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LP
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LAUNCH 096LP
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LP version. Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation took little time to make their mark on the wider world, brandishing a radiant sound that stands effortlessly apart from the increasingly staid and often paradoxically predictable world of modern psychedelia. Having already been nominated for a Swedish Grammy with their debut EP, Diamond Waves, their full-length 2015 debut on Rocket Recordings, Horse Dance (LAUNCH 086CD/LP), marked out a territory in which beguiling repetition could sashay with sweet pop suss, melodic flourishes with experimental intensity. Yet clearly this was only the beginning of a journey of discovery, and few would have guessed how the band's sound would quickly evolve into still more enchanting and enlightening strains. Their second effort Mirage, sees the band sculpting sprawling, hypnotic jams into elegant nocturnal serenades with such serendipity that their actual creation remains a little hazy even to themselves. "We agree on not remembering very much about how these tracks came about, that all of them were written on the road and that most of them came fully formed" note the band. "Most were really long to begin with, but we found it relieving to break away a bit from the mandatory psych jams a little bit. We also just realized that none of them were written in daylight, which might be why memory is so elusive." Indeed, this hypnagogic approach seems to fit well with the primary inspiration for the five-piece, which centered on "the state where dreams, visions and the present are entwined" - the domain of surrealists and mystics. True to form, Mirage sees the band taking a chic tradition of avant-pop that extends all the way from Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy to Broadcast and Saint Etienne, and warping it mercilessly to their own darker ends. Whilst the brooding yet sultry "Sister Green Eyes" is no less than a sharp slice of velveteen motorik-pop and "Looking For You" reinvents three-chord garage-rock attack with mighty finesse, The Liberation are just as comfortable dealing out the heavy-lidded and electronically-driven "In Madrid" or the dive in the hallucinatory deep end of "Circular Motion", on which they're aided and abetted by Lay Llamas's Nicola Guinta. "Horse Dance was very much about conjuring the strength needed to cut ties" the band elucidates. "Mirage may be about having left but having no clue what's next - the power in being completely lost and thriving on it."
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CD
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LAUNCH 096CD
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Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation took little time to make their mark on the wider world, brandishing a radiant sound that stands effortlessly apart from the increasingly staid and often paradoxically predictable world of modern psychedelia. Having already been nominated for a Swedish Grammy with their debut EP, Diamond Waves, their full-length 2015 debut on Rocket Recordings, Horse Dance (LAUNCH 086CD/LP), marked out a territory in which beguiling repetition could sashay with sweet pop suss, melodic flourishes with experimental intensity. Yet clearly this was only the beginning of a journey of discovery, and few would have guessed how the band's sound would quickly evolve into still more enchanting and enlightening strains. Their second effort Mirage, sees the band sculpting sprawling, hypnotic jams into elegant nocturnal serenades with such serendipity that their actual creation remains a little hazy even to themselves. "We agree on not remembering very much about how these tracks came about, that all of them were written on the road and that most of them came fully formed" note the band. "Most were really long to begin with, but we found it relieving to break away a bit from the mandatory psych jams a little bit. We also just realized that none of them were written in daylight, which might be why memory is so elusive." Indeed, this hypnagogic approach seems to fit well with the primary inspiration for the five-piece, which centered on "the state where dreams, visions and the present are entwined" - the domain of surrealists and mystics. True to form, Mirage sees the band taking a chic tradition of avant-pop that extends all the way from Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy to Broadcast and Saint Etienne, and warping it mercilessly to their own darker ends. Whilst the brooding yet sultry "Sister Green Eyes" is no less than a sharp slice of velveteen motorik-pop and "Looking For You" reinvents three-chord garage-rock attack with mighty finesse, The Liberation are just as comfortable dealing out the heavy-lidded and electronically-driven "In Madrid" or the dive in the hallucinatory deep end of "Circular Motion", on which they're aided and abetted by Lay Llamas's Nicola Guinta. "Horse Dance was very much about conjuring the strength needed to cut ties" the band elucidates. "Mirage may be about having left but having no clue what's next - the power in being completely lost and thriving on it."
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LP
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LAUNCH 086LP
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LP version. In an era in which "psychedelia" can often mean merely a grab-bag of influences from which wah-wah pedals and two-note riffs are dispensed as signifiers and signposts into a realm of easy accessibility, as opposed to gateways to another dimension, it can be a rarity to come across a band that's genuinely fixated on creating alternate realities for the listener. Yet this is exactly how Stockholm's Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation view their incandescent art, and it's this sensibility that's led to the kaleidoscopic splendor of their debut full-length, Horse Dance. "It's a continuum that flows beyond here and now, and psychedelic music seems to be a really powerful way to unveil those deeper oceans of being that are our true home," reflects Öhrn, who forms the core of the band with Fredrik Joelson. Horse Dance is a razor-sharp collection of ditties that marry dreamlike radiance with hypnotic rhythmic drive, set alight by a prismatic experimental glow. It inhabits a realm in which a propulsive '60s-tinged pop song like "Sunny Afternoon" can be elevated skyward with krautrock-tinged repetition, dub echo, and analog curlicues alike, and one in which a Broadcast-style mantra like "You Have Arrived" can tap into a psychic lineage that stretches all the way from The United States of America to Portishead's Third. Yet while ghosts of bands like Laika, Cat's Eyes, and The Creatures may lurk in the darker recesses of these songs, this is a band paying no homage to bygone glories. The Liberation cite a myriad of influences in both their philosophical stance and their aesthetic, from 12th-century iconoclasts like Milarepa to 20th-century sonic voyagers like Catherine Ribeiro, and from Kandinsky's abstract expressions of synesthesia to the avant-jazz of Moondog. Yet at all times their transcendental extrapolations are married to icy and enticing melodic flourishes, making for a revitalizing clash between the chic and the transcendental, and a sound as biting as it is beatific. "I definitely think that the human need for altered states -- to see oneself from a bigger perspective -- is a deep fundamental need," Öhrn elaborates. "We've been deprived of access to our full nature by a restrictive system where altered states may be the ultimate taboo." With Horse Dance, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation step into a world where all such restrictions and taboos are null and void, and this journey is already proving quite the spectacle to behold.
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CD
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LAUNCH 086CD
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In an era in which "psychedelia" can often mean merely a grab-bag of influences from which wah-wah pedals and two-note riffs are dispensed as signifiers and signposts into a realm of easy accessibility, as opposed to gateways to another dimension, it can be a rarity to come across a band that's genuinely fixated on creating alternate realities for the listener. Yet this is exactly how Stockholm's Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation view their incandescent art, and it's this sensibility that's led to the kaleidoscopic splendor of their debut full-length, Horse Dance. "It's a continuum that flows beyond here and now, and psychedelic music seems to be a really powerful way to unveil those deeper oceans of being that are our true home," reflects Öhrn, who forms the core of the band with Fredrik Joelson. Horse Dance is a razor-sharp collection of ditties that marry dreamlike radiance with hypnotic rhythmic drive, set alight by a prismatic experimental glow. It inhabits a realm in which a propulsive '60s-tinged pop song like "Sunny Afternoon" can be elevated skyward with krautrock-tinged repetition, dub echo, and analog curlicues alike, and one in which a Broadcast-style mantra like "You Have Arrived" can tap into a psychic lineage that stretches all the way from The United States of America to Portishead's Third. Yet while ghosts of bands like Laika, Cat's Eyes, and The Creatures may lurk in the darker recesses of these songs, this is a band paying no homage to bygone glories. The Liberation cite a myriad of influences in both their philosophical stance and their aesthetic, from 12th-century iconoclasts like Milarepa to 20th-century sonic voyagers like Catherine Ribeiro, and from Kandinsky's abstract expressions of synesthesia to the avant-jazz of Moondog. Yet at all times their transcendental extrapolations are married to icy and enticing melodic flourishes, making for a revitalizing clash between the chic and the transcendental, and a sound as biting as it is beatific. "I definitely think that the human need for altered states -- to see oneself from a bigger perspective -- is a deep fundamental need," Öhrn elaborates. "We've been deprived of access to our full nature by a restrictive system where altered states may be the ultimate taboo." With Horse Dance, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation step into a world where all such restrictions and taboos are null and void, and this journey is already proving quite the spectacle to behold.
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