Folkvang - s/t
2013 | Music | Album
Debut album by Folkvang. Released by Kning Disk.
Press release: “It was one of those underground festivals out in the forest in the north of Sweden, everyone was wasted, stoned, it was close to midsummer so it never really got dark which in turn meant that the party never stopped, people everywhere, some sat around a pretty big camp fire that would pass as a bonfire if it weren’t for a young guy, one of the more odd fruits in a bowl of marginal existences, that trotted around the fire slowly wetting the ground with a hose that was attached to a tube of water that he dragged behind him. We exchanged a few words. It was worth it.
The next time we met he claimed he had a guitar that would suit me, I was broke at the time so I didn’t give it much thought, but he insisted on giving it to me and suggested that instead of paying, I could record his band in my studio. Out of guilt I accepted the proposition and invited the band to my home outside of Umeå. I was sceptical because I thought they played some kind of melodic punk rock (one of them wore one of those caps that those types of bands tend to have, and they looked really young) so when they, on arrival, told me they’d lost their drummer on the way and asked if I wanted to play I thought “this could turn into a real shit-show”. But it was Friday night, they brought some beers and smokes, we hung around for a bit, rigged up the gear and then I asked them to play a song from beginning to end. Okay, they said. Then they played Stugsista. Pretty much exactly like it sounds on this record: simple, human, beautiful, music with a peculiar timeless quality, it floats around in something that I want to call melancholic euphoria. I sat there on a chair in my house and totally forgot about the beer in my hand, forgot to press rec/play, forgot about unpaid bills. For the first time in many years I fell in love with a band from Umeå again.
The recording was of a demo nature and a few months later they went down to Stockholm to record in the Cobra studio with Christian Gabel producing. It is that recording which Kning Disk now releases. I played one gig as drummer with Folkvang, in a little café in Umeå. There were maybe 25 people there and one of them, who is usually a skilled guitar player, was so nervous that he could barely play. I told them they should get another drummer that’s not as busy so they could play more, and so that people could hear this music. A few months later I heard that they got a drummer that lived in Rostock, Germany. It is not unexpected that it took 4 years for this music to be released, Folkvang is a quartet prone to logistical meltdown. Maybe not a band that will make a whole lot of fuss, but they are good, really good. And after all that is what counts.
The guitar later turned out to be worth just over 100 bucks.
//David Sandström”