Rarely does a new musical artist grab me by the heart and stop me in my tracks. Stockholm’s young and gorgeous Lykke Li wins the prize– I’m floored. Talented, humble, delicate, and even dare I say visionary. Her music is eerie, warming, and thought provoking– and so incredibly mature for such a young person. Be sure to listen to Window Blues, and Little Bit– two of my favorites. Her new album Youth Novels isn’t available online in the Americas yet but you can grab it, shipped to your mailbox here.

You can however nab the Little Bit EP on iTunes pictured, or enjoy several other tracks on her full-of-content Myspace page for free. Looks like she’s on tour through England, western Europe and all over Scandinavia over the next few months. I’ll be making one of her shows and will probably be patiently waiting outside on one knee to propose. I love you Lykke Li.

I have mixed feelings about subways. From one perspective, they’re one of the best places we have for musing and people watching; however, it’s also important to note that feeling comfortable in such an undeniably “underground” setting is tough, to say the least. Until I saw these pictures of the subway system in Stockholm, I hadn’t considered that the reason behind my feeling unnatural could have more to do with the way we try to cover up that fact than the actual fact itself. Normally, when I see pictures of subway systems, the words that come to mind are “dirty,” “fast-paced,” and “necessary evil,” but these pics invoke a sense of adventure- they’re even warming, much like how I feel when I look at pictures of homey mountain cabins (I never would have thought that could be a subway association). Ultimately, I responded to this subway in the same way that I respond to art, a fact that almost leaves me speechless just for the fact that it’s a SUBWAY. There are always perks to honesty, and by letting the natural underground setting show through, it appears as though Stockholm warded off the general feelings of displacement subways are typically known for.

Front, the team of Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken, Anna Lindgren, and Katja Savstrom, is a design agency out of Stockholm, that, as the name suggests, is at the head of the design game. Pushing out concepts and prototypes with a tactile feel using innovative and perhaps strange techniques, the four designers are easily compared to quirky Dutch design firm Droog Design. In fact the two firms recently met up to create a few new pieces of furniture. Front works on that thin border between functional design and conceptual art. Their collection Animals is an intriguing example of when animals are utilized in creating art and include Rat Wallpaper (shown here) has holes in it, created by hungry rats, that allow the previous papers to show through. Front has recently produced designs for various companies like Materia and MOOOI. Make sure to check out their very impressive portfolio.

Stockholm raised and now San Francisco dwelling Lotta Jansdotter has some great work. She has done custom design work for Herman Miller in Chicago, Barney’s in Tokyo, and more. She has a lot of very simple and clean screen printing on textiles and designs on ceramics. Her designs are simple yet most are fun and effective.