It’s Stockholm for the holidays!
A country known for its affordable, build-it-yourself furniture and excessive ümläüts will showcase its creative side this week, when a dream team of Swedish music stars descend on a Williamsburg night club.
The Sweden Makes Music showcase at Baby’s All Right on Dec. 17 will feature some of the most exciting names in Sweden’s burgeoning pop music scene, including Elias, Mapei, Le Sinner, DJ Clea and Morabeza Tobacco.
The annual festival, now in its seventh year, is hosted by Export Music Sweden and the Swedish Consulate General, and is designed to create a North American audience for the Scandinavian country’s creative community, said the event’s organizer.
“We wanted to find a way to basically showcase Swedish music but also in a more general sense, Swedish creativity,” said Niklas Arnegren, head of Cultural Affairs at the Consulate General of Sweden.
The Swedish pop music scene is one of the most prolific in Europe, said Arnegren, thanks in part to the country’s welcoming and tech-savvy ways.
“The scene is very progressive and very creative,” he said. “I think a lot of the Swedish music scene mirrors Swedish society in a great way.”
Brooklynites wary of embracing tunes sung in a foreign tongue need not worry, Arnegren said — all the musicians performing this week sing in English, which is widely spoken in Sweden. About 80 percent of people in the Northern European country speak excellent English, he said.
The musicians take many cues from American artists as well. Elias, the top-billed artist, makes soulful pop with hints of Bon Iver, while Maipei’s club-friendly tracks have been remixed by both Frankie Knuckles and Chance the Rapper.
On the afternoon of the concert, the consulate and Swedish festival Tekla will also host a series of music production classes for middle school girls in Brooklyn, where Mapei and other artists will teach the students to make their own beats.
Sweden Makes Music at Baby’s All Right [146 Broadway between Driggs and Bedford, Williamsburg, (718) 599–5800, sweden-makes-music.confetti.events]. Dec. 17 at 7 pm. Free with RSVP.
