Foto-© Christine Jacobsson

SunYears, so heißt das neue Folkpop-Projekt des schwedischen Singer-Songwriters Peter Morén. Peter wer? Wenn man jetzt das Erfolgs-Trio Peter Bjorn and John (Young Folks) ins Spiel bringt, wird die Sache schon klarer. Und wenn man dann erst das SunYears-Debütalbum Come Fetch My Soul! mit dem schon vor einigen Wochen erschienenen, mitreißenden Titelstück hört, weiß man: Hier hat sich einer als Musiker freigeschwommen, macht, was er will und mit wem er will (tolle Promi-Gäste wie Ron Sexsmith, Jess Williamson, Eric Johnson von Fruit Bats/Bonny Light Horseman, Ed Harcourt, Ren Harvieu, Kathryn Williams inklusive!) – und er macht es großartig. Das Album, eines der besten dieses Sommers, erschien am Freitag (16.06.2023) bei YepRoc. Vorher hat Peter Morén alias SunYears für uns ein sehr launiges, spannendes Track by Track dazu geschrieben.

1. Come Fetch My Soul! (feat. Jess Williamson)

I remember getting the idea for this around peak pandemic, the world shut down. It was fall, slushy and grim outside, when some words and melodies came to me at the grocery store. Very mundane scenario. But the song itself became a big song for me. Starting as a love song; gratitude for longevity, passion and strength found in a relationship, it ended up being something more mysterious. I wanted the recording to have that widescreen cinematic open ”nature” vibe I heard in my head. I got a big skewed guitar sound I’m proud of. The co-producer and engineer Daniel (Bengtson – on this and 4 more tracks) played a pump organ and the pump organ then became one of the main sounds of the whole record. Somewhere down the line I had the idea that this would benefit from being a duet which became another thread throughout the record. I was listening lots to Jess Williamsons current record “Sorceress” and could hear her voice fitting perfectly. I reached out and happily for me she agreed and recorded her vocals in LA. It turned out just as fantastic as I imagined. We still haven’t met. I’ve realized I really enjoy other people singing my songs with me. It brings out other dimensions, width and color to the tracks. More on that later. This felt like the obvious opener and title track for the album.

2. Day To Day Way

About treasuring the everyday, how things just roll along in the small world, the things you have to do and don’t think twice about; breakfast, dinner, waking up, going to bed, the beauty of going through the motions. Family. Looking into the eyes of your kid and just being grateful. Again. Being lucky. Most of us have so much to be grateful for and still we moan a lot. I know I do. Of course lots of people really have their reason to complain. I generally have been spoiled. So this melancholic ditty has a reasonably light heart. It has that wistful, moody type of melody which often are my favorites. The sort of thing I often return to and feel at home in. One of the first songs I wrote for the record way before I knew that SunYears or this record would ever exist. I love the vibe we got in the recording. Actual vibes (pun ;)) I love vibes! Double Bass. Weird shuffling of feet and experimenting with textures of percussion. That pump organ again, though another studio and engineer/coproducer (Ruben Engzell), Andreas (Nordell) & Nino (Keller), the band on this are my SunYears-backers on lots of these tracks and close musical pals.

3. Two Birds, Mid-Flight

Coming up with a name for this project and knowing that I wanted it to live in a twilight zone between band and solo, a fresh new ambitious start of sorts, was the hardest thing. For very long it was CRUEL COUNTRY. A lot of my friends liked it too. It had an elemental classic thing that suited the songs, the double C looked great typographically. Etc… Then one morning I got a text from Dave in Death Cab For Cutie, a Pitchfork thing about the new Wilco album, ouch. That name change set me back half a year in finishing the album. So, Jeff Tweedy, you owe me if you see this 😉 This was the track that bore the same name. But it never really fit. Two middle aged birds flying through life together, keeping a steady course and pace suits the music much better. It has the rustic woody feel of the acoustic instruments. I really love guitar instrumentals but up until now I have written very few. The same core trio playing here. This should be in a movie. Hit me up directors!

4. Granddad’s Song (feat. Ron Sexsmith)

I was really close to my maternal grandparents since they lived next door in the village I grew up. I often spent time there coming home after school as a kid. I played with granddad; we built a museum of old stuff we found in the sheds, he told me stories from the old days and we played violin together. Now Ron isn’t my grandfather but hearing his mighty voice sing my words & melodies just made perfect sense and made the song hit harder. At least he feels like my big brother here.

5. A Dog’s Life

Through his project Crane Like The Bird (which I’ve guested a couple of times) I got to know American drummer Kyle Crane. And through me he got adopted by lots of Swedes, last time he was here he recorded the new First Aid Kit album. The first time he came here we were in the studio and just wanted to jam, co-producer Daniel on the bass. I had this little fingerpicked folk thing; a salute to dogs, specifically my own dog. So this was the first thing we recorded for this album though at that time there was no sense of an album at all. The first song I wrote to (m dog) Esther was called ”Esther” and was a Swedish song I wrote when she was young and energetic. This year she turned 14 and her legs are getting tired, no more long runs or even walks and different health issues creeping upon us. In a way this is another song about mortality, a way of preparing for when she’s leaving, which is a hard thing to do. In the song I sing ”18 long years…” maybe it scanned good, maybe it was wishful thinking. Not many dogs, if any, make it to 18. We’re happy if she gets another Christmas. But the rest is all true. I wanted the music to have that airy feel of a sky breaking up into crisp blue after rain, when it’s easy to breathe. The clouds are disappearing, and the dogs watch over us from heavens up high.

6. Slipping Away

This is an angst driven tense one. Like a nightmare in broad daylight, daydreaming of a less harmonic past. Worrying that things could go wrong in the future with what you care about the most. Regrets sneaking up and moving into your chest. Scared of losing loved ones because you’ve acted wrong. All scattered out in metaphors and scene setting. So it’s more an emotional state of a song than any sort of cohesive story. Music as a soundtrack for different scenarios and as a lifeline of safety in an unsafe environment. And an image keeps coming back of walking (barely walking really) piss drunk all across Manhattan, from Lower East Side to upper west (around 2007?) trying to phone someone. Actually, I might have done that not so sober stroll several times during that era. The bright lights of the big city blinding. Trying to put this into music angular explosive riffs insulting the fretboard, a trashcan thrown in a corridor with reverb on. Very tight connected trio rocking. Jazzy groovy psych verses against jangle-pop-chorus. I think the brief to Andreas & Nino was, let’s mix Nick Drake and Television. Sounds nothing like it of course but one gets the picture. Proud of this one.

7. These Quiet Tunes

The calm after the storm. The making up after a fight. About a quiet night when it all feels right. And seeing the sadness in your soulmates reflecting back at you and connect you beyond words. I had carried this with me since 2017 and experimented for a feel and a way forward alone with Ruben in the studio, playing all the instruments myself. The starting point of the album in that sense though in my head it would be a conceptual album called ”These Quiet Tunes” with only softer meditative tracks, a bit like Damon Albarn’s amazing ”Everyday Robots”. Playing everything myself on everything would have taken forever though. Also, I couldn’t resist throwing in some more upbeat ones. But it was good to circle in on sounds of different sorts that I could then return to for other tracks. Big guitars. Weird rhythms. Pump organ again. This one to me is connected to ”Day To Day Way” in that though it’s not the ones that screams the loudest for attention, they are at the heart and the center of what the record is.

8. Last Night I Dreamt That I Met Phil & Don (feat. Fruit Bats)

Now something completely different. I rather often dream of my musical heroes. The most common one is jamming with Macca, Buddy Holly-songs. But a couple of years ago I had this very vivid clear vison where I met the Everlys in the army (having read that they served in the marine), they shared life and career advice and I ended up jamming with them. Exactly as the song goes, word by word more or less. So it was very easy to write. I just got up the morning after and put pen to paper. The start of so much music I love, the basic backbone and heritage often circle back to the Everlys. And as time rolls by they have become one of those things I can put on at any time and just feel right at ease. Like they’re friends, relatives almost. I really wanted to have a harmony and co-lead to salute Phil & Don and thought of Eric D. Johnson aka Fruit Bats and also now part of the amazing Bonny Light Horseman. I’ve been a fan of Eric for years and we’ve met a couple of times through mutual friends like producer Thom Monahan and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic so I also know he’s just the kindest person with immaculate taste to boot. He really dug the song and picked up a Grateful Dead/”American Beauty” vibe. Well why not…

9. Wordy

This is an exhilarating declaration of love but through bits of stream of consciousness, phrases and thoughts. Call it poetry. Or call it ”Wordy”. Often when you try to explain to someone what they mean to you, what you want to be for that person or what the two of you mean together as a team it just ends up flat and boring. I guess that’s where songs and the arts does a better job. In some ways I feel it projects the same vibe as ”Come Fetch My Soul!” and a similar sentiment but as the more upbeat, heady flipside. It was also recorded on the same day! Daniel on the bass and organ, Nino on the drums and my friend Lina (Langendorf) on flutes. Again a try to mix a rural brit-folk-feel with this time something almost power-popish. I’ve might have mentioned early The Who to Nino for the chorus vibe and the stacking of acoustics for rhythms is similar. But a part of the melody is actually nicked from a Monkees song I think…not on purpose but I kept it.

10. Wake Up! (feat. Ren Harvieu & Kathryn Williams)

Kathryn Williams, the British singer-songwriter, arranged a songwriter camp in the village Stroud in the idyllic area of the Cotswolds, at an old monastery turned B & B. I came on short notice in place of a friend who couldn’t make it. I’m happy I did, lots of people I’ve met there, mostly from the UK, have become really good friends. We wrote during the day in different combinations, sang together, wined and dined in the evenings. This song I wrote there with Kathryn and Ren Harvieu. It had almost a gospely doo-woppy style but much more solemn. There’s just something about singing harmony together with others that makes you feel religious almost. I feel the melody (which came mostly from me) channels some of the British pop writers of the 80’s that also has an influence of gospel and soul in their music but through a foggy British lens, like Paul Heaton (The Housemartins) and Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera), both firm favourites. – The subject matter could apply to so many and the melody could work for many voices. But for now I wanted the song to be centered around our voices to keep that group vocal feeling. And not much else. A somber, calm, dignified way to end the album. And to my great joy, when Kathryn recorded her vocal in London she was producing her latest album with Ed Harcourt, so he sang on it too. Love how all our different voices blend. And so it ends, for this time.