Swedish sounds perfect for your next rooftop party, road trip or canoe ride
For summer bike rides, picnics and general fun in the sun, dreamy, burned-out music makes the perfect warm weather soundtrack. The electro-pop sounds of Swedish band “This is Head” have been making my ears happy as of late, so I asked band member Henric Claesson a few questions about their latest album, matter-of-factly titled “0001.”
You’ve named the tracks as numbers in chronological order. Are you just lazy?
When we started off as a band in 2008 all the songs were instrumental, without vocals, at least 99% of the time. We called them Number 1, Number 2, etc., and decided to continue with that, even after vocals were added. We’re not lazy, but we make quick decisions!
Some have described your sound as a mix between the Discovery Channel, Autobahn and a car accident.
It’s hard to explain it in another way. We think its the perfect description for the time when we wrote the music, rehearsed and recorded the album. Our friend Mikael described it this way, “They never thought of a song with the idea of sounding like Yeasayer joining up with the drummer from Neu! in an effort to play unreleased songs by U2 just so they could be mixed by Dan Lissvik from Studio and then be released by Touch & Go. That just happened.”
Do you think that being Swedish influences your sound?
The sound could probably have been created in all Northern European countries. The long dark winters create this kind of music I think.
Your record puts together a lot of different influences, such as vintage electronical music, ’80s pop and so on.
We didn’t think of it. It just happened. We’ve all been listening to different styles of music and are listening to different styles of music. Since we write the songs together in the rehearsal room we all do what we think is best at the moment. That’s probably why you hear a lot of different influences in our music. I think all of us have different views on “0001,” we describe it totally differently if we’re asked what it sounds like. Because we all mainly listen to the parts we’re the most proud of I guess.
You can add “This is Head” to your summer playlists by purchasing their album on iTunes or listen on Myspace and Facebook.
