Artist: Loney Dear
Label: Polyvinyl Records
Release: 2008
Rating: 3.2/5
Loney Dear, aka Emil Svanängen, is a Swedish singer-songwriter who was still pretty anonymous not long ago. Then Sub Pop reissued his third album (Loney, Noir), and the guy got a bit more famous and deservedly earned mostly glowing reviews from some of the bigger media outlets around the world.
Svanängen put out his first four albums himself, since that was the only way to get his music out into the world. Labels simply weren’t interested. Apparently that way of working suited him best, too, because in the early 2000s he kept dropping one quality album after another, which eventually led to the bigger labels noticing him.
Critics mostly file this artist under indie pop/rock, which was maybe even more true of his earlier work. On Dear John that’s still the most obvious ingredient, but you can also feel a kind of reach toward a more inventive (some would even say “art”) sound. Here I’d especially point out the post rock influences in the vein of Radiohead (the vocals even remind me of Thom Yorke at times) and tasteful electronic beats. It all makes for a great stew that takes the best qualities of indie pop and mixes them with other genres. The Radiohead influence is especially noticeable, since the themes are sometimes just as “depressing” as theirs, which can get downright annoying at moments, but if you listen to the album in moderate doses, it’s no big deal. It also seems like Emil Svanängen draws quite a lot from the folk/hippy music of the sixties and seventies, which you can especially feel in his sense of melody with its dreamy art motifs. What I mean is that the music is accessible, but not the least bit cheap. It’s made with taste and style.
The music on Dear John mostly leans on keyboards, whose lines are stacked on top of each other in the songs and build a really powerful sound. There’s quite a lot of guitar too. In the electric guitar parts you can feel the minimalism of post rock, while the acoustic guitar carries the influence of the hippy/folk era. The percussion is mostly programmed, but even that is done almost unnoticeably. Emil Svanängen isn’t some incredible virtuoso on any instrument, but he makes the best possible use of what he knows and the album sounds convincing.
It often happens that people who created under tough conditions, with no label support and no financial help, made their best work right in that period before fame. So the question came up again: would that be the case here too? Luckily, it turned out to be quite the opposite. Svanängen has only polished and perfected the sonic picture of his music, adding a bit more musical variety on top. His inspiration is clearly far from running out.
Dear John is, at least for me, this singer-songwriter’s best work. I think one of the reasons is that he got to record in his own home studio again, which obviously stimulates him a lot. The album doesn’t sound any worse than if it had been recorded in some big studio, and this way of working is apparently easier for an introvert like Svanängen, too.
Dear John did take three years to make (before that the guy was releasing an album a year), but the wait paid off, because this time we’re dealing with a truly mature album, one that will appeal mostly to fans of indie pop/rock with a touch of post rock a la Radiohed and electronics. The main strength still lies in the easy “tunes,” which can be a little too sad and sleepy at times, but you’ll definitely remember them quickly. Even though the music is very approachable, everything is done with a certain art approach that gives the album its own particular flavor, and that might keep Svanängen from breaking through to the bigger stars. Still, considering that bands with a similar “sad” and art approach are doing pretty well right now (Radiohead, Keane, Coldplay,…), the guy might have a very successful career ahead of him. Definitely a neat little gem that’s worth a listen.
Lineup
Emil Svanängen – all instruments
Production
Emil Svanängen
Tracklist
1. Airport Surroundings
2. Everything Turns to You
3. I Was Only Going Out
4. Harsh Words
5. Under a Silent Sea
6. I Got Lost
7. Summers
8. Distant Light
9. Harm/Slow
10. Violent
11. Dear John
