After impressive remixes of Swedish House Mafia's last single, "Save the World," by dance music acts like AN21 and Max Vangeli, Alesso, and Zedd, whose fiery mix MTV News premiered exclusively last month, the house music production trio of Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell and Steve Angello have so far teased only two new originals this summer.
And really, only one of these new gems has been well-documented, starting with Axwell spinning the dark track at Club Papaya in Croatia in July. Sure, the in-demand collective has been busy touring, but save for Sebastian Ingrosso and Alesso debuting their new single "Calling" on Friday (August 12) on the BBC's "Essential Mix" with Pete Tong, it would seem the three Swedes have devoted their summer to performing rather than hitting the studio.
When MTV News caught up with Steve Angello recently, though, he told us nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Angello revealed, SHM have more than 15 songs ready to go, but the group is toying with how to release their new material.
"This is the thing ... we have a lot of records," Angello confessed. "We have singles; we have all the material to make an album. But it's like, do we want to stick with the traditional album ways or do we want to do something different? And I think, as Swedish House Mafia works, I think we do something different."
As for the aforementioned "dark" single Axwell played earlier at a live show, Angello couldn't confirm whether it would be the trio's next release. "It's one of them. ... It's another record," Angello said. "It's pretty f---ed up, but it's good energy!"
In addition to working on their own material, fans of the three Swedes will be tickled to hear that they've also been producing records for two major pop stars. But, of course, they aren't ready to reveal just who yet.
"A lot of people came through this year," Angello said. "After the success of, 'One,' and 'Miami 2 Ibiza,' we got hundreds of requests to work with people. We chose very few to work with. We've done some work with a very, very big artist. We're producing [some of] another artist's album. It's been an amazing trip for us. I can't tell anybody's name yet."
While we couldn't get names, MTV News did get another major piece of SHM scoop: Angello is also well into work on a solo album being put out through Interscope via his Size Records label.
"I do have an album," Angello revealed. "The last bit is the hard part because you have to decide what you want to do and choose what direction you want to take. I've finished 70 percent. I got a couple singles. I just haven't picked 'the one.' "