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Lovestream Records
Sometimes an opportunity occurs that gives you the chance to make your life take a new turn. To me that happened in 1999 when I rented a cottage on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. Leaving the hectic city life where my job as a high school teacher made me spend most of my time worrying about other people, I now could begin a personal, internal journey, concentrating on my own development. With me to the island I had brought my guitar, which I had barely touched for years, but now I was slowly rewarded with inspiration. During my five weeks on Gotland I wrote three songs which turned out to be the beginning of what eventually came to be the CD Livets dörr (”The Door of Life”).
Having had no experience of the music business – but filled with an eagerness to learn – I took the step into the abyss and released the album on my own label (Löfström Ord&Ljud) which was a small copyright business I had run parallel to my teaching. Not having had the immediate intention to produce more records, I thought I’d give it a chance and see what would happen.
What happened was that I met a whole lot of new interesting opportunities and people. The most important of these was the meeting with the musician/songwriter Thomas Tjärnkvist. He had joined the band as a stand in for the keyboard player during the last days of the recordings of Livets dörr. His talent and enthusiasm soon made him closely involved in the production. One day he handed me a demo CD of some songs he had recorded in his home studio. To me that opened up a whole new world. For years I had not met with music that had affected and inspired me to such an extent and now the first thought of releasing more albums occured. Luckily, Thomas did not have a contract with any other label and in March 2005 the new label Lovestream Records was created opening with the release of the two CD-singles Hard Rain by Thomas and Love Will Show You The Way by me.
At the same time I was contacted by my old friend and pianist Johan Westre who came up with the idea of celebrating the upcoming 250 years anniversary of W A Mozart’s birth by making a recording of some of his piano sonatas which Johan had been performing during his tours in Sweden and Austria. The result was Mozart Piano Sonatas which was released in October 2005.
In february 2006 the time had come to release Thomas’ first full-length CD Ben fetur, whose 12 songs cover the width of his great talent and influences. Keeping a distance to the mainstream highway, it has gained much appreciation among a more discriminating audience and the reviews by the critics have been overwhelming.
At present Lovestream Records are engaged in the recordings of the follow-up of the Love Will Show You The Way-single. At the end of September the song Reach You will be released to radio, and the full-length CD is planned to come in January 2007. Recordings of a follow-up to Ben fetur have also started.
Running a record company today is a great adventure. New technology and stiff competition provide great challenge to inventiveness and inspiration. Being surrounded by immense talent and enthusiasm, I cannot but embrace that challenge with great joy.
Petter Löfström
Lovestream Records
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