Sweden – Zachary Mule

BECKY AND THE BIRDS: ONLY MUSIC MAKES ME CRY NOW

(4AD RECORDINGS; 2024)

Before I attempt to justify my opinion that this Swedish artist has made one of the absolute best albums of the year, let me provide some context. While I have been a music reviewer for a few decades now, the most magical period of doing so was roughly from 2002 to 2008. In that first decade of the new millennium, I was a co-editor of PLAYBACK STL (which had a print edition for half a dozen years), a contributing writer to fLUSH (the predecessor of ZACHARY MULE, which you are reading right now), and a contributor to an all-Scandinavian review zine called IT’S A TRAP. I became something of a Nordic obsessive, kicked off initially by my adoration for the Norwegian girl trio Ephemera and fueled by other singular artists such as Stina Nordenstam, Bol, Maria Solheim, Efterklang and too many others to mention. I developed a theory that something in the cultural DNA of the Scandinavian countries resulted in a music-making process and production aesthetic that was substantially different from what we’re used to in America. Intimate, close-mic’d vocals and emotive detail in both performance and overall arrangement were two of the stylistic traits, I felt, and album after album bore me out on that. I fell in love with the sound, and though the industry and music zines overall would take major hits in the millennium’s second decade, I would never forget the musical bliss I experienced for some wonderful years.

BECKY AND THE BIRDS (THEA GUSTAFSSON) (photo credit: OSCAR LINDQVIST)

Becky and the Birds, the artistic moniker of inventive Swedish “songbird” Thea Gustafsson, have just released their debut, ONLY MUSIC MAKES ME CRY NOW, and it is an absolute sonic tour de force. Had this album come out back in the IT’S A TRAP days, I would’ve raved about it and tried to find a few similar artists to compare it to. But here and now, in 2024, this thing strikes me as one of the most crazily original platters to come along in years. And it’s just what I needed in this post-election nightmare when nothing makes sense anymore, up is down and black is white. What we have here is an adventurous, largely electronica-based cut-and-paste surge of energetic short songs led by a creatively driven young woman who’s been honing her compositional skills and production techniques for some years, and is now ready to serve us this heaping platter of stunningly original gems to help lighten our load, as she’s clearly done for herself. A strong sense of melancholy runs through this thing, and it struck me at times as a dedicated attempt to explore the dream state, or perhaps remain IN it, during the aftermath of some kind of chaos or pain. Every song moves past quickly and is PACKED with musical details, such as the beautiful piano chord progression in “I Made My Baby Cry” (and first use of real harmonies on the disc) to the low-level pulse that precedes an actual beat in “Everything” (where you hear the word “Damn!” uttered twice and the title repeated multiple times), to the hypnotic totality of “When She Holds Me,” one of the album’s true gems, where the repeated simple guitar chords and ethereal rise of wordless vocals are truly mesmerizing. Gustafsson’s lyrics are not always genuinely clear, but I think I heard the line “The world is wishing me well” in this entrancing song, and it struck me as poignant.

BECKY AND THE BIRDS (THEA GUSTAFSSON) (uncredited photo)

I wrote down the phrase “skittering, erratic currents of electronic sound” to attempt to sum up the musical approach on this album. Loops are employed regularly but are sometimes interrupted by other loops or sounds or Gustafsson’s own vocals, which by nature of being distinctly airy, sweet and sometimes haunted-sounding, provide a memorable counterpoint to the often technology-driven arrangements here. “To Trust You” is a video available to follow lyrically on the Birds’ website… there’s some distortion here and there, but you can clearly hear Gustafsson singing “If it happened once/Why wouldn’t it happen twice?” and this is thematically one of a number of songs dealing with relationship fallout and heartache. In the track “I Look At the Choices I Made,” the weirdness of both the vocals and arrangement gave me the impression that our singer cannot actually ARTICULATE those choices in a normal “conversational” manner, so she’s letting the music convey how tough that is. And in “London Is Not the Same” (the second supercool song of the year to express a personal change because of the U.K’s biggest city, the other tune being Taylor Swift’s haunting “So Long London”), the soundscape is flat-out weird and genuinely melodic in equal measure, something I quite enjoyed. You won’t learn WHY London is different now according to Gustafsson, but no matter… everything about this track is utterly compelling. So is “Anymore,” with its five-tone sequence played at the lower end of the keyboard preceding Gustafsson’s buoyant vocal, “I Made My Baby Cry” (which hardly needs many other lyrics to drive its mournful point home), the almost normal-sounding “Elsa 4-Ever” with its uncharacteristically solitary guitar picking in the background and a clear upfront vocal, and the remarkable “Celebrity//Don’t Leave,” a song that really got to me and that I should have listened to several more times before writing this review. My lord, this is one of the most original compositions I’ve heard in a couple of years. And Gustafsson sings it with some of the most bracing, powerhouse vocals ever laid down in this modern era. In the early part of the song, some of her phrasing is vaguely reminiscent of FOLKLORE-era Taylor Swift, an impression heightened by a male vocal offering counterpoint in the song briefly. “Take some time,” Gustafsson starts to sing, with an uncertain follow-up after. We soon get almost a literal spigot of unusual musical ideas flowing, spreading, forming puddles of sound you are trying to let your ears maneuver through until it all ends, in devastating manner, with her singing “Don’t leave me like this” several times, with the final one being stark and somber. I’m not sure I have heard a minute on ANY recent album as overpowering as this; it’s right up there with Taylor’s “How much sad did you/Think I had?” on her TORTURED POETS… album.

Becky and the Birds, just wow. I am deeply grateful to Thea and her focused, self-aware musical exploration on this debut for giving me the sensation of getting IMMERSED in and haunted by a new album again; it hasn’t happened for a while. This is incredibly original music, my friends… while it has elements of electronica, old-school R&B and even Hip-Hop in a few places, I can safely say you’ve never heard anything like this before. It’s music made, I think, out of chaos and pain, with a sense that the biggest things we want to say in life… out of lost love, a sense of helplessness, a sense of extreme hurt and disbelief and more… perhaps can’t really be said completely. There are only FRAGMENTS of emotion possible, tossed-off comments, and the dream state, where deep wishes collide with nightmares and unendurable sorrows. I can’t know exactly what Thea Gustafsson has been through anymore than she can know the anguish I have felt for months, myself. But I can nod, knowingly at her declaration that “Only music can make me cry now.” And let me add that I have a feeling only THIS music will make me tear up for a while… it’s beautiful, unsettling, crazy, non-linear and deeply soothing all at the same time. Becky and the Birds have truly made one of the most distinctive albums of the year… it has helped me FIND a little something that I had lost in myself, and I am grateful.

LYKANTROPI: TALES TO BE TOLD

(DESPOTZ RECORDS; 2020)

Clearly I have GOT to get myself to Scandinavia. I’ve known that for a while, but it was mostly based on my passion for a few Norwegian acts specifically. But the more I hear of bands influenced by the apparently endless deep forests of Finland and especially Sweden, the more I want to see that influence for myself. Apparently those endless woods make musicians of the region want to write brooding, proggy song cycles about life, love, hours contemplating the meaning of it all, and yes, “tales to be told” in music. That’s the title of this brand-new album by Lykantropi, a group sewing up good reviews and a fast-growing fan base due to their ‘70s rock evoking brand of psych, which is delivered in a perfectly comfortable ensemble guitar, flute and mixed-gender vocals. You need know NOTHING about Nordic spells or landscapes to appreciate this stuff. But it helps if you like Jethro Tull, Blue Oyster Cult, the Moody Blues and yep, even prog kings Yes, since the sounds on TALES TO BE TOLD bring all of those legends to mind.

LYKANTROPI (OLA RUI NYGARD, MARTIN OSTLUND, TOMAS ERIKSSON, MY SHAOLIN, ELIAS HAKANSSON, IA OBERG) (publicity photo)

Martin Ostlund and My Shaolin trade off on male-female lead vocals and often combine for strong harmonies that will remind you of lots of stuff you grew up on in the ‘70s. That’s no slight; it’s a brisk and invigorating sound when combined with the thoroughly confident guitar riffing on tracks like “Coming Your Way,” “Mother of Envy” and “Axis of Margaret,” which is a good solid tune to sample if you’re in a hurry. On “Coming… ,” the repeated simple chorus of “Close your eyes before it’s too late” tends to stick in your mind, and as much as I’d like to ask the band specifically what they MEAN with that lyric, I’ll just take it at face value. The sturdy and melodic title track and the showcase tune “Kom ta mig ut,” which has a striking accompanying video. show a band that is impressively disciplined, one that has obviously heard a few Yes and Genesis albums, yet they rarely indulge in guitar solos or anything at all that could be called “ponderous.” They seem to be purveyors of a surging sonic current that moves forward, but always provides just the right framework for the two vocalists to be heard over, and for the atmosphere to envelop the listener. I really like the accessible arrangement on “Mother of Envy” and the expansive but breathing normally space of “Varlden gar vidare,” which yes, is sung in Swedish but it doesn’t matter. It’s the whole landscape of the piece that draws you in, not individual lyrics. The instrumental work here is exemplary, with Lo Oberg’s flute work deserving special mention. If you want lyrics you understand to sink your teeth into, go with “Coming Your Way” or “Spell On Me,” which made me listen a few times to catch the lyric “”The only time I feel all right is when I’m by your side,” and its slight variation. Others can discuss if the Kinks tune “All Day and All of the Night” and the similar lyric may have been in the heads of the songwriters, but it’s more likely that this universal expression of love and existential angst gripped the pens of Lykantropi’s songwriters same as it does for us Yankee types. Even if they do have better forests and more precise language skills over in Scandi-land.

TALES TO BE TOLD isn’t all that groundbreaking; you’ve heard this sort of psych-y, proggy idiom before. But it’s unquestionably more self-assured and sincere than the umpteen generations of American bands that have been trafficking in this sound since the halcyon era of the ‘70s. And I’ll take the Swedish focused cool and inter-band solidarity we get here over any number of second-rate progsters garnering column inches elsewhere. Three or four albums in, Lykantropi seem to know what they’re doing, and they have the lineup and dedication they need to stay in this for the long run. Give ’em a listen, and then listen again. If, like me, you have all the reference points in you already, the sense of familiarity will be welcome and even a bit emotional.

DO THE ARCHITECTURAL WATUSI Music Reviews Streaming Video | Kevin Renick | March 17, 2021 | Folk Metal Lo Oberg Lykantropi Martin Ostlund My Shaolin Progressive Folk Metal Rock and Roll Streaming Video Sweden

SOFIA HARDIG: AND THE STREET LIGHT LEADS TO THE SEA

(SOLARIS EMPIRE; Swedish import, 2016)

It’s not easy reviewing an artist as important as Sweden’s Sofia Hardig. She is a singer/songwriter who pushes the thematic and conceptual envelope beyond what we associate with that category, a rock guitarist who is not interested in showing off on the instrument and sometimes buries the sound or zeroes in on one little minimal tone, an electronica innovator who is after something far more ambitious in her compositions than simply making you dance or showing you the cool sounds she can generate on her latest equipment. No, Sofia is after something more significant, something more primal and mysterious, something that is a bit of a secret unless you can either get on her wavelength or follow the “light” she alludes to on this new recording down to, well, the literal or metaphorical “sea” this music tells you to experience. Hardig is concerned about humanity, about things fractured or falling apart, about things sadly NOT working out the way they should because, y’know, PEOPLE and stuff. She is a lonely spokeswoman for angst-ridden characters searching for meaning, but she is not interested in spelling everything out clearly. You’ve got to think a little. “Let, let, let, let love in,” she declares on the opening “Streets,” obviously a universal sentiment, but she sings it like she is surrounded by men with weapons pointed right at her, with a few clangorous chords refusing to let the sentiment simply make its way easily to your ears. Few female artists so convey the urgency of an emotion the way Hardig does. She’s been doing it over the course of half a dozen stellar releases for the past decade or so, and you get the sense that her work is equal parts therapy and humanitarian dissertation. Yet this stuff does rock madly, as on the frenzied “Swim” which is a pretty sexy atonal little creation that INSISTS you listen to it.

Sofia Hardig (photo credit: EMMA GUNNARSSON)

“The Norm” is primarily a spoken word rant that finds Hardig addressing the “Citizens of the world” somewhat straightforwardly. “It’s not right what they do. They’re not experts on anything. But they think they are. Because they read a little line about what your heart should be. And what your eyes should be. And what your dreams should be. But they’re not right. We know better, you and I,” Hardig declares, then singing the repeated refrain “Keep dreamin,’ baby,” which I like to think is aimed at both the populace that desperately needs to keep having uplifting dreams for a better future, and the oppressive forces almost everywhere these days, that mistakenly THINK they can continue to run things as badly as they have. Hardig has absolute authority throughout this music, and most artists could not pull it off. The clanging, supercharged squall of music behind her helps considerably. Nothing lilting or easy about this sound in any way. It’s gloriously messy and discordant. “Sitting Still” is an ironic title for the next song, which is an ass-kicking rocker that brings to mind Hardig’s countrymen in the band the Knife, who covered some of this sonic territory on their last release, SHAKING THE HABITUAL. The tune just surges madly through a battlefield of opposing forces… no bridge, no chorus, just a furious, short flight past a stressful landscape of the worst of humanity. That’s how it struck me, anyway. After that, “Closed Eyes” is ALMOST lulling, but not quite. There’s a steady rhythm, and some carefully constructed verses, but Hardig’s vocal can’t settle for being merely emotionally resigned and descriptive… real pain rises up in her delivery and the sonic assault of the music is beautifully fierce and controlled, reminding in moments of the Doors on “The End,” the Velvet Underground or various other artists you may think you’ve heard. But this stuff is mostly stunningly original.

Sofia Hardig (photo credit: DANIEL PEDERSON PHOTOGRAPHY)

“Low and Slow” is another slam bang rocker, with the guitar firepower turned up high, and Hardig’s underlying punk attitude sneeringly coming to the surface. Only PJ Harvey and Chrissie Hynde come at all to mind when I listen to Hardig, and that’s more because they have a similar kind of absolute authority and rock and roll pedigree, rather than what the music actually does. Hardig comes across as a lonely warrior on these tracks, a woman who looks at the reality of both human folly and the flaws in the human psyche that lessen the quality of relationships and the chance for normalcy. On the brittle, repetitive “Bring It Home,” she seems on the verge of losing it, but the music is absolutely compelling in its driving simplicity and fearless edge. There’s a remix of it (along with one for “Closed Eyes”) on which the lyrics are a bit easier to hear, and the guitars seem to imitate a police siren several times, wailing towards the scene of an emotional crime that has probably inflicted tons of damage. “I lost control of my mind/I’m just skin and bones by your side/I’m layin’ all alone in despair/I can’t control this love that I lost/Come on honey now, bring it home!” Hardig darkly recites, suddenly blasting out those last two lines over and over, and it’s a blistering refrain that takes your ears prisoner while your feet tap along admiringly. With most of these songs, you can’t possibly hope to know the full story. But you don’t NEED to with this Swedish firebrand of a musician; you’ll hear enough and understand enough to get lost in the electrifying power of modern electronic rock and roll, and marvel at the way that mysterious thing called EDGE still exists, at least in whatever studio this woman works in. Sofia Hardig is a welcome antidote to slick audience-pleasing formulas, and a cry in the artistic wilderness for challenging what true self-expression in music should be, with anger and despair rising up to club bland acceptance and positive thinking mantras right over their thick skulls, guitars blazing and passion-infused vocals helping to land the blows. She’s a truly important, powerful sonic auteur who is slowly building a peerless recording catalogue that deserves the full attention of rock fans around the world.

DO THE ARCHITECTURAL WATUSI Music Reviews | Kevin Renick | February 28, 2016 | Electronic Music Music Pop Music Psychedelic Music Punk Rock Rock and Roll Singer/Songwriter Sofia Hardig Sweden

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