The Swindie Blog: Meet Vulkano!

Post-punk duo Vulkano rose from the ashes of Swedish all-girl pop sensation Those Dancing Days and are now oozing their way to the front-line of current Swindie-bands. They just released their debut album Live Wild Die Free in Sweden – which they promise will be released in the rest of the world soon – and will begin a UK-tour in October as the opening act for Kate Nash. That’s a pretty big deal considering the kind of venues they’ve been filling with howling wolf choirs for the past year or so.

Although they’re way more punk than other Swindie favourites Holograms and Amason, their simple bass lines, manic drums, and Cissi Efraimsson’s voice a la Gothenburg in the 90s make them sound like a super-soft version of Goat (if that makes sense), which is probably because both bands seem to be worshippers of nature.

I caught up with Cissi and Lisa Pyk Wirström the day after the release of their much sought-after debut to find out what’s up.

Noisey: Hi Ladies. Do you remember when I gave you guys a handwritten note after one of your gigs?
Lisa Pyk Wirström: Yeah, that was cute!

That was exactly one year ago on this day.
Lisa: I remember now that you gave me a note but I had forgotten how you look like, but now I recognise you and now I know why I do.

Are you hangover from yesterday’s release party of the album?
Cissi Efraimsson: It’s not too bad actually.
Lisa: Just a tiny bit. We could probably have been a lot worse. But we just hung around at this place, Indigio, and then we went home.

Right. Are you not going to have a proper release party?
Cissi: It didn’t happen because we’ve had so much to do lately. We’re currently making a short film, so we wanted to push the release forward a bit until the film is ready.

That makes sense. Tell me more about the film.
Cissi: I just discovered that others have done similar stuff before, such as Kanye West. It’s a short film that is based on the tracks on the album. We thought we were the first in the world to do this kind of thing, but then it turns out that Kanye was first.

Bummer. Your tracks aren’t even similar to Kanye’s though.
Cissi: No. The film is about Lisa and me when we are in a parallel dimension where we meet loads of interesting animals and people. They’re actually characters taken from our lyrics.

OK. So are there going to be plenty of wolves in it?
Cissi: Well, actually they’re a bit different, more like bird-wolves. We should probably not say much more for now.
Lisa: Nope.

OK. Do you guys ever find yourselves making music that sounds more like Those Dancing Days than Vulkano?
Cissi: It has happened actually.
Lisa: Yeah [laughs]. Then it’s like, “oh this is like Those Dancing Days!” And then we’re like, “this isn’t exactly what we should go with…” We think it’s fun, but we move on.
Cissi: Yeah, so it’s like we make a really good pop-song. But then we don’t use it. Our sound is very close to Those Dancing Days, so it’s easy to slip over.
Lisa: We know how to write pop-songs, but we want to experiment more now.

So you feel like you’re done with pop and going more towards post-punk?
Lisa: Yeah, and that’s more like the music we listen to ourselves.

Your sound is pretty unique for your generation of musicians coming out of Sweden at the moment. Does it feel like you’re in the beginning of a new wave of Swedish post-punk?
Cissi: We want that for sure. It would be amazing to have an effect on a general sound. That would be so cool.
Lisa: Yeah, that would be awesome.

I have to admit that the only time I’ve seen you live was that time one year ago when I gave you that note. I thought you were fucking awesome and it felt like you were more of a live-band than an album-band. Do you guys feel the same?
Both: Yes.
Lisa: Maybe it’s about habits. But it really feels like we are.
Cissi: We’ve played live like 50 times and only recorded for three days. So that makes us feel more like a live-band.

Do you always go with the same order of songs when you perform or do you experiment with that, too?
Lisa: We have moved around the tracks a bit, but we pretty much always end up doing it the same. Last time we played, we wanted to play an extra song to finish it all off with, but the venue put on the background music too soon so we didn’t play one of our best tracks.
Cissi: Yeah so we were left on stage and were like, “should we do this anyway or what?”
Lisa: That was a bit embarrassing.
Cissi: Yeah, but it feels like each set is a bit different because we have changed bass-player. And people have a unique way to express themselves. Friends of ours, who have been to each of our gigs, sometimes think that we have made plenty of new songs, even though it’s all pretty similar. We want to make more noise, and Oscar, who we’re playing with at the moment, is really good at that. That feels like a new direction with more noise.

Will your short film be inspired by more noise, too?
Cissi: No, that’s probably more of the same feeling as the album we just released.
Lisa: Probably more weird.
Cissi: Yeah, dopier… but actually pretty silent. Everything will be recorded in the forest so that will probably bring in more forest sounds.

Nice. What’s up with that nature inspiration you’re currently going with?
Lisa: I think that we have always liked nature and that has grown with the years. As well as our fascination with the supernatural. I think it’s because it’s so interesting.
Cissi: Yeah, that feels like a really rich source for inspiration. I think it really is about a fascination in that world. Loads of ideas are born when you hang around in nature. In a way that’s the basis for everything.

So do you go out on inspirational nature walks?
Lisa: Definitely.
Cissi: Yeah. We can also sit down and google photos of things like, “beautiful mountains,” and then we are like, “Ahhh…” Or, “jungle,” and be like, “Ohhh…” There are plenty of jungle sounds on YouTube to get you in the right mode.

I get the mode. Looking forward to you film and thanks guys.

‘Live Wild Die Free’ is out now via Vulkano’s own label. They’re on Facebook.