Sverige (“Sweden” in Swedish) named their debut single ”Anna” just so that the title should be as hard to google as the bandname. Sverige is a couple of friends from Stockholm with musical and lyrical roots in the Swedish left-wing movement during the 1970’s, but all dressed up in a modern suit.
With the Swedish election just behind us and the prosperity of the anti-democratic forces the social realistic themes in Sverige’s music takes position against it.
“We´ve all known eachother for a long time, amd some of us have been playing music together in different constellations,” Sverige tell us in an email interview. “When the idea emerged to write and play music about social climate and politics that we are experience today, all brought their piece to the puzzle that now is Sverige.”
“This song is a social realistic story about a girl that doesn´t have anything or anyone. It might be a bit of 70’s cliche story, but it seems to suit these days of political uncertainty. Anna isnt anyone we know or so. It’s more like a story of everything falling apart.”
“It all kind of started with this single. Anders and Sven had recorded a demo of half a song that had a nice kind of vibe. We also had a social realistic lyrics that we needed to write some music to. When we all got together, it sounded kind of ruff and flat at first. The words were accompanied by a more noisy Bob Dylan boogie so we discarded that one.”
“After some time we needed more material for a gig, so we brought up that boogie song again – but this time we tried it more chilled-out and based on the synthesizer. Those two songs, the incomplete demo and the noisy boogie are today the A- and B-side of the single. The music is inpired by so many genres and bands, Swedish anti-commercial left-wing progg movement, but also the 90’s chill wave and everything in between.”
“We have some more material on the way, maybe not a full length album, but a 10″. We’re just not really sure of how to release it. We should be looking for labels, or convince Tona Serenad to release. We’re just not that good at doing administrative things.”
“The Swedish music scene, at least here in Stockholm, is really fragmented. It’s hard to get a grip on. We enjoy all the music that people are doing because they like it, not because the mass should like it.”
“To name one favourite Swedish song is a real tough one, we would like to name so many names and songs. We all love the crazy genius Kjell Höglund that traveled through so many different styles, and most of it is good. Also we would like to share the sexiest song by Björn Skifs or why not the lyrical master Ola Magnell. But if we were to give you just one, it must be the oh so beautiful song written by Bellman in the 1700 and performed by Fred Åkerström. The song’ss name is “Glimmande Nymf”, enjoy.
Sverige are on Soundcloud and Facebook. You can also visit the website of their label – Tona Serenad.
Photo: Aron Pelcman
