The Radio Dept - Passive Aggressive: Singles

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Press release
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5...according to our Brian on Fri 04 Feb, 2011.

About bloody time they collected some of this band's more esoteric output together! We first got exposed in 2002 when Rex put out a single called 'Liebling'. It was possibly one of the loveliest, ghostly fuzzy indie gems I'd ever clapped ears on! We only had one properly distributed UK album from them and then they seemed to vanish back to "obscure import" land from whence they came. Swedish indie pop, as uniformly great as much of it is, is poorly distributed on these shores. Bands like Liechtenstein & these guys have rabid Global cult followings but shit, nabbing many of their records involves a trawl & quite some effort! Of course it's worth it but, now, really, this fat beast of an anthology has landed with a bang & is quite a labour of love/money saving treat (whichever side of the coin you prefer)! The press release has it bang on as regards their influences - Slumberland style noise-pop, Mid-late 80's UK indie (hello Sarah recs./Field Mice/The Wake) and the dancier side of the sensitive, retro/cinematic brigade (Yo Cracknell, Stanley & Wiggs) So, many of the earlier sparky, lovelorn songs have this magical lo-fi or dreamy dusting that renders them sort of otherworldly, beamed down from another planet. The evergreen 'Liebling' or the gorgeous 'Ewan' are as good to these ears as anything, say, Deerhunter or The Post Office have ever done. ('Liebling' was only released as a single in the UK, crazily enough!) The harmonies are absolutely out of this world, proper special! I find myself loving downtempo electronica pieces such as 'Slottet' or the lush 'Mad About the Boy' just as much as any of the buzzy life-affirming indie pop nuggets they squeeze out so effortlessly! The Radio Dept are a very evocative, precious band who could easily unite fans of both The Field & Casiotone For the Painfully Alone. Tender, sad ecstasy is how I'd describe them. I think I'm gonna have to bag a vinyl or i'll just regret it!!

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Sweden’s leading indie export The Radio Dept. return with a double album that serves equally perfect as a 'Best of' release for soon-to-be fans and a 'rarities' compilation for those already hooked. Twenty-eight stunning songs on two discs - priced as a regular album!

"Sweden's Radio Dept. have spent their career to date quietly building up a devoted fanbase by filtering traditional indie and dream-pop sounds through an electronic haze. They've admirably honored their genre's history every step of the way, incorporating elements of vintage Slumberland noise-pop, sadder 80s UK indie sounds, and the kind of romantic, low-key dance-pop typically associated with Saint Etienne, or more recently, the Tough Alliance." PITCHFORK (Best New Music, April 26 - 2010)

2010 year’s album "Clinging to a scheme" reached the Billboard Heatseeker Chart Top 20, #22 on the CMJ chart in the US, they've had three songs topping the blog charts Hypem.com and Elbo.ws the same year and they were "Best New Music" on Pitchfork. With their first world tour ever lined up and the release of "Passive aggressive", 2010 will undoubtably belong to The Radio Dept.!

"Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010" CD 1 has all the single A-sides including two NME "Single of the week" hits, three tracks from Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" movie and numerous amazing tracks that have been ruling the blogosphere over the last years. CD 2 is a collection of B-sides; a long awaited must-have for the fans. All tracks taken from out of print releases and are previously unavailable on CD.

Press Release
"Indie as fuck". Those were the exact words I said to myself when I heard The Radio Dept. for the first time. Very little did I know that they'd rapidly become Labrador's best selling band; the first to reach the sales charts in Sweden, end up on NME's albums-of-the-decade-list, enter the Billboard Heatseeker chart or serve as soundtrack to an odd costume drama by Sophia Coppola.¬† I never held any doubts about the music - it was unique, possibly even ground-breaking. Nor did I hold any uncertainty about the fact that they were fantastic song writers and almost geniusly wayward producers. But I drew comparisons to bands like Metrotone and thought they'd sell roughly the same amount of records.... a couple of hundred spread evenly across the globe. Luckily, sales expectations have always been completely irrelevant on Labrador and naturally we decided to sign them in that point of time, almost nine years from now.

Working with The Radio Dept. from 2002 - 2010 has definitely been an interesting, occasionally even turbulent, time. There's been fights and threats regarding contracts, they've cancelled more intereviews than all the other bands I've worked with altogether, they are unworldly time optimists (they can miss a deadline by three years), they've demanded - and received - so much advances that we haven't been able to pay our bills, I've had to bribe them with drugs to persuade them to talk to selected parts of the press, they've been soundly pissed off when a colour of their artwork didn't turn out exactly the shade they intended... etc.... the story goes on. But despite that our collaboration can take strange turns, be pretty verbose or even harsh I've always appreciated it a very much, I've never held any doubts. As soon as a new song is handed over it's instantly worth it all. It's always a surprise. Always. And, of course... somehow I can't help both sympathizing with them and admiring them. The Radio Dept. are adamantly uncompromising, ridiculously self-critical, vastly independent and, not least importantly, constantly moving forwards.¬† "Passive agressive: Singles 2002-2010" is a voyage through the first eight years on Labrador.

/Johan Angergv•rd

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