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Mark Hoppus’ Pick of the Week: Kleerup

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When he’s not commandeering the stage as the boisterous bassist for SoCal punks Blink-182, Tweeting wisdom to more than 1.6 million followers, or handling album production duties for bands like Motion City Soundtrack and New Found Glory, you’d think Mark Hoppus would turn down the music.

Not. Possible.

In our continuing series, Hopp on Pop, Hoppus is sharing his favorite acts, culled from his incessant pursuit of all that rocks. (Click here to discover Mark’s previous picks: Philly hipster rockers Free Energy, Aussie expats the Temper Trap, Brooklyn keyboard punks Matt & Kim, Kiwi dance rock goddess Ladyhawke, Canadian rock duo Japandroids, and NYC popsters fun.) Check out his sixth entry below, and come back to SPIN.com every Wednesday for Mark’s latest discovery.

Be sure to follow more of Mark’s opinions and exploits via Twitter and on his blog! And check out Mark’s 8 Favorite Albums of 2009!

KLEERUP

HOMETOWN:
Stockholm, Sweden

THE BASICS:
Swedish producer Andreas Kleerup released his debut album, Kleerup, this summer in the U.S. After topping the U.K. charts via a collaboration with fellow Swede Robyn on “With Every Heartbeat” (watch below), Kleerup recruited a host of other guest vocalists to flesh out his album, including Lykke Li.

WHERE HOPP HEARD HIM FIRST:
“I’ll go out and buy a bunch of magazines, and look at a bunch of different bands,” says Hoppus. “That’s just one that caught my eye — the description of it sounded cool. I went online and checked out a few songs and bought the album.”

WHY HE ROCKS:
“I really like the minimalist approach that he uses with the programming. It’s really beautiful. It’s something that really reminds me of late nights. He does a lot of collaborations with female vocalists, and I think the female vocalists that he chooses have very unique voices and it makes the tracks even more ethereal and more dreamy.”

HOPP’S TOP TRACK:
“‘Until We Bleed,’ featuring Lykke Li. Like I said, I love the minimalist attitude of his programming. It really embraces space, which you don’t necessarily hear a lot of in music today. Everyone’s always trying to fill in every single 16th note with something different and all these different layers. I think he’s really tasteful with what he does with just a few elements.”

LISTEN: Kleerup ft. Lykke Li, “Until We Bleed”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4rGvq3cdJkk

WATCH: Robyn with Kleerup, “With Every Heartbeat”
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3vfLvZCdT9g

FIND OUT MORE: kleerup.net