When Studio, the duo of Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, named their 2006 album West Coast, they weren’t speaking about California. A part of the southwest coast of Sweden, the place the 2 lived, in Gothenburg, is an archipelago of greater than 20 islands. Some are inhabited yr spherical, with weatherbeaten cabins dotting the craggy panorama.
You may simply journey to the archipelago from Gothenburg’s metropolis middle, a easy day journey, one which strikes you from the city to the fantastical in about an hour. Technically, you don’t even depart Gothenburg; the islands are a part of the identical municipality. It’s straightforward to think about Lissvik and Hägg as teenage boys escaping faculty, driving the ferry, island hopping, writing songs of their head.
Lissvik and Hägg, who met of their early 20s, have mentioned they hoped West Coast would replicate the area’s panorama. However how do you translate such various geography, a bustling metropolis whose metropolis limits embody such breathtaking idyll? With acerbic guitar, funky bass, and the occasional lusty mouth sound. The music, a mixture of home, disco, pop, and indie rock, works as each a nod to the need to flee the confines of town and a soundtrack for if you make it out.
Within the 2000s, Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest metropolis, was host to a small scene of musicians making a mixture of music just like Studio, all punching above their weight when it comes to worldwide acclaim. Studio had been no exception. However their music was idiosyncratic. It was damp, hedonistic, deep. It felt out of time, each acquainted and futuristic, as, 19 years later, it nonetheless does. In imitating one thing historic, they made one thing everlasting.
The album’s thesis assertion could also be its second track, “West Facet,” a monitor that seems to maneuver at two speeds without delay. There may be the syrupy bass—thump, thump, thump–thump-thump—contrasted with the feisty guitar. All kinds of percussion ripple all through; towards a stuttered backbeat, the track is accented with the kind of hand drums that elevated probably the most potent ’70s disco anthems. There’s a mild digital flourish, a pleasing echo. Then, about 4 minutes in, every part involves a pause. The guitar whispers. That is one in every of Studio’s few songs with vocals, and also you hear Lissvik repeating what might be the band’s motto: “Stable good occasions.” Is it over? After all not. The ultimate three minutes are a redoubling of their efforts, the prolonged coda working as a rejoinder to the concept an excessive amount of isn’t sufficient.
For all their maximalist instincts, Studio work deftly. The album is sort of a souffle, many components go into making the ultimate product as mild as air. West Coast’s opener, “Out There” is an enormous 15-minute monitor with finely plucked guitar, new wave bass, and easy, incantatory drums that appear just like the band’s name to hitch them on the seaside. There are hints of Donna Summer time, glistening ’80 prog rock, and in addition “Hey Mickey.” Take Giorgio Moroder out of Studio 54 and ship him to Scandinavia and also you’d be onto one thing. “Self Service” echoes the Treatment by the use of weed. “Life’s a Seashore,” with its mechanical handclaps, echoes Kraftwerk… by the use of weed. It’s dreamy music for folks whose dreamworld was conveniently accessible by public transit. It’s music for assured folks, folks conversant in their fantasy turning into actuality.
