of genuine What will be the fate of Shakespeare’s heroine Ophelia, who is deeply saddened by the death of her lover Hamlet? she drowns. as captured In this 1851-1852 painting by artist John Everett Millais, she is surrounded by lush greenery and colorful flowers. But while her milky, deathly paleness suggests death, her open hands and mouth hint at hope: that in death she will be reunited with her doomed love.
Near the end of Snuggle’s stunning debut, Andrea Theusen sings, “I’m drowning” on “Water in a Pond.” Goodbye house. “The water in the pond is like the sea.” Like Ophelia, Thüsen is suffocated by sweet memories: the endless summer days, the clear optimism of youth. The song’s dreamy waltz is actually about the slow death of childhood.
The circumstances that led Thüsen and her musical partner Wilhem Strange to come together to create Water in a Pond and its companion album, Goodbye House, are suitably gruesome. “When we started playing music together, we kind of got lost,” Strange Over Zoom says slowly, as if walking through the snow. “I used to play in[Danish band]Rhys, and I had a very close relationship with the singer[Søren Holm]. We were always in the studio, and we made music together for years. But then he passed away[in 2021, at the age of 25]and there was a lot of music that never came out,” he paused.
Out of this tragedy and unfulfilled potential, he found another comrade. “I found a similar songwriting connection with Andrea.” Today, the duo finish each other’s sentences and have a kind of respect for each other that comes from knowing their creative chemistry is rare. “This is a safe space for us so we can experiment musically,” Strange explains.
While his bandmates lamented the slow dissolution of his former group, Thüsen was faced with the sudden closure of a cafe he had deep ties to. “It was like a second home, and when it closed, it was like saying goodbye to my childhood home. It was very upsetting,” she explains. This, and the fact that Strange’s childhood home was being sold, led to the album becoming a portmanteau. Goodbye house. “This title captures a lot of emotions, like leaving home, being excited about new things, but also feeling depressed and sad.”
The band’s rise, along with fellow artists Smelts, Elias Ronnenfeldt and Erika de Cassier, remains part of Copenhagen’s elegantly thriving music scene. However, the reality is not so collegiate and romantic. “It’s not part of a grand movement out of Copenhagen, like Laurel Canyon,” Thüsen explains. “Copenhagen is this small city, so you have to understand that it’s impossible to make music in this city if you don’t know each other in some way. The people we know are like close work colleagues, but we’re not really a part of it. We’re kind of outsiders.”
Outsiders are also in the inner circle. In “Pond Water,” the protagonist reminisces about carefree moments before adulthood. “I wrote these lyrics at a time when many of my closest friends were starting to buy apartments with their partners and start talking about having children,” says Theusen. The song’s heartbreaking lyrics (“Days go by/Things that seemed like forever/happened in the blink of an eye/Growing up is so hard”) nail the red balloon of their childhood. “I felt like the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. I’m a very nostalgic person and I don’t like change. I get very anxious when things start to change.”
But when life gives you Quarter Life Crisis-flavored lemons, what else do you do but make lemonade? The duo recreated the complexity of these emotions with a sonic palette where a ghost walk through the future meets the past, and baccaratian orchestration meets pitch-shifted vocals. Shoegaze-style humming meets Wild West tremolo and scaly murder ballad sounds. Thüsen’s melancholy vocals are equally disintegrative, at times coquettish and filled with ennui, at other times stiff and performative sexiness.
Snuggle’s unique cut-and-paste working method means a blend of analog and digital production. Goodbye house Fresh sound. “A lot of these songs are very traditionally written, like folk songs, and we take that into the studio,” Strange explains. “I have two guitars, so I do a lot of improvisation, like long blocks of improvisation, and then I cut out parts of it.” He did the same technique with the drums as on Jaws, which was recorded live, and then spliced together his favorite takes. “There are some mistakes that make it more analog than digital.”
Strange said he finds it difficult to stop working in the studio even as deadlines approach. “We’re good at changing things up to the last minute,” he says. Like the day before I uploaded it, I said, “What if we reversed the drum sound?” It’s a bit extreme, but that’s how we work. ” An example is “Driving Me Crazy,” which had chipmunk-like vocals added in the final mix. “I remember hearing that and thinking, ‘What?’” But now I love it. Because that’s how we make music,” says Theusen. “There are equal parts that are very serious and parts that are not so serious.” There is also a less serious playfulness to the duo’s relationship. During a discussion about the introspective nature of songwriting, Strange asked Theusen, “Did you get inside my head?” To which she retorted, “I’m in your head, baby!” Without missing a beat.
A combination of musical experimentation and melancholy appealed to Hayley Williams, name-checked Goodbye house I personally selected the band to support her on her first solo tour. “She wrote us a letter, which was very nice,” Strange says. “I’m really happy and hopeful that an artist as great as her is still interested in exploring new music,” says Theusen.
Before resuming touring, including support dates for Williams, the band are reflecting on their breakthrough year at home. “Aside from one show, we had never played outside Denmark,” says Strange. “And I was amazed at how many people turned up.” He sounded genuinely moved as he spoke of the awe of the Edinburgh fans who heard the song. Goodbye house Loop while coding a game for Rockstar. The two have already started working on new music. “The audience takes energy from the stage, and you take energy from the audience on stage. We channel some of that energy into writing new stuff,” Strange says. The new music sounds “rawer” and more experimental. Goodbye house. “It’s a double-edged desire to make music for people who are interested in music, but it also sets new expectations, and we don’t want to disappoint anyone,” Strange says. “For us, it’s very important to keep this innocent way of making music.” They feel like they haven’t lost anything yet.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
