Sven Wunder: The Long Journeys
This interview was originally published in The Juice Fanzine #08, released by Juicy Records in November 2021. You can get more info on it here.
“I’m not that fond of travelling. I like home. I’m travelling through my record collection.” Sven Wunder tells us over a Zoom call. Guitars glisten in the background, reflecting the light of his computer screen, same for the white keys of an inconspicuous piano, all pointing to the fact that he’s dialling in from his studio.
Sven Wunder has drawn considerable attention with a rapid-fire succession of albums inspired by a wide range of regional sounds. From Anatolia (Dogu Çiçekleri, aka Eastern Flowers, 2019) to East Asia (Wabi Sabi, 2020) and more recently returning to Europe and the Mediterranean (Natura Morta, 2021), the elusive Swedish artist sold out several thousand vinyl records without giving away his real name. The anonymity, of course, only added to the mysticism around the music, even if it didn’t originate from a marketing strategy.
It is rather an allusion to the old-school library music scene, where the same artist would use aliases to release several records per year without saturating the audience.
“From the beginning, it’s actually just me. I have different people who play different instruments, but I write all the songs, and I put everything together and write the arrangements.” Wunder states confidently when questioned on the nature of the music. “I have a group of musicians, some of them have been with me on all of the records, so I could call them bandmembers or something, but it’s my project.”
There’s a hint of pride in his voice, although he describes the origin story for Sven Wunder in a nonchalant manner. After all, this is a seasoned musician who has been composing music professionally way before this latest venture.
“I had been working very intensely on the soundtrack for a movie. This was like 2018. I was finished and would have my summer holiday. I was in the studio, wrapping everything up before going on vacation while listening to a lot of Lebanese and Turkish music, and I realised I really wanted to do songs like that myself. And now I’d have a lot of free time. I’m not so good on holidays. I prefer to work.”
The workaholic found an excuse not to take time off. “I had one of these creative blisses that you sometimes get, which I don’t like because I do believe in continuous workflow. Like writing, you write your pages every day. But sometimes, the inspiration hits you, and you can just follow it. So the first record was like this, the songwriting done in two weeks or something. It was a very intense period. And that kicked off the whole project.”
Wunder also explains that he has been researching Turkish and Easter European folkloric music for many years, playing it in different bands and learning from “the mouth-to-ear tradition” where someone teaches you a song that you will eventually pass on. So the holiday project was, in fact, the result of a longstanding love affair that snowballed into a “cross-writing thing”, as the artist didn’t want to get stuck in a creative gap.
“This type of music doesn’t really exist today. Now everything it’s more neither seen or heard, wallpaper style.”
Although Wunder’s experience of writing scores and composing for string sections did come in handy, the artist confesses that the project also became an outlet for utilising “over the top” ideas with “huge pretentious melodies” that would otherwise stay hidden in his professional rejections drawer, especially on his latest album Natura Morta. “No one wants to use songs like these in movies these days, except when it’s supposed to be nostalgic.”
“This type of music doesn’t really exist today. Now everything it’s more neither seen or heard, wallpaper style,” the critical tone of his voice not fully able to disguise a certain sadness. “The harmonisation that I used [in Natura Morta], which is the thing that’s closest to my heart, is not usual nowadays. It’s more in the tradition of, I would say, Henry Mancini, Morricone, guys like that. It’s a lot of tension notes, big jazz chords in the string section, which is not common these days. At least I’m not allowed to use it in Swedish film productions”.
But the aesthetic aspects of Sven Wunder go way beyond the cinematic qualities of his music or the obvious homage he intended to pay to the masters who inspired him. Regardless of tempo and tension, most of his compositions are akin to paintings. Still life, panoramic landscapes, bustling quotidian scenes, if you close your eyes, you can unveil these moments while going from song to song, which denotes a sensibility to art as a representation of life.
“I’m very much into art. As one of my passionate hobbies, I do watercolour painting, which I enjoy very much.” Asked if there is a correlation between the creative process of painting and composing songs, Wunder realises that the period of writing the three records was also prolific for his painting.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about, for example, the dynamic of landscape painting, where you have a background, a middle ground, and then you have a foreground. It’s a bit like songwriting, arranging what you have. Not everything can be at the front the whole time.”
Questioned on the positive reception of the albums and how different audiences seem to understand the concepts behind each release, the artist doesn’t hide his satisfaction. Even if in part, he’s still in disbelief.
“I was very surprised. I have been happy about the whole situation ever since we released Eastern Flowers. I have released records under different projects before, where you’d end up with a deadstock. You give a couple of records to your parents and friends, but then you still have some 250 records on your shelves. This time, as soon as it was out there, it sold out at once, which was a lot of lucky coincidences, I think.”
Wunder admits it felt overwhelming. His second output, Wabi Sabi, and its bigger first pressing of 500 copies were not enough to match his newfound fanbase. “People were very upset. There were a lot of people that wanted the record, and we didn’t know that the demand was so high. We had to press it again.”
As for the Swedish audiences, the artist states they were kind of late to the party. “The [Swedish] press is very trendy, so people only noticed when the outside attention happened. And now, on this third record, the Swedish press has been very interested and recognising it.”
Was it perhaps the syndrome of a small country, primarily known for its pop music? “I don’t know. But there’s a huge scene of small independent labels in Sweden who make a lot of interesting stuff. We have a very open cultural system, where you can get funding for, like, avant-garde free jazz or avant-garde noise. This [government program for] cultural support creates a lot of possibilities for out-there type of music”, says Wunder, in a cheerful tone. Although quickly followed by the affirmation that it’s not easy to access such funds, as there are many applications and there’s a committee that decides on allocation.
Still, all of Sven Wunder’s albums to date have benefited from Swedish government funding. “It’s been absolutely crucial to make it work”, the artist asserts, “especially on the last one with the strings section, that costs a lot of money to record.” It also allowed for the project to keep moving forward, despite pandemic restrictions and the setbacks it brought upon the whole music industry.
When asked about how he faced the hardships of the last couple of years, and if there was any dip in motivation, Wunder confirms his Swedish introverted nature and shrugs it off, saying that there is only a boring answer to give: “I like to be in my own universe. And I have so much work to do, where I want to write songs every day, all year round. I really like my life schedule.”
The answer would seem almost unrealistically stoic if it wasn’t followed by the assertion that he has already recorded the foundation for the next album in May this year. It will have “a jazz flavour, more like Fender Rhodes [electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s] driven songs, with the upright bass. A little bit more sloppy.”
This time around it seems that distant regional sounds may not make an appearance, even if it is a bit early to tell. With longstanding ties to the genre that date back to his father, a jazz drummer, Sven Wunder seems excited to finally be able to express another passion of his under this newfound moniker, one that hits a bit closer to his personal journey. “Sometimes, you need a long detour to get home.”
Sven’s favourite juice is wheatgrass juice. He jokingly says that he only goes out of his way to drink juice when he’s getting a cold or in desperate need of vitamins.
