Loney Dear: TAS In Session

Emil Svanängen, who is far better known as Loney Dear (he dropped the comma a couple of years ago), is a quirky fellow with a penchant for richly textured, shimmering songs, as explored on his latest album Hall Music, out now on Polyvinyl.

The Swedish singer and songwriter will be touring this winter and spring with Of Montreal and Kishi Bashi, kicking off this Thursday, January 19, in Groningen, Netherlands. The trek includes a stop at Webster Hall on March 31. His brand new video for "Loney Blues," off of Hall Music, also premiered on Stereogum today, January 16.

Not long ago Emil dropped by The Alternate Side and played a generous set of songs from both Hall Music and 2009's Dear John. Listen to the session this Friday, January 20, on TAS on 91.5 WNYE at 11 a.m. and streaming on The Alternate Side.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-9s4GutExA]

Alisa Ali: You’re nervous today?

Emil Svanängen: I’m nervous because I made a promise to myself one year ago to do my very best all of the time and that’s why I’m nervous now. Because I don’t know … average music isn’t music. Average music is useless, I think. Then it becomes muzak. It’s all about creating something very strong and I’m curious about how to do it now and I hope to do it now. When I started to play music I thought that people are going to be enchanted, I played a lot, about 600 shows. And there are times when people don’t get enchanted and it bothers you.

Alisa: Well how can you tell if a crowd is enchanted?

Emil: I don’t know! They’re quiet or very loud. But this is going to be fun. I think I’m just such a big fan of radio. The problem with radio is that it’s not as fun recording it as it is listening to it. When people listen to this conversation, they think we’re in a British library, sitting in two armchairs with a cup of tea with some radishes, maybe.

Alisa: Tea and radishes? I love that.

Emil: And you see the sun coming in from the window.

Alisa: Are you telling me you’re disappointed because there are no radishes or tea?

Emil: No! It’s the comfort of listening to radio. Being in radio is so much more about cables and microphones and headphones. This is general about radio. The studio is never as cozy as you think it is. It’s you and me creating the coziness.

Alisa: As studios goes, ours is pretty nice. We have mood lighting. Soft dimmers. Emil, you just released your sixth full-length album, Hall Music. Would you like to start off the session with a song?

Emil: I still haven’t decided, I’m going to feel with my feet … I’m going to play an old song I like very much.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_aE6qQTeuM]

Emil: That’s “Violent” from the last album I did, Dear John. I felt comfortable doing it, but I’ll play a new song.

Alisa: I understand that after Dear John, you went back to Sweden after a long tour and played a bunch of shows with chamber orchestras through the country. You had to do some rearranging of the songs on Dear John to present them in this different way?

Emil: I think the most fun thing was that I was able to spend a lot of time with it and I love doing things thoroughly. I didn’t do so many orchestral shows, but I had time off and I could do them. It was fun. A real classical year.

Alisa: This [new] record has a real orchestral feel to it. I kind of expected there to be a full orchestra when I walked into the room. You did the entire album yourself: written, arranged, performed, produced.

Emil: I do too many things, I think. That’s the way it started for me.

Alisa: You recorded [your earlier albums] in your bedroom. Was that the same for Hall Music?

Emil: Yes, it’s pretty home recorded. There’s a bit of barn recording as well, but it’s not being in the studio at least which has its problems and advantages. It was fun. Difficult, but fun as well. I don’t think the location is the problem. In the 80s and 90s you could make a record and, as long as you got it released, it was a big thing; people were going to listen to it, but these days there are so many people [and so much] great music, it’s pretty easy to disappear. It’s a whole new way of thinking about produced material because there is an ocean of music. You need to be very focused and strong about feeling that this might be important, even though millions of people make records. But that’s the tricky part.

Alisa: So why does that matter if you record in a proper studio?

Emil: Oh that doesn’t really help with that. I think that’s the easiest part; more the mindset of recording is the difficult part.

Alisa: You did say it was a difficult album to make.

Emil: Like any album. My [third and fourth] albums [Loney, Noir, Solonge], were easiest ones. Maybe the most soulful ones. I’m very proud of this new one; it might be the best of them. Still, my [third and fourth] albums are magic in a way because they were made in a swoosh (laughs). This one was a very long swoosh. I think I felt I needed to improve and condense the music even more. I knew that I was going to tour it for a long time, talking about it, so I felt I wanted to be really happy about it.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KWSNkzClc]

Emil: I went on a tour with Andrew Bird this summer.

Alisa: So you picked up some loop-ty loop tricks from him?

Emil: Actually, yes. The good thing is that I didn’t “copy paste” the thing he does. I play a lot with my feet while I’m playing the rest of the things and I’m trying to figure out. This is just very beta, everything. Just give me a few years and we’ll see where this goes. It’s starting to sound nice now but I spent all summer in a barn recording.

Alisa: You’re very modest. I think it sounds awesome. I don’t even understand what’s going on with all the gear you’ve brought in because there’s a lot of pedals, knickknacks and doo-hickeys.

Emil: I don’t really know either.

Alisa: Do you just get a feel for it rather than knowing that you have to press a pedal at a specific time?

Emil: I think it’s still early and still really difficutl. That’s why I was nervous before. You feel like a fool carrying all of these things around.

Alisa: I’ve seen Andrew Bird play a lot of times and he uses a lot of pedals and looping. Each time he performs a song it’s a little different.

Emil: That’s what I want to do too. That’s the whole fun thing. And why I’m doing a few shows now solo because it’s so much fun to enjoy life, music and creativity. Sometimes it gives me the creeps to be with a band and you have to be fast between songs, keep the tempo. I just want to sit and talk with the audience. Have them ask questions and ask them questions.

Alisa: What kind of questions are you asking?

Emil: A few years ago I was into this idea that the audience was a mini-society and I was trying to pick out if there were doctors, haircutters and taxi drivers. It never really worked out. No one really answered.

Alisa: You spent time in a barn with this album?

Emil: I haven’t felt at home, so maybe I put my heart in other places. I have two homes now; one is my grandfather’s old farm and one is my apartment. I’m not there very much, but that’s where my mail [goes]. I rehearsed a lot and I recorded [in the barn]. I have a studio cat that comes and goes. I don’t even know if it has a name.

Alisa: No goats or chickens?

Emil: I think there were horses 30 years ago, but now it’s just me.

Alisa: So you’re the animal in the barn?

Emil: Yes!

Alisa: Are your parents musicians too?

Emil: No, but they love music too. My mother could have been a singer. [I began] singing really late. It was a magic thing for me. I sang quite a lot when I was a kid in a high falsetto. Or that was my normal voice! But then I didn’t sing from 12 to 22. I remember I really thought I wish I could sing. I started learning a little bit and one day I had a mic in front of me and was thinking, “Who is going to sing?” And it was myself. So I guess I’m a singer now. It was more that I thought it would be embarrassing to sing. For a guy [who is] 15, it’s pretty embarassing to sing. I thought it was very personal or intimate.

Alisa: Once you start singing, though, nothing is cooler than a guy who sings!

Emil: I know! That’s maybe what I knew. That it would be cool. It’s a good thing.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhaSj4ouR_w]

Alisa: You said there was a story about that song.

Emil: There is a Swedish poet called Tomas Tranströmer, a fantastic poet. He doesn’t really work a lot with the sound of the language, but more images and dreamy descriptions of what things mean. That means he’s really easy to translate, in my opinion. He’s very big in China; he’s almost like a living legend there. I asked my friend, a writer, could you pick out a poem from him that he wrote when he was my age? I got an email half an hour later, with this [poem], “C Major,” which was written when he was 31, like I was last year. That piece refers to — I hope I’m right — a Schubert piece in C major, a string quintet. An amazing piece of music which Schubert wrote right before he died at 31. It’s a really sad story. I tried to find an English translation. I tried to Google it and then I came to my own blog and for some reason, I had put up that translation a year and a half earlier. When I Googled it, I came to my own website. Pretty weird. So it was meant to be. It was the translation I was looking for. A Scottish fellow had made the translation. I called him up and asked if I coudl use it and I asked the poet as well. It was okay and he was happy about it.

Alisa: I’m sure he was very pleased.

Emil: I think he was pleased.

Alisa: But this is “D Major.”

Emil: It goes in that key, so I thought that was the proper name.

Alisa: You also handed out the vocals to the last song to someone else.

Emil: It’s Malin Ståhlberg who is a longtime collaborator who has been playing music with me for six or seven years. That song is more or less a permanent bonus track. I haven’t listed it as a bonus track, but it doesn’t really belong to the album. But some people liked it so much and when I heard it, I thought it’s all right to keep it. So I think the album is supposed to finish after the 10th song, the dreamy “I Dreamt About You,” and then this odd bonus track shows up.

Alisa: You can do falsetto too?

Emil: I’m actually hidden in those vocals.

Alisa: What about your next song?

Emil: Is there a favorite of yours?

Alisa: I really love “Calm Down.”

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ba1NZ7MFw]