SARA LUNDÉN on SARALUNDEN INDEX

I guess it started when the members of my original band sort of took off in different directions. My fabulous keyboardist spent a year at the music academy in Heidelberg, the bass player with the cool dancing stage persona got hooked up making music videos and the one of a kind drummer left with a new band. So there I was on my own with my song book getting thicker and thicker as the days past on. I felt desperate at first, my skills playing any instrument was LIMITED at the time. Nevertheless the urge to sing my songs in public was greater than my fear of playing a false key on the piano. I was never afraid of making a fool out of myself. The first time I did it on my own was really a complete disaster. The sound was horrific (if there was any sound) and everyone had to sit in tailor position waiting on the floor for something to happen. Finally I managed to sing two or three songs. I played the piano and some old home device keyboard with an interior drum machine. In the end some guy went out and bought me a red rose. I still don’t know if he did it out of pity or if he actually thought the show was that good. Those experiences have followed me over the years. After all this first gig was back in 2001 and since then I’ve made quite a few. The good thing with my band disappearing was that it forced me into self education and it also helped me realize what kind of music I wanted to make. Since I before didn’t know how to play any instruments and didn’t really care, I just threw myself into it. I began making shows playing two or three keyboards at the same time and on top of that I one late night decided to buy a drum machine. The next morning I went to a music store and bought a second hand Alesis SR-16 which has accompanied me ever since. Some people of course missed my old band but some actually enjoyed it even more now that I was on my own.

When I did my second show alone, in a place called Lady of Hearts that used to be an old sex club, I met my new record label. We decided to work together on the spot. They like me were dreamers thinking big and we shook hands on making records together even before they had heard me play. So much they liked the idea of one woman, some synthesizers and a drum machine. Early January 2002 we gathered in the first Lobotom Tonstudio situated in Mariehäll by the Bällsta River. To my chock and disappointment the studio was nothing like the luxurious dream picture I had created in my head, hearing the Lobotom guys talk about it. I know for sure I heard one of them say that they beneath the wooden floor had had painted a pentagram. The thing was there was no wooden floor, just linoleum and second the radiators didn’t work so we had only like 12 degrees Celsius indoors. My beloved keyboardist and sister had returned from Germany over Christmas and she was totally pissed off and angry about the state of the studio. She thought that we were double crossed. I had to tell her (despite my own doubts) that the studio in fact was great and that it was just for us to wear down jackets. Peter, the Lobotom manager and head technician of the studio, speed talked us through the first day. His enthusiasm, God knows where it comes from, finally made my sister enjoy her self. The result of this January session was the single “This is not desire/Marlon Brando”. I felt brave adding some noise from a synthesizer and some big piece of metal that Peter had found in the river. At this point you know, even though I had played on my own for a few months, I wasn’t ready to make a recording without my oldest co worker, sister and keyboardist.

I had a friend who was a member of a really good band. They had made a fantastic album I thought and I asked him for advice. He told me to call someone named Dagge, I think it was, at a studio called Decibel. I called the studio and Dagge wasn’t in but I talked to a guy named Lasse instead. He said he could do it. The thing I didn’t know was that it would take him almost one year. I mean, two songs, one year of mixing. I was working as a pasta cook at the time and passed by the studio at least once a week, it was in the same neighbourhood, to ask if he had begun. Nothing happened. Finally he did it though and we were very happy with the result. In fact we were quite excited and amazed. Lasse told me to call Cosmos mastering and talk to Hoffe who was great at mastering. My god was he good. Hoffe was God. He later made wonders with the “I will sun and spring you down” album. I came to him with a mini disc. You know, I had mixed everything down from my four channel porta on a mini disc, the greatest thing with Hoffe was, that he didn’t laugh at me, he just told me that I had lost 70% of the information doing so. But having spent two weeks mixing it down (it was my first time and I didn’t trust my ability to do it again) I decided to not think about the lost 70% and just focus on the 30% that was left. Hoffe made special cord from mini tele to XLR to get the best out of the 30 he had to work on. I was massively impressed. The record and the sound was far better than I had expected. Anyway this was the reason the Desire single and the album came so close and sounded so different.

In October, I think it was 2002, I decided to start recording some new songs on my four track tape recorder that I had got as a present on my thirtieth birthday. I had hardly used it since then. As I said before I used to pass by the Decibel studio on my way to the pasta restaurant to see how it went with the mixing. The guy, Lasse, was really friendly and we talked quite a lot even though nothing happened with the mixing. He one day started talking about how good those four channel portas were. Not saying anything I thought to myself aha, maybe I should try mine. I had just got a grant and the restaurant closed the lunch hours so I had a lot of time and no pressure to earn money for a while. I was sharing my flat and to get some more private space I made textile walls to hang down from the ceiling, like a tent, with a sliding door. Inside this tent I worked, day and night, with my head phones on. I bought a “Micro Korg”, the first to be sold in Sweden (now everyone has them), and my sister lend me her DX21 and then I had the drum machine. Those were my tools. The DX had some great sounds that my sister had programmed. The favourite was the one called Kheremin. Like Theremin. No I used my Bergman organs too, not to forget. I had no idea what the songs would sound like when I begun, but I think this was my best school. Often I did several recordings of each song until I got to a point where I enjoyed listening to music. You know maybe drums like this, or maybe this or slower or should I sing at all or dark or bright voice maybe. Everything was either or, or both. But finally I started to get what I was looking for. Shadowed darkness. My first film “Deadly Boring” got nominated for a Swedish film price, Guldbagge. I and the director (who is also the bass player) went down to Gothenburg to attend the gala. One day we found some old Austrian hats with feathers that we walked around in. on top of the hat I wore a chequered wool coat that was a few numbers too big. The director told me I looked like a female hustler. Later that night I wrote the first lines for the song “The Greatest Hustler”. It includes the direct translation of the Swedish expression for when someone loves you just to be able to all of a sudden disappear with not only your heart but everything you have. It became the title of the album. “I Will Sun and Spring You Down”.

I love languages and my first boyfriend was American. My second boyfriend was British and he used to make direct translations of English expressions into Swedish. Like “hot stuff” became “het skit” and the Swedish word for crisp rolls, skorpor he translated back to English and it became scabs. That use of Swedish/ English, English/ Swedish, I think still inspires me. Believe it or not grammar was one of my favourite subjects. But I never really think about it now. I just write. It is not like I try to figure out something clever or funny. Every word is my word and I am free to use it in what ever way I want. No one can stop me. Some people think my English is bad of course and it irritates them. But I have native English and American fans so I don’t worry. The worrying about using English like I do is for other Swedes. I’ve heard so many times I’m not very Swedish. But I am. I was born in Gothenburg on the west coast.

La desperation de perdre ton bébé.

As I said before I’m almost finished recording a new album, I’m really happy with what I’ve done so far and now I need someone to take care of it in a decent way. I don’t want some mixer to kill my baby. But where do you find someone to take care of your baby? Where do you find someone who has time to take care of it and treat it so it matures in the best possible way? I need someone to mix this new album with me and I have agony.

Ok I talked a bit about my relationship with the English language, but you also wanted to know in what way that effected the melodies. I think it is like this. I say in my head for example “sweet sweet sweet the beat”, I sort of repeat it and the melody is revealing it self. The melodies are hidden in the words or inside the lines. Because text is leading to rhythm and rhythm is leading to melodies. It’s amazing every time it works. Sometimes though (usually when the lyrics doesn’t tell me anything) it stops with the rhythm and the melody. It’s very hard for me to write new words. If the words are bad, I’m helpless. The only thing I can do then is to try in French or even German, a language I hardly can count to three in. But as I said, every word I know is mine. And I hate bad lyrics. The taste of it in my mouth, when I sing it, makes me want to throw up rather than finish the song. On the other hand I always save everything, even if it’s bad. I have a complete list of my songs on my computer dating back to July -97 when I wrote my first song. Now and then I make a performance singing all the songs in a row, it takes a few hours, and it both makes me proud and embarrassed. It’s so idiotic it gets brilliant.

We’re in the middle of now. The very right now and except for trying not to fall in love with another young man I’ve desperately been seeking a mixer to work with on my second album. I met one guy last week and he was really nice, but in one way too eager. I panicked of course because I have great difficulties with saying; this is not what I’m looking for. I have this thing that if I talk to someone about a job and I am planning just to check out the person. Can this work? Is this what I want? But then when I meet the person in the face and he gets really excited I panic. It’s too easy and worse if I hear what they have done before and don’t like it. I (naturally) panic even more. But instead of just saying, that I’m meeting a couple of mixers here, nothing is sure yet. I’ll say; I’ll definitely call you and we will meet again soon, meaning you’re the one to do the job. It’s not a way of vaguely saying I don’t think so. Thank you for your interest but no. NO. HELP. Anyway I met one guy and I panicked and then I’ve thrown out some threads. Some people have called some people. Then I just remembered I know someone, who actually might be the one. By coincident I have to do this job for a friend and I tell her about it. She says; you know he’s just built a new studio again? This guy used to have a great studio in Gothenburg in the nineties but then closed it and started at the music academy to become a composer. This is great I think. So now I guess we just have to wait and see.