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Tracklist:

01. The Great Big Void * 02. Oakland Mountain High * 03. Boys of Distortion * 04. Beach Loveison * 05. At Least Rock & Roll Won’t Leave A Hole In My Back * 06. Idiot Dreaming * 07. A New Dawn Fades, A New Dawn Waits * 08. Roads Again * 09. Dream On Dreamy

Album review:

“Dream on Dreamy” is truly a gem of an album: out on May-24 with Af-music on May-24, it is already available as a digital download from the band’s bandcamp.com account, and can be found in stores in traditional format and also as a limited edition hand-numbered jewel case CD lot of 100.

What is striking from the first seconds of this beautiful album is the serene, almost immobile atmosphere the album transports you to: the small town atmosphere that on the surface suggests unvarnished simplicity and stillness, while deep down the turmoil and the ecstasy are boiling and erupting in a typical Swedish manner. This is how “The Great Big Void” welcomes you to the world of Degrees, a task that is further taken up by the elegant sound of “Oakland Mountain High“. The quietude subsists in subsequent tracks such as “Boys of Distortion” and “Beach Loveison”, which penetrate and drill down layers and layers of sound profusions and portions effectively emotions that are at the same time intimate and delicate.

“At Least Rock & Roll Won’t Leave A Hole In My Back” is, despite its long and intriguing title, a track that cultivates a similar lore and quite a memorable listening experience – with ambivalent sounds, that can be read simultaneously as becalmed and irritated. “Idiot Dreaming” is most certainly an attractive track, and one that enthuses the entire album with a new gush of energy and resolves in a way the open emotional issues of the previous tracks. The fact that DEGREES are really a band you should look out for has never been more prominent than in the ensuing track, “A New Dawn Fades, A New Dawn Waits”: not only does it cultivate a resonant creative piece, but it also functions as a slick intimate micro view into the very fiber of feeling.

Listen to “Idiot Dreaming from “Dream on Dreamy”:

“Roads Again” is an interesting electronic construction, one that is cleverly produced, and to cap it all, that deserves airtime and definitely a favorite cozy spot in your personal playlist, you know, the one you play when you spend quality personal time with yourself. And then let yourself be spoiled by the shower of sound of “Dream on Dreamy”: if you doubted the DEGREES of how deep you can plunge in a world of dreams, then you will trust them fully after listening to this track.

All songs written, performed, produced and recorded by the Degrees 2010-11. Released on Dgrsrecordings & AF-music 2011. Sample on 07. from the motion picture “The Outsiders”, 1983 (Coppola). Cover art and layout by R. & M.J. Released on May-24 2011.

About the band:

Degrees are: Mikael Jacobson (The Trick, Late Night Conversations) & Rickard Folke (Boygirlme). For the moment the story about Degrees is short, but hopefully it will grow like everything else important does! MJ and Rickard met in the year 2001 and have been friends ever since – with the same love for music and both stuck in a crazy small town they decided to put their hearts and brains together in September 2008, thus forming Degrees.

After some demos and the last year’s EP “Pt.III” the Swedish pop outfit DEGREES are back with their new album “Dream On Dreamy“, which will be released on May-24 on Af-music and DGRSRecordings. And to help with getting an idea of their sound: open-hearted naive, nostalgic, to sum up a well done, fluid style of writing album that can be named relaxed indie pop.

In the summer of 2010 DEGREES started to record their album “Dream On Dreamy” after writing new songs for a gig at The Mayflower Pub in Tranås. Unlike before, when they created songs from the cozy perspective of “having a beer on the couch in a laid back atmosphere”, they wanted to give higher priority to a sound that works perfectly when played live. In March 2011 they did the final mixing of their album that was created at a point of their lives where both guys felt that they were more than done with their tiny hometown and that it was the right time for a change – for something bigger and even more for something new.

DEGREES themselves explain that this feeling is portrayed at best in the songs “Oakland Mountain High” and “At Least Rock & Roll Won’t Leave A Hole In My Back“. “Dream On Dreamy” is about magic, headaches, lack of sleep, black dreams and the body temperatures.

Degrees – Official Site: http://www.dgrs.se/