M?ns Wieslander

by Stewart MasonSwedish singer/songwriter Mans Wieslander has pursued his low-key guitar pop solo career (the Go-Betweens and Robyn Hitchcock are the most frequent comparisons) while maintaining a varied career as one-third of the dream pop trio the Moonbabies and releasing electronic-folk albums as half of the duo Campo Mondo. (He even had a short-lived spell as the bass player in the veteran Australian punk band the Saints, playing on the 1997 reunion album Howling.) As a youngster in rural Sweden, Wieslander played in a variety of local bands before moving to Malmo, the epicenter of the Swedish pop scene, and forming Elevator Adam with his bass-playing brother Anders Wieslander, drummer Conny Stade and keyboardist-guitarist Johan Weitner. The group released one album, Alcomoon, in 1995 on Payola, a Swedish subsidiary of German major BMG. The group splintered before a follow-up could be recorded, despite a small local hit single and some popularity as a touring attraction. After his brief stint in the revived Saints, Wieslander joined his friend Ola Frick's bands the Moonbabies and Campo Mondo and began work on his first solo album, 2000's Twin Piloda, also for Payola/BMG. A cassette-only release on the Italian indie Best Kept Secret, Wallpaper, followed in 2001. The American indie label Parasol, having found some success with releases by Swedish indie acts like Club 8, the Soundtrack of Our Lives and others, released Mans Wielander's third album, Yet, in December 2002.