THE GOOD PART WE READ BOOKS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO Under Their Thumb (Villard) By Bill German

WARNING: DJ’ING MIGHT BE HARMFUL TO YOUR POS TURE Eero Johannes and V.C. in Finland

Skweee’s Play

Scandinavian DJs get high, invent new electro genre

“If the queen has a food taster, then [personal assistant] Svi was the Stones’ drug taster. In every city, Svi would chat up the local dealers. He’d summon a few to Keith’s suite, and then they’d sit in the foyer. Keith would look them over and pick one. ‘You, in the red bandanna. In the kitchen with Svi.’ Svi would determine the quality of the guy’s wares. If he liked it, he’d walk out of the kitchen and ash Keith a thumbs-up. If he didn’t, he’d ash a thumbs-down. Like Siskel and Ebert.”

ON A LATE autumn night in Turku, Finland, in 2003, Finnish DJs Randy Barracuda and Mesak met up with Swedish DJs Daniel Savio and Pavan to drink beer, eat blood sausages, and name their baby. “We couldn’t come up with anything good,” recalls Savio, “and then I remembered that the dogma for the music we invented was to squeeze as much out of our crappy equipment as possible. So I suggested we call it skweee.” And thus the Scandinavians’ intentionally rinky-dink, improbably funky instrumental hip-hop hybrid was christened.

France, England, Spain, Russia, and the Netherlands are now home to labels and musicians devoted to the sound, characterized by squiggly melodies, chopped-up beats, and grimy synth runs (think The Chronic dubbed onto a cassette with R2-D2 improvising Arabic melodies on top). The music recently has taken steps across the

Atlantic: Boston’s DJ Stickem released his Double Dog Dare EP, the genre’s rst American album, in February, and skwee club nights are popping up in L.A. and San Francisco. Far from mainstream, but skweee de nitely has outgrown its humble, stoned beginnings.

“I used to get high and watch Missy Elliott videos on MTV,” says Barracuda (né Perttu Häkkinen, 27), “and I’d think the music was cool but the vocals were shit. So I tried making my own superfunky instrumental version of that sound using cheap synths.” Meanwhile, Pavan (a.k.a. Frans Carlqvist, 33) was more concerned with tempo, producing his own tracks set to a relaxed speed (skweee rarely rises above 110 beats per minute).

In 2004, Pavan released seven-inch singles on his
Flogsta Danshall label. Soon a ter, Barracuda launched
Harmönia Records, inspiring other DJs and producers
to take up the mantle. Skweee made further inroads
in 2007, when Museum of Future Sound, the genre’s
rst widely available CD compilation, caught the ear
of trend-sni ers such as BBC DJ Rob Da Bank, who
played some of the featured artists on his show, and
Allan Horrocks, co-owner of
San Francisco indie record
store Aquarius. “It sounded
so fresh,” says Horrocks.
“Customers loved it.”
The Turku four couldn’t
be happier. “People every-
where are getting into some-
thing started by Scandina-
vians who drink too much,”
says Barracuda. “It’s amaz-
ing.” DAVID MARCHESE

THE ALBUM
RECIPE
The Thermals’
Hutch Harris reveals
how they cooked up
Now We Can See

5 songs about death

5 hits of weed a day

Strange Fascin-
ation: David
Bowie: The
De nitive Story

1 rental P T Cruiser

1 emergency room visit for an almost-severed nger

1 visit to
Dealey Plaza
and the JFK
museum

Now We Can See

“We wanted to make a wider, bigger, louder record. I think it’s slightly more hi- than our last one, but it’s not polished, for sure. Our records were getting a little weighted down by politics and religion, so instead we wrote about classic things: water, air, earth, love, life, and death.”

FROM TOP: MIRA SHEMEIKKA; TATU ME TSATAH TI

30 APRIL 2009 DOWNLOAD NE W MP3s AT SPIN.COM

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVIER KUGLER