Music Forever

Photo by Pierre Vassle

With their boring name, neat graphics, tasteful website (thestudio.se) and less-than-scintillating answers to our piercing questions (see below), it looks as if Gothenburg duo Studio are trying their hardest to send us off to Snoozeville in the world’s most comfortable bed on a sea of Horlicks. But trust us when we say that their debut album West Coast is the record we’ve enjoyed listening to the most this year. Admittedly, it did come out at the end of October so it’s still fresh to our ears, compared to stuff released way back in February which we’ve already forgotten. For example, does anyone play that Arctic Monkeys album? Okay, guess what? Studio are two good-looking guys in their mid-20s called Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg. They met at the usual arty parties a while ago and just clicked. Dan writes most of the music, sings a bit, and manages their label, Information. Rasmus runs the design side of things with his company, Station, hosts a psychodisco club, also called Station, and helps Dan out with the music. And their music is wonderful. Some musos are freaking out because Studio sound like the band they always dreamed existed (but didn’t, until now). To those nostalgic for a mythical period in pop, Studio tick all the right boxes, and invent some new ones too, sounding as they do like Talk Talk, Duritti Column, The Rapture and The Smiths all monkeying around at a cocktail party at Grace Jones’ dub shack in Ibiza in 1985. Two of the six tracks on West Coast, “Life’s a Beach” and “Out There”, nudge 15 minutes and in those you can really lose yourself. Says Dan: “We always knew we had a good thing going but we’re amazed that people seem to dig it this much.” Vice: Do you read much? Dan: No, not really. I seem to have got music in my ears until I drop but I’m getting there. My dad just gave me a copy of book by a local historian called Sven Edvin Salje. It’s supposed to be some kind of “roots” for people coming from my part of Sweden. A regular Robin Hood tale, he says. Rasmus just finished reading The Godfather, I think. Who would write the Studio story and how would they spice things up? An Astrid Lindgren adventure followed by multiple farewells in the end. She wrote the Pippi Longstocking books. What’s with the name Studio? Not exactly selling yourself there. Well, I started writing songs when I was in art school and was living in my studio at that time, so when people asked about my music, I called it Studio. Later on I met Rasmus and we got together and released our first single “The End of Fame”. How do you feel about your album now? Amazingly weird. THANDIE NEUTRON