Love Is All hjälper mig minnas.

En gång i tiden fanns ett alldeles fantastiskt svenskt band som hette Girlfriendo. Skivan Surprise! Surprise! It’s Girlfriendo (Siesta) från 1999 är en av mina absoluta favoritskivor. Jag är kass på att beskriva hur saker låter och citerar därför istället skivbolagets beskrivning av skivan, som i sin partiskhet ändå är helt korrekt:

Surprise! Surprise! It's Girlfrendo is a snapshot of a group who have just come into their powers. Maturity: no! If the musical rough edges of the first singles were replaced by a smoothness which had come with experience, it is because the newfound musical finesse - acoustics, brass and organs to match Sweden's finest - only makes an even better foil for these emancipated Eliza Doolittles. They could do exactly what they wanted. They could get away with anything. And they were obviously amusing themselves highly in the process of showing the world.

Every song on this record is a mad idea, a challenge, a possibility, a dream, an inspiration, a surprise. A funky lesson in diction in Homework. An oversexed answer to "The Would-Be-Goods" Marvelous Boy in Delicatessen. A battle of the sexes and anthem for aficionados of the blush in First Kiss Feelings vs. Everyday Sensations.

And just how many different kisses are there? They keep popping up on this album, from the sweet revenge of Surprise, Surprise to Kisses in the Nursery, a catalogue which may be inappropriate for older listeners. Dreams crop up by the dozen as well. Air takes us on a flight of fancy without leaving the cozy comfort of the sheets, while Cat Heaven describes exactly what the title purports, with wit, imagination, and not without the essential feline snobbism.

Further cataloguing and taxonomy (if not taxidermy) of boy types takes place on Crushed, with the ultimate flogging of hip attitudes and pop prescriptionism reserved for the hilariously sad Lose Your Face -reminiscent of Momus' What Will Death Be Like? in skewering technique but not in tedium. Which is the essence of Girlfrendo philosophy: rejection of routine, abhorrence of authority, a surplus of surprises.

Efter att Girlfriendos aska spritts för vinden gick några av medlemmarna vidare och startade bandet Love Is All. Ett band som rönt betydligt större framgångar och som nyligen signat ett recorddeal med amerikanska Polyvinyl. Love Is All har jag aldrig, med några undantagslåtar, riktigt fastnat för. Men deras största förtjänst är ändå att de vid varje uppdykning påminner mig om Girlfriendo. Och det älskar jag dem för.

Nu finns en ny låt med Love Is All - “Kungen” att lasta ned här. Den gillar jag. Den spelar jag på Club King Kong på lördag.

Den 23 mars släpps nya skivan Two Thousand And Ten Injuries. Med Love Is All alltså.