New Jaga Jazzist EP in July

Jaga Jazzist will be releasing a new remix EP in July entitled "Bananfluer overalt" featuring contributions from Sprutbass, Final, Prins Thomas and others.

Presenting Lovly.no

Lovly.no, the Norwegian music industry's new web initiative, is now online. What they say:

This is a music scouting service created by all music organizations in Norway to promote Norwegian music and show that there is a lot of good services where the public can listen to and buy music. And we're doing that through helping the public discover new Norwegian talent, not with a whip and a pointing finger...
The service is crawling blogs, twitter. last.fm etc to create top 10 lists showing the artists with most online buzz. The public can read tweets and the latest headlines from blogs about their favourite artists, listen to free 30 sec samples or click on listen/buy buttons that will launch icons for a lot of services available in Norway or share their favourites on Facebook and Twitter.
The goal is to promote Norwegian artists, ease discovery of new music, increase traffic to music blogs, showcase all the good services and get more bloggers to write about new Norwegian music.

Seems weird to me that they're not running the site in English to attract an international audience, but it does appear that they're doing a decent job of assimilating a lot of data from around the web.

New PB&J in the works

Peter Morén says that the basic tracks for the next Peter Bjorn and John album have been recorded, with two more weeks of tracking to go before mixing.

New blood for Makabert Fynd

Swedish hardcore act Makabert Fynd has enlisted new members Kalle Persson (Skitsystem) on drums Anders Lundin (Abjekt) on guitar.

Division of Laura Lee - Something new ahead (video)

Division of Laura Lee in the studio recording new material? See here: https://vimeo.com/12259691

The Nancy Wha begets The Wha's

Finnish indie act The Nancy Wha broke up and three of the members now have a new band called The Wha's: https://www.myspace.com/thewhas

Where the Slime Lives: Oranssi Pazuzu

Finnish black metal weirdos Oranssi Pazuzu are profiled in the debut edition of "Where the Slime Lives", The Quietus' new extreme metal column: https://thequietus.com/articles/04370-where-the-slime-lives-episode-1-from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous

New website for Katzenjammer

Norwegian folk/pop act Katzenjammer has a new website: https://katzenjammer.no/
Check the concert listings for some upcoming US dates.

8 finalists chosen for A-ha millions

Eight finalists have been chosen to be potential recipients of the lucrative A-ha stipend: https://www.vg.no/musikk/artikkel.php?artid=10008166 (in Norwegian)
The artists in question: Shining, Hanne Hukkelberg, Moddi, Adjagas, Casiokids, Lars Vaular, Susanne Sundfør and Pink Robots.

Little Children sign with Fastcut

Little Children have signed with Japanese label Fastcut Records and will be releasing their debut album in September.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums announce 3rd album (sort of)

Wildbirds & Peacedrums have announced that their two vinyl-only EPs "Retina" and "Iris" will be released as a 2CD album package entitled "Rivers" on August 23 via Leaf Label.

The Knife makes big donation to Feministiskt Initiativ

Gaffa reports that The Knife has donated 50,000 SEK to Swedish political organization Feministiskt Initiativ: https://gaffa.se/nyhet/40066 (in Swedish)
Always good to see artists put their money where there mouth is.

Zweizz joins Goylem Space Klezmer

The always-busy and unpredictable Zweizz has announced that he's joined up with Goylem Space Klezmer, a Norwegian klezmer act "inspired by the dream of space exodus": https://www.myspace.com/goylem

New Säkert! album in September

Annika Norlin's (Hello Saferide) Swedish-language project Säkert! has recorded a new album entitled "Facit" which will be released on September 15. Look for the lead single "Fredrik" in August. More: https://www.razziarecords.se/news.asp?id=907

Jenny Wilson brings "Hardships!" to America

Jenny Wilson's album "Hardships!" will finally be getting a North American release on August 24 via her own label Gold Medal Recordings in cooperation with Redeye.