Erika Angell’s musical universe is as expansive as it is unconventional, blending elements of classical, folk, rock, and pop with jazz, electronic, free improvisation, and avant-garde influences. She is best known as the co-leader of the celebrated and Polaris-nominated avant-rock band Thus Owls, a project she has shared with her husband Simon Angell since 2007. After the release of her solo album The Obsession With Her Voice this year, I was delighted to welcome her back for a session, at our mutual friend Simon Akkermans’ lovely Epic Rainbow Unicorn Studio in Rotterdam, where she played Dress Of Stillness and covers of The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now and Nina Simone’s Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair.

Watch and prepare to be speechless, by both Angell’s performance as drummer Mili Hong.

Before Thus Owls, she explored diverse sonic landscapes with ensembles like the Swedish vocal-bass duo Josef & Erika and the electronic noise group The Moth. Angell has collaborated with artists such as Daníel Bjarnason (Ben Frost, Sigur Rós), Liam O’Neill (SUUNS), Karl Lemieux (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), and many others. Her unmistakable voice can also be heard on recordings and performances with a wide range of artists, including Loney Dear, Patrick Watson, and even Leonard Cohen.

I couldn’t be happier to welcome back Erika Angell to The Influences, the Montréal-based Swedish vocalist and composer whose work defies easy categorization. With a career spanning sixteen independently produced albums and countless collaborations, Angell has carved out a distinctive space in genre-defying music. Her voice has been praised as “a guiding presence” (Exclaim), “skillfully unhinged” and balancing “the divine and demonic” (Under The Radar), while Le Devoir compares her to “the greatest indie female artists who are not afraid of anything.”

‘It felt important to refine and purify an expression, sprouting from the depths within me.’

“I think there has always been a longing to do a solo album in some ways, I just haven’t been in a place where I was ready to compile the reason and essence for it. I’ve also always had so many other fun bands and projects to express myself via, the different parts of my musicality, that I didn’t really have an urgent need to make a solo album earlier. But finally it felt kind of important to refine and purify an expression, sprouting from the depths within me, to say yes to my longings without compromising.”

“The main difference would be that I don’t have to check in with anyone else but myself whether this or that sound and expression is right. That I make all the artistic calls and choices. I didn’t have to compromise. But it also leaves you with fewer options, cause you only have yourself. Even though you can always ask for help, which I do a lot, to feel inspired and challenged.”

“I have for years processed my voice through pedals, mostly in more experimental settings, like with my band The Moth that I had together with Martin Öhman. It’s a fun way to extend the voices characters and sounds and a way to create larger worlds. The voice stands in the center for my musical expression and creativity. It starts there. Always has. The Obsession With Her Voice was originally a phrase from a poem that I wrote for this record but that didn’t make it to the final result. But I thought that phrase described the essence of this album.”

‘Nina Simone’s expression is just so genuine and powerful.’

Erika Angell admits: “I have never listened much to The Smiths to be honest. But a friend of my invited me to work on another The Smith’s song  at one point and it made me go through a few more of their songs. I have done this song before in my earlier solo set. I think it’s the lyrics that hook me to it, they are fun to sing and I connect and relate to that human loneliness that we all experience and feel at times.”

“Nina Simone has always been one of my favourites. Her expression is just so genuine and powerful, you can’t escape it even if you wanted to. This song was also shared with me by someone who is considering it for a film she’s invited me to collaborate on. So I started to play around with it. It’s an old Celtic folk song, original collected by Cecil Sharp with many more verses, but I love the simplified version that Nina Simone sung.” 

‘This way of composing keeps the music free and alive to me.’

“I’ve released so many records during the last two decades and I’ve been through many different feelings of expectations and pressure, from myself and others. I’ve also released music in times where the conditions under which we release music has changed drastically.”

“What I’ve come to realize about my own artistry and creative longing is that it is mostly that, a longing to express myself and to create and connect. I love when my music and expression touches a listener or when we come together in music, performer and artists, in a moment of musical spirit to connect in what it really means to live and love. That is the true purpose for me, and I don’t see how this need or longing is at all supported by expectations and pressure, therefore I do my best to try to set those aside.”

“The way I wrote the music for this album is the result of a long process of developing compositions and music that is decided yet free”, Erika Angell adds. “It is not new to me with this project but maybe refined and taken much further. I essentially try to decide as few components as possible but still enough to have a song. I might decide the words, the tone material, a feel or a groove, but how I get to one place from another will always change.”

“This way of composing keeps the music free and alive to me, which makes me a better performer and therefore also my connection with the listeners more true and real, which is what I always strive and aim for.”

Photos

Keep watching

Thank you for watching and enjoying this session. You’ll probably like some other sessions from The Influences’ archive too, like these earlier ones we filmed at with Erika Angell’s other band Thus Owls and her husband Simon Angell.