S.P.O.C.K's "Assignment: Earth" will be released in USA and Canada through KK-North America on the 21:st of April. The US edition will have five bonus tracks and a new cover. A new single "Speed of Light" will be released in Europe on the 27:th of April. The single also contains a second brand new song called "Human Decision Required", two remixes of "Force of Life" and "E.T. Phone Home" as a CD-ROM video.
S.P.O.C.K will performe live at FEDCON 6 (the biggest Star Trek convent in Europe) on the 18:th of April. The event will take place at Maritim Hotel in Bonn.

The first Swedish Electronic Music Awards was held in Gothenburg on April 4. Swedish Electronic Music Awards was a huge sucess and completely sold out. This means that Swedish Electronic Music Awards also will be arranged 1999 - on April 3 to be exact.
Based upon Release Music Magazine's readers poll we gave awards in five categories. Here are the proud winners:
Best Swedish electronic music newcomer 1997: EnCounter
Best Swedish electronic music song 1997: Saft: "Underbar"
Best Swedish electronic music album 1997: S.P.O.C.K: "Assignment: Earth"
Best Swedish electronic music live artist 1997: Elegant Machinery
Best Swedish electronic music album 1997: Covenant
Both Saft and Covenant was booked as live acts at Swedish Electronic Music Awards long before the votes were counted and played just after they had recieved their awards. There were nine other live acts at Swedish Electronic Music Awards, for example Vacuum, Komputer and In the Nursery. Both Komputer and In the Nursery had travelled from England. Komputer arrived in time, In the Nursery did not. This very day, April 4, was a day with really ugly weather - heavy winds and snow just when we had welcomed the spring. This caused severe traffic problems in our part of Sweden. A sign from above? In the Nursery's plane couldn't land in Gothenburg and was forced to go to another airport in Jönköping. This made it impossible for the band to play at the scheduled time. Finally In the Nursery was re-scheduled to play as last act. Unfortunately the venue Kåren had to close down at 2 O'Clock, so the band couldn't play more than a few songs. Hopefully they can return to Sweden soon, and play a full concert.
On the other hand the weather could have caused more delays and trouble, but it did not and this was the only big problem. The rest of Swedish Electronic Music Awards was successful in almost every way.
There was around 1150 people at Swedish Electronic Music Awards including 2-300 VIP-guests. Almost every Scandinavian electronic music band, record company etc was represented. The expression "everybody was there" is true in this case.
As expected Swedish Electronic Music Awards generated lots of media coverage both before and now after the festival. For example all major Swedish newspapers did big Swedish Electronic Music Awards-articles. The Swedish electro genre got a well deserved push from Swedish Electronic Music Awards and all these media reports. It is still quite unusual that media outside the genre fully respect this music.
We will write more about Swedish Electronic Music Awards here at Release On Line - and of course in the next issue of Release Music Magazine.

Swedish national radio P3 recorded three concerts at Swedish Electronic Music Awards and has decided to broadcast one hour with Covenant live on June 1. Their new album "Europa" above is out now.

Another Swedish electro festival is on its way. First there is Electrocute in May and later this year there will be the second Stockholm Synth Festival and as usual Virtual X-Mas in Lund. But before that, in the beginning of the autumn the organization 33/45 will probably launch a new small festival in Malmö. It's only in the planning stage and has no name yet, but it will be focused on hard and dark electronic music and 3-5 bands will perform at one or two stages. We will of course cover this festival here at Release On Line so check out for more info later on.

The Smashing Pumpkins' new album is called "Adore" (May 25) and a yet unnamed single will be out on May 11.

Stroke is the largest concert, club and festival organizer for electronic music in Scandinavia and is also a record company. The head of Stroke, Nils Nilsson, has decided to leave the music business after Stroke's next festival, Electrocute. Other people will continue with Stroke's activities. Stroke will work with a wider range of music in the future, including hip hop on a new sub label to Stroke Records.
Their new record releases have been delayed. A o the live-CD with DAF.DOS will also include material from their forthcoming gig at the Arvika Festival in July and the CD will therefore be released first after the summer.

Depeche Mode will present their new world tour at a press conference in Cologne (Köln) on April 20. A new single is scheduled for September.

The Finnish band Panasonic have been forced to change their name to Pan Sonic, because of the famous Japanese company. The new album "Endless" (July 7) is going to contain twelve tracks in collaboration with ex-Suicide member Alan Vega.

The new Dance or Die maxi single, "Teenagemakeup", with four mixes of the song is out now on Polydor. A video is made by Jörg Buttgereit, director of horror films like "Necromantik". Dance or Die's next album will be titled "Dehumanizer". In May they are playing at the Electrocute festival in Stockholm.

Massive Attack's new album "Mezzanine" will make no fan disappointed. After the album release on April 20, they are heading for a tour and will visit, among other countries, Sweden in May. Unfortunately their concert in Gothenburg is moved to Oslo. You can listen to their album on the web right now.

Karl Bartos' Elektric Music is back (now without Lothar Manteufel) with a disturbingly mainstream guitar pop album - "Elektric Music". When Elektric Music performed live some years ago they played unreleased and quite nice stuff , but it's not included here, at least not in the "live" versions. Flop warning!

Barry Adamson's new album is named "As Above, so Below" and will be released on June 1. A single called "Can't Get Loose" will show up on May 11.

Elegant Machinery will be back after a break with a new single in May called "Words of Wisdom". They are now working together with Eskil Simonsson of Covenant to complete their long-awaited remixalbum, which also will contain some new stuff. It will be out on Energy Rekords just before or after summer.
On April 17 Elegant Machinery will perform in the Swedish ZTV show Västmannagatan 44A. That's the first chance to hear "Words of Wisdom". 75 people will have the chance to watch them for free.

The CDM "Trust You" is the first taste of the forthcoming Mesh album. A typical Mesh hit - not original at all, but very strong. The CDM contains the title track (mix + remix) together with the completely new songs "My Defender" and "The Purest People" plus "Confined". These songs and two versions of "Trust You" are included on a Mesh compilation album, "Fragmente", to be released in connection with their German Tour supporting De/Vision in May. "Fragmente" contains all the singles and the very best from their album.

The New York record company Synthphony Records has just released La/Vogue's first album. La/Vogue is the fourth Swedish band on this productive label and an old synthpop project with one member from Daily Planet. La/Vogue are included on a new Synthphony sampler (May) together with Rational Youth ("Coboloid Race 98"), The Twins ("Touch of Heaven remix"), Marian Gold from Alphaville ("Danger in Your Paradise") and lots of others.

Memento Materia will soon make it possible for all the Swedish synthpop fans of today to discover Nasa with the compilation "Echoes Down the Hall". The CD is filled with all their pop hits such as "Paula", "Take off Your Clothes" and "The Bird".