Swedish artist Jens Lodén teams up with Lina Nyberg on “Break the Spell,” delivering a trip hop infused groove enriched by expressive vocals and a really intriguing moody piano section. Read our interview with the artist below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Eclectic
Bass heavy
Original
How did your collaboration with renowned Swedish jazz singer Lina Nyberg come about, and what was it like working with her?
We have mutual musician friends and I have done remixes for her in the past.
It worked very well, and just as I hade imagined the concept for the album. I sent her five tracks and she chose two of them, then composed and recorded on her own and sent it to me.
I had given no instructions except that I had written the melody for Break the Spell.
For Never Forget I had influences from Joni Mitchell when I wrote the music but in accordance with my concept for the album I didn´t say anything about such things to.
I am extremely pleased with how Lina let my rhythmic bass figures influence her vocal phrasing. I think it’s masterfully done.
Your most honest and personal lyric?
I don’t write lyrics. But on the album “They Say” the lyrics by Ivar Lodén Håkansson (my son) and Svante Lodén (my brother) resonate with me on a personal level.
You’ve explored electronic club music, minimal techno, and ambient in your solitary excursions. What draws you to these genres, and how do they differ from your collaborative works?
When I collaborate it is a more mixed bag between the acoustic and the electronic, and when I’m on my own I tend to dig more into the electronic sides of things. Music that I do on my
own is almost exclusively wordless. This is kind of a bejakande of the way it was when I started playing the piano as a very small child. An introverted world.
Collaborating is in a way a push outside of my autistic comfort zone. On “They Say” I encouraged the participants to create just whatever they wanted to the more or less finished
compositions that I hade made for them, a lot of them just sketches really. In these collaborations I wanted the people that I created together with to feel very free, so I tried to
let go of my own expectations and whatever percieved ideas what they might do that might have emerged in my head before I sent the music to them. The whole idea of the album was to exclude talking about music as much as possible.
Artists and people that have influenced you?
There are many of them…
Spacer (the album “Sensory Man” in particular).
Massive Attack.
Arvo Pärt.
Brian Eno.
All the great musicians that I have worked with.
Thelonius Monk.
You are currently releasing music on your own label, Loplay Recordings. What motivated you to start your own label, and how has that experience been so far?
I felt I wanted to have more control of the releasing process and the choices involved, and to always have the possibility to get my music out there regardless of what someone else might think of it.
I miss some of the synergy effects that always has emerged when I have released on other labels though, so I’m thinking of trying to find a label / labels for some of my future releases.
If the music of Jens Lodén was a film, which film would that be?
It would be some strange eclectic and multifacetted thing. I have done too varying styles for it all to be as coherent as one film. The ending of “2001 – A space odessey” comes to mind though.
One thing we should know about you?
I have autism.
Thank you!
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