Tag: Umeå Sweden

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lucky Lo Releases a Swooning and Euphoric Anthem to Queer Love

Lo Ersare is a Umeå, Sweden-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter, musician, and the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Lucky Lo. Ersare relocated to Copenhagen in 2014 and quickly made a name for herself as a busker and as an integral part of the city’s underground music scene, performing everything from folk to experimental jazz to improvisational vocal music. Along the way, her love for Japan and its music brought her to the island nation, where she has performed, grown a devoted fanbase and gathered inspiration, which has seeped into her music in various ways.

Ersare’s full-length debut, Supercarry is slated for a March 25, 2022 release through Tambourhinoceros Records. The album will feature previously released single “Heart Rhythm Synchronize,” which was about synching heartbreaks through love and song and album title track “Supercarry,” a sleek and seamless synthesis of Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel, that thematically finds Ersare quickly establishing a major thematic concern in her work — the transformational power of radical love.

Supercarry’s latest single, “Ever” is a swooning and infectiously optimistic pop song centered around glistening synth arpeggios, a strutting disco-inspired bass line, shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, a rousingly anthemic hook and Ersare’s plaintive pop belter vocals. Arguably, the most dance floor friendly of the album’s released singles, “Ever!” brings Talking Heads, and Annie Lennox to mind paired with the euphoria of Sylvester‘s queer anthem “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”

Lyrically, the song’s narrator has found a way to transform the hardships of living in a cruel and judgmental world that won’t allow them to be themselves into a deep, sustaining hope and confidence; the sort of quiet confidence to be self-assured in whatever your truth may be. As Ersare explains the song is an anthem for queer love.

The inspiration for the song began deep inside a YouTube rabbit hole. Ersara was binging on Freddie Mercury videos one night. That eventually lead to her researching the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, and the blacklash of homophobia the gay community felt back then.

She came across a video of a gay man, who bravely announced to a reporter that no amount of homophobia could keep gay people from loving each other that struck her as timeless. Since the dawn of society, gay people have been — and will keep on — loving in secret, despite antagonism, until the world eventually accepts them.

This video resonated with the Umeå-born, Copenhagen-based artist, who was then inspired to make a song for “anybody, who feels they are living a truth in secret can listen to, dance to, and feel that they will be accepted. By repeating the motion, it’s going to change the world,” she says.

Animated by Isabelle Friberg, the recently released video is a life affirming love song: We follow the video’s protagonists, who have a meet cute at local bowling alley and fall madly in love. They represent the love that man in the 80s video clip talked about. And while we get a glimpse into their lives and their love, we see Ersare and her band performing the song, while looking like characters straight out of Jem. The video manages to be brightly colored, overwhelmingly positive and a sweet visual that emphasizes the song’s swooning euphoria.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sweden’s Cult of Luna Releases a Dreamy and Yearning New Single

Acclaimed and prolific Umeå, Sweden-based post-metal outfit Cult of Luna — currently, Johannes Persson (guitar, vocals), Andreas Johansson (bass), Thomas Hedlund (drums, percussion), Fredrik Kihlberg (guitar, vocals), Krisitian Karlsson (keys, vocals) and Magus Lindberg (production) — formed back in 1998 and can trace their origins to the breakup of a local hardcore punk band by the name of Eclipse. The Swedish band’s first two albums — 2001’s self titled debut and 2003’s The Beyond — slowly gained attention in underground circles and among the press.

Beginning with their breakthrough, third album 2004’s Salvation, the members of Cult of Luna, released a string of critically applauded albums that included 2006’s Somewhere Along The Highway, 2008’s Eternal Kingdom and 2013’s Vertikal. The band capped off a busy year, which included extensive European touring and the release of the Vertikal II EP, a companion effort that featured three songs recorded during the Vertikal sessions and dropped from the album and a remix of album single “Vicarious Redemption” by Justin Broadrick.

Shortly after the release of the Vertikal II EP, the band went on hiatus. Although they didn’t publicly announce it until 2016, during the recording sessions and tours to support Vertikal, the band went through two major lineup changes: The band’s original keyboardist Anders Teglund left the band during the Vertikal sessions and was replaced by the pg.lost’s Krisitian Karlsson. Founding member Erik Olofsson (guitar) left the band after their Beyond the Redshift Festival appearance in 2014. Olofsson was released by Kongh‘s David Johansson.

2016 saw the release of the Swedish post-metal outfit Mariner, an effort that found the band collaborating with Made Out of Babies‘ and Battle of Mice‘s Julie Christmas. While Vertikal thematically was city and industrial-based, Mariner, explored themes related to outer space and space travel.

Before the release of Mariner, the members of the Swedish post-metal outfit had begun writing material for what would be their eighth album. The end result was 2019’s critically applauded A Dawn to Fear an album that landed on Loudwires’ 50 Best metal albums of that year.

Over the course of their two decade run, Cult of Luna’s sound has moved from being heavily doom metal-influenced to a sound centered around lush orchestration — and more towards post-metal, progressive metal and even sludge metal. Sonically, they’re best known for crafting long. slow-burning songs featuring crushingly heavy and distorted guitar-driven sections, interspersed with with orchestral interludes and extended post-rock-like forays.

They’ve long eschewed conventional song structures, opting for a sound that tends to evolve throghout a song, sometimes towards a climatic crescendo, instead of say, a verse-chorus-verse pattern. And as a result, their work has been compared to Isis, Callisto, Pelican and even Neurosis.

Slated for a February 11, 2022 release through Metal Blade Records, Cult of Luna’s ninth album The Long Road North continues a run of material centered around shifting dynamics and sonic density — but perhaps even more so with The Long Road, an effort that featured guest spots from composer Colin Stetson, Pheonix‘s Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz and Wildbirds And Peacedrums’ Mariam Wallentin. “It’s a big and cinematic sounding album,.” Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson says in press notes. “I think one of the reasons why we have been able to be so productive the last couple of years is that we have been consistently writing from the heart. We have let our instincts guide us, and I think it’s getting clearer where we are heading.”

“The long road north is a long road home. A direction dictated by a call that penetrates rock and echoes through the forest,” Persson continues. “It flows over every lake, accelerated by the wind. When it reaches you, you know it’s time. Time to move forward. You don’t know where it will lead but you put the trust in it. With eyes raised towards the midnight sun it pulls you closer. The road is long and the end is uncertain.”

Clocking in at a little under seven minutes The Long Road‘s latest single “Into the Night” is a slow-burning and dreamy song that begins with a lengthy strummed, reverb-drenched guitar and vocal-based introduction before the addition of glistening keys that lead into an extended shoegazer-like section with swirling guitars and thunderous drumming before ending with howling feedback. The seemingly disparate yet hauntingly gorgeous parts are held together by Frederik Kihlberg’s plaintive yet sonorous baritone, which kind of sounds a bit like JOVM mainstay Mark Lanegan to me. But at it’s core is the yearning and desperate search for something — or someone — that’s been lost, perhaps forever.

“‘Into the Night’ is about the search for something or someone that’s been lost. It’s about being in the state between conscious and unconscious, awake and dreaming,” the band’s Frederik Kihlberg explains. “Seeing, hearing and experiencing things and not knowing if it’s real or imagination.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Umeå Sweden-born Copenhagen-based Artist Lucky Lo Encourages Radical love and Vulnerability

Lo Ersare is a Umeå, Sweden-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter, musician, and the creative mastermind behind the emerging indie pop project Lucky Lo. Ersare relocated to Copenhagen in 2014 and quickly made a name for herself as a busker and as an integral part of the city’s underground music scene, performing everything from folk to experimental jazz to improvisational vocal music. Along the way, her love for Japan and its music brought her to the island nation, where she has performed, grown a devoted fanbase and gathered inspiration, which has seeped into her music in various ways.

Ersare released her Lucky Lo debut single “Heart Rhythm Synchronize.” Released last month, the song was about synching heartbeats through love and song. Ersare’s latest single “Supercarry,” features the Swedish-born, Danish artist’s soaring and achingly plaintive vocals paired with an expansive arrangement featuring a sinuous and propulsive bass line, layers of shimmering and buzzing guitars and thumping beats. The end result is a song that expresses the deeply human need for companionship, compassion and love. Seemingly sounding like a sleek and seamless synthesis of Annie Lennox and Peter Gabriel, “Supercarry” thematically finds Ersare quickly establishing a major thematic concern in her work — the transformational power of radical love.

“In Scandinavia we have an incredible safety net. We live a safe, rich lifestyle on paper, but we are also the countries where the most people die alone,” Ersare says in press notes. “We have the capacity to be more inclusive, and we could use this power for the good of others and for enriching our lives.” Ersare continues “So much could be solved if we were to take more care of each other — check in with each other more. It makes you feel strong; like a good human being; an everyday superhero. The idea of doing the opposite of self, or that social care is self-care, is what I want to communicate. This song is about lifting others up, and letting yourself be lifted. It is about putting someone else’s needs in front of your own, and trusting that you will get the same care in return.”

irected by Philip Jørgensen, the recently released video is an 80s-inspired dance workout tape featuring choreography by Freja Kreutzfeldt that’s at points playful, sensual and full of longing and vulnerability as each dancer is seen being lifted up, treated tenderly and let go. “Our vision was to unite people in an act of Supercarry-ing through a choreography in which people are both being lifted up and let go… a celebration of the strength of vulnerability,” Ersare explains. “We want to encourage people to get up, move and take action—to Supercarry and to be Supercarried.”