From A Spark To A Flame

By Joe Kavanagh

For many years Scandinavia has enjoyed approximately the same relationship with good music that Ireland has with sunny weather, with the two having little more than a passing acquaintance.

Although not exactly a true litmus test of a nation's musical talent, if the Eurovision Song Contest thought us one thing and one thing only, it was to avoid all but a chosen few acts that had their origins north of the 53rd parallel.

While other countries certainly had their malevolent musical moments (Ireland quite literally sent a Turkey to represent the nation on one occasion), none were quite as spectacularly bad on a regular basis as the ill-conceived acts thrown out by our northern neighbors on the continent.

Running through this rock of recurrent aural unpleasantness has been a vein of pure gold, which has similarly shown the Nordic region to be somewhat blessed when it comes to generating pop music.

Whether it is in response to the cold, the dark evenings or the exorbitant price of a pint, Scandinavia has an uncanny knack for producing tunes that have you on a dance floor making a fool of yourself before you know quite what happened.

From the inimitable Abba, through acts like Ace Of Base, The Hives and The Cardigans, these cool countries have an inherent ability to produce instantly gratifying pop music.

It is a tradition that continues to this day with names like Denmark's Alphabeat, Norway's Ida Maria and Sweden's Peter, Bjorn and John, all providing some of pop music's most infectious moments in recent times.

As the home of Abba, the latter country undoubtedly holds the most storied pop history of all Nordic states and the recent release by their latest promulgator of pop will certainly only add to its rich legacy.

Daniel Lindegren was born in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, and like so many others who later emerge as musicians, his earliest existence saw him treated as something of a misfit by his peers, resulting in him dropping out of high school.

Again, like so many in such circumstances, he found his escape in music, initially under the spell of hip hop artists like Kool Moe Dee and the Jungle Brothers, which led him to try his hand at the genre on the local scene, an endeavor he would later describe, saying: "I wanted to be involved in the culture but being a pale teenager from Sweden isn't the greatest starting point for rapping."

In addition to hip hop, he soon developed a taste for more guitar-oriented music by acts like Sonic Youth, Buzzcocks and the Pixies, and soon became proficient on a host of different instruments as he sought to expand his musical horizons.

Most influential of all on his musical education was the Prodigy, whose frenzied fusion of club and punk music had a profound effect on his musical taste and development as a recording artist.

Still, Sweden proved a tough nut to crack, and he made the decision to follow his sister to the UK, where he took up residence in north London suburb of Kilburn.

Given Kilburn's celebrated Irish heritage, it wasn't surprising when he bumped into the extravagantly extroverted, Steve Clarke, a.k.a. Irish Steve, as the pair initially decided to collaborate on a movie script.

When the latter discovered that Lindegren had built a small home studio in his apartment, all thoughts of a movie script were jettisoned in favor of writing songs, as the unlikely pairing of the shy, retiring Swede and the wild Irishman began churning out tunes heavily inspired by punk music.

Soon they had recruited two Brits and an Israeli to assist them in realizing their musical ambition, as they began playing around the capital under the name, Vatican DC.

Their increasingly effective blend of polished punk and indie soon won them a record deal with Red Flag Records, a label known for spotting and developing talent.

Their reputation growing, they were soon in demand as an opening act, taking in tours with Bloc Party, The Rakes and Prodigy, who were so taken with the band's sound that they asked the band to support them on two separate tours.

When Vatican DC's debut album, Make It Ride, hit shelves in 2007, it appeared that their career was well on the way to being a success, only for it all to fall apart only months later.

Whilst most were overwhelmingly positive, some reviewers accused the band of ripping off Kasabian with tracks like Fountainhead, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Leicester act's track Empire.

Ironically, Fountainhead had been recorded long before Kasabian laid down Empire but because Vatican DC were constrained by the tight budget of an indie label, the album did not appear until a full 14 months after it was initially recorded, making any accusations of copying utterly spurious.

A more important factor in their demise, however, was the alleged behavior of Clarke, whose erratic behavior soon made him a liability to the band, particularly in a live setting.

Known for his hedonistic approach to life, his live performances sometimes left a lot to be desired, as he appeared on stage in increasingly intoxicated states.

Their cause was not assisted by alleged improprieties by their management team, and the band ultimately collapsed in what Lindegren later termed "drunken chaos and sadness".

Reassembling his home studio in an outhouse beside his mother's home, he began laying down demo tracks, free of the constraints that often occur when stuck in a band format.

He also decided upon the name Tommy Sparks for his new solo career, in a process which he later described as: "I wanted a name that couldn't be taken too seriously, that was a bit of fun and that reflected the music I was making. I also thought the name sounded like a 70s footballer, which was cool."

Recording virtually all of the instrumentation himself, he initially attempted to finish the album in the Czech republic, but when that session soured, he turned to acclaimed producer Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys) who was impressed enough to sign up immediately.

Known almost as much for his lively personality and sheer niceness, Lindegren also maintained his musical profile by filling in for Bloc Party's bassist, Gordon Moakes, on the band's tour last year, while Moakes took paternity leave.

During the course of recording his album he also took time out to work with Filthy Dukes on their debut album and even co-write the track, Wild West for Prodigy's last record, Invaders Must Die.

Daniel Lindegren made the final public transformation into Tommy Sparks, in August with the release of his eponymous debut album, an unwaveringly exultant slice of effervescent pop.

The Guardian perhaps came the closest to capturing its essence when they declared: "If Sparks was any poppier and fizzier they'd need to give away a glass and a straw with his music."

It is a gloriously upbeat collection of shimmering pop songs capable of making Michelangelo's David dance. Driven by contagious tracks like Much Too Much, Miracle and She's Got Me Dancing, the album is unfailingly happy, and while it might not be the record that you would spend the rest of your life with, it is a musical fling that you would certainly always look back on with nothing but fondness.

The tracks have the uncanny knack for feeling instantly familiar without ever sounding remotely like a rip-off, incorporating a veritable who's who of influences from Talking Heads to Hot Chip, New Order, MGMT and Daft Punk.

There is no denying that the songs are built for the dance floor, but each one is nonetheless beautifully constructed, packed with ideas, purpose and the occasionally profound lyric.

While comparisons to contemporaries such as Dan Black, Little Boots and even compatriot Robyn, are all but inevitable, Lindegren's skill and poise as a songwriter have resulted in an album that is certainly capable of making him a global name in his own right.

It is almost a shame that a work infused with such undeniably sunny disposition only hit shelves as the cold fall evenings began to roll in, as it certainly would have been a worthy contender for anyone looking for a soundtrack to the summer.

Even still, Tommy Sparks contains enough shimmer and shine to stave off the cold of winter for some time to come.