Speedmarket Avenue

Speedmarket Avenue emerged from Norrkoping, Sweden, in 2001 as a five-piece indie pop outfit whose buoyant, spontaneous style drew from vintage acts such as Orange Juice and Comet Gain while occupying the same luminous space occupied by Saturday Looks Good to Me and the Shout Out Louds. Multi-instrumentalist Johan Angantyr first connected with Isak Klasson, Thomas Holm, Magnus Lundin, and Tom Wilkstrom that year; together they took the name Speedmarket Avenue and immediately cut four tracks for the 2002 Modesto Records vinyl EP Is Anything Ever Done?. One song from the release, “I Can Tell by Her Eyes,” entered steady rotation on Swedish station P3 the next year, sparking enthusiastic notices—especially in Sonic Magazine—and securing both a German tour and several prominent domestic shows. The group’s first full-length, I’m Going to Let My New Swiss Army Knife Answer to That, appeared on the Stockholm indie imprint Fickle Fame in 2004. While the record earned strong reviews, the lineup shifted: vocalist Sibille Attar joined and bassist Lundin stepped aside for Jesper Klein. After two years of live dates and outside projects—including backup vocal sessions by Attar and Klasson on Camera Obscura’s Let’s Get Out of This Country—Speedmarket Avenue returned to the studio in 2007 with producer Jari Haapalainen. Their sophomore album, Way Better Now, surfaced the following year on Spain’s Elefant Records.