop trio who think ugly and weird is cool and that the patriarchy needs to be crushed. Right now.
This remote region has a minority language called Meänkieli, a language that was forbidden in Sweden until 1957 and today only spoken around 50 000 people. The Magnettes celebrate their roots and incorporate Meänkieli and the area’s old folk music into their infectious and inimitable glitter punk pop. The band is Rebecka Digervall, Sanna Kalla and Tomas Backlund who’s mission is the right to be as you want to be.
The Magnettes’ founders and co-vocalists Rebecka and Sanna describe themselves as ‘non-normative’, ‘witches’, ‘Tornedalingar’ (which translates as natives of the Torne valley, a Swedish minority) and ‘Sisters of the Ugly Youth’ and this subversion is evident in their spellbinding songs. “We’re reclaiming the word ‘ugly’” declares Sanna “Why does beautiful have to be the standard? We have no regrets. We’re saying exactly what we want to say”.
“There’s some sort of Northern rebellion” adds guitarist, keyboardist and producer Tomas Backlund. “We don’t want to be your average singing self obsessed diary entries. We aim to do something bigger but we want to do it without moving to Stockholm, London or LA and writing songs about beaches and being super fit because what’s interesting about that?”
The seeds of rebellion were planted when Rebecka and Sanna met at school aged six-years-old. By 14, Rebecka had written a plethora of songs for the duo. In 2012, they released their first official song “Paper Cut” and performed a series of shows across Europe and Russia. By 2014 Tomas joined and the duo became a trio.
About Peter Åstedt:
Peter has worked in the music industry for over 25 years. He started his own record label Dead Frog Records of the age of fifteen 1990. The label is still running and is one of the oldest in Sweden. Peter has early on been part of the digital revolution of the music industry and uploaded his first mp3, 1995. He worked on one of the first legal sites for selling mp3 called Vitaminic. He has also started digital distribution services like Music Base, Distrosong and the physical distribution company DFR. 2008 he started the company Musichelp Sweden AB witch is a service company for people/artists in the music industry. Over the years over 8000 artists has gone through his systems
Today Peter is a board member of SOM (Swedish independent music producers, the equality of AIM (UK) and A2IM (USA)). And board member of Mbin (Music business independent network).
2009 Peter created Musichelp:s publishing division Musichelp Publishing. The main focus was placement in commercial, TV, games and movies. The rooster quickly became famous for its quality and today has worked with brands and world commercials like Microsoft, Coca Cola, BMW
2011 Musichelp expanded into export of Swedish music and work with leading showcase festivals all over the world doing showcases with Swedish music like SXSW, The Great Escape, New Music Seminar, Canadian Music Week, CMJ, Culture Collide, Popkomm.
Over the years Peter has spoken or been on panels on several international music conferences like SXSW, Midem, CMJ, Future Music Forum, Trigger Creative Conference, Sync Summit NYC, Candian Music Week, Caribbean Music, Live at Heart, Sync Summit London, Cutting Edge (NOLA), Rookie, Beatmeet and more. Also lectured on Linné University, Örebro University, Piteå Högskola, University of southern Mississippi, Loyola University, Kungliga Musik Högskolan, Boomtown, Musikmakarna.
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