Urban Cone

Formed in Stockholm in 2010 by a circle of high-school friends, the Swedish outfit Urban Cone fused electropop with a dance-rock bite. The lineup of Rasmus Flyckt on vocals and keyboards, Emil Gustafsson handling vocals and bass, keyboardist Jacob Sjöberg, guitarist Tim Formgren, and drummer Magnus Folkö gained early traction after “Urban Photograph” landed on Hype Machine; a demo sent to Universal secured a deal in early 2011. Before the year closed, the band issued the EP Our Youth, Pt. 1, followed by Our Youth, Pt. 2 in 2012 and the full-length Our Youth later that same year, which climbed into Sweden’s Top 20. In 2014 they joined forces with EDM musician Porter Robinson for the track “Lionhearted,” included on his album Worlds.

Polaroid Memories, the group’s sophomore LP, surfaced in 2015 via Polydor in Europe and Astralwerks in North America and reached number 26 on the Swedish albums chart. Brighter, more dance-oriented indie pop filled the record, highlighted by the duet “Come Back to Me” with Swedish dance-pop artist Tove Lo. The pair shared stages across Europe that spring and performed the song stateside at the South by Southwest festival. Later that summer Urban Cone returned to the U.S. to support the Griswolds on tour. After Folkö exited in 2016, the remaining quartet delivered the single “Old School” through Interscope and Universal Sweden in early 2017; by summer it had racked up tens of millions of streams and appeared on Sweden’s singles chart.