Tag archives for Swedish Music Landscape

Steso Songs’ trees

I met Karolina -aka Steso Songs- in Årsta, in the south of Stockholm.
Few (slippery) steps from the bus station, we arrived in a park. A twilight of a winter afternoon was coming through the trees. Silence and brightness. Just few small red houses for gardening was breaking the trees vertical rythm. Everything else was wood and snow. You could never believe you are in the city. The paths was as white as the rest, so you just had to make your own.
Few (slippery) steps later, we arrived on the waterfront. You could join Södermalm by walking on the frozen water. But we weren’t too much confident about it…
Karolina comes from a village near Malmö where she was used to be surrounded by nature. And trees are what inspire her mostly. Everytime she moves to a new place, one of the first thing she does is to look for the kind of place she brought me to. And thankfully, even Stockholm gives you a huge choice!

Listen to “Swedish Music Landscapes” playlist in the music room

The mythical Atlantis and Martin Hederos

I came to understand something very important during my Swedish journeys: Swedish music is like a family.
Everyone tends to know each other. Play on each other’s records. Or make side-projects with other band members.
And I believe that the strength of Swedish pop music comes partly from that.
Martin Hederos is in that way quite typical. Making a list of people whom Martin has either collaborated with, produced or arranged a record for is not an easy thing…
Martin gave me an appointment in a place where he may be spending a lot of his time in the future: the mythical Atlantis Studios on Karlbergsvägen in Stockholm (where for instance Micke B. Tretow, ABBA’s great sound engineer, recorded “Waterloo”).
He recorded there few days ago — a new project based on texts of a Swedish poet with the voices of Frida Hyvönen and Anna Von Hausswolf among others.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives, the  Hederos & Hellberg duo and recently Tonbruket with bassist Dan Berglund (Esbjörn Svensson Trio), the great guitarist Johan Lindström and Wildbirds & Peacedrums’ drummer Andreas Werliin, are just a few of the projects Martin is involved in.

Listen to “Swedish Music Landscapes” playlist in the music room

Christian Kjellvander’s philosophy

“You are welcome! Entre sans frapper….as they say in France”. That’s how my e-mail conversation with Christian Kjellvander ended a few days before we meet in his house, near Ystad in Skåne, in the southern part of Sweden.
It’s mid-June and days are longer than ever in the year.
I’m in a beautiful cottage close to the sea where Christian is about to build a recording studio to make his new album this summer. While I’m shooting him in this green field, his choice just seems obvious to me :
Silence. Infinite landscape. And the ocean breeze. Time can definitely stops here.
After the shooting, while having a coffee, I notice a luminous Earth globe standing on a wood beam on the very center of the house : “When you work here, alone, during the long cold winter nights, having a look to this blue ball sparkling in the night make every composing or recording problem becomes more relative.”

Chrisitan Kjellvander’s new album is out on November 10th!

Listen to “Swedish Music Landscapes” playlist in the music room

Sunset on a snow field with Loney, Dear

On our way to the shooting spot, while Emil Svanängen – aka Loney, Dear – is driving his car, he tells me that he’s spending too much time in his home-studio since he started to work on his new album. So much that he now needs a phone application to know if the sun has set or not. That’s how he fixed the hour of our appointment. At sunset.
We are in Solna (in the north of Stockholm) on a playground. A five minutes drive from where Emil lives.
This place doesn’t have a meaning for him, but this choice is a symbol of his basic needs : a big free space, natural light until the sunset and city in the background, not too close, not too far.
All this fits pretty well with his smart melodies, his high voice, and especially his smooth layered arrangements. Like a blank page, a field of snow, you filled gradually until everything takes its entire shape to build a shinny landscape.

The last rays of sunlight are warming up the pictures regardless of this cold day of march. My shoes are now filled up with snow. Trousers wet to my knees. Emil tells me that photographers must have a special relationship with pain… they like to put themselves in strange situations.
Well, if that means that I don’t care about my frozen toes anymore while I’m charging a new roll of film, he’s right…

Listen to “Swedish Music Landscapes” playlist in the music room