Words by Jim Ottewill

Marrying disparate sonics is at the core of experimental composer Fågelle and her creations.

On new album ‘Den svenska vreden’ (‘The Swedish Rage’), she draws on her own struggles to revel in the chasms between noise and harmony, both in her music — and her mind. 

“As a composer, you can break the structures of pop songs and embrace experimental forms,” Fågelle, aka Klara Andersson, says. “But you can also be brave by introducing form to a noise music setting. My ambitions for the album were about colliding these worlds, to smash them together.” The album’s themes draw on Klara’s own experiences of anger, being forced to accept specific circumstances that were making her unhappy. Made in collaboration with long-term producer Henryk Lipp, the 11 compositions distil layers of field recordings, digital bleeps and experimental wranglings to beautiful effect. 

“It was in 2019 before the release of my debut album and I just got this sentence lodged in my head,” she says of discovering the Swedish phrase that titles the record. Klara drew on the negative energy and frustrations she was going through to find something uplifting in her music. “Making the record itself was undoubtedly cathartic,” she continues. “To feel like a time that is meaningless and directionless, and to make it into something musical, is very powerful. Being an artist gives you the privilege of being able to give everything some meaning.”

Moving between musical genres and forms is a defining part of Klara’s creative explorations, a practice that stems from experiments as a young girl playing music and composing. Although there were no professional musicians in her family, music has always encircled her, propelling her on what she describes as a “weird road” of different styles and places. She recalls how a workshop with saxophone player Mats Gustafsson and his free jazz band The Thing changed her life. 

“They organised this great workshop and it just blew my mind,” Klara remembers. “It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard. I was already searching for something more than pop music and it sent me into this whirlwind of experimental and improvised music alongside studying sound art and composition.” 

These moves led to Klara’s debut album as Fågelle, Helvetesdagar. Released in 2020, the LP was well received and saw her music likened to a ‘soft punch in the face’ thanks to its blend of synths and experimentation. Subsequent sketches for her latest release had been percolating in the background with Klara adopting the role of musical magpie and collecting sounds from all around her.

“Field recording has become a big part of what I do, I have a huge library of sounds. I saw a video clip of Bjork saying how she had this resource and it was something I wanted to emulate,” she explains. “That’s a big part of my practice, collecting audio almost like a documentary maker.”

While producer Henrik has an arsenal of gear and noise boxes, Klara cites Super Collider as an essential piece of technology that created multiple opportunities. A self-proclaimed platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition, this piece of open source software offers “bare bone digital tools that are very simple to use”. 

“I’ve found that when I use it, there are always issues which send me in interesting directions,” Klara explains. “They have these edges and weird glitches that you wouldn’t have with a commercial plugin. Alongside some analogue synths, it’s one of a few tools that I’ve used for a while and I like to get the most out of. I find spending a long time with something is when I get really creative and inspired.”

The initial threads that Klara knotted together in A Swedish Rage began coalescing in 2019. Then when creative energies began to pick up speed, the pandemic got in the way and closed work down. 

“For some artists, it was a great period to be in the studio, but I didn’t feel the same,” she says. “It means the record has been made over this weird, stilted bit of time.”  Some of the tracks on the album initially began life as demos and outlines of audio recordings. Certain sounds from these first ideas would find their way to the finished versions despite going through a lengthy editing process.

“A lot of the time, I write on piano and guitar before we start on the production,” Klara states. “My process hinges around coming up with a really strong structure with lyrics and melodies, then attacking it in the production process. By having robust foundations, I find a song can handle all the experiments you throw at it.” Getting the core elements in place before taking it to a DAW was an important step for Klara with these compositions. It means she felt free to build whatever she wanted on top of them. 

“I try to enjoy every step and be open to seeing what happens,” she laughs. “Ultimately, we just moved little pieces of sound around for three years until we couldn’t stand it anymore and had to release it.”

The wider world around Klara, wilful love of experimentation, alongside her own challenges, all feed into this new collection of music. Recorded between Berlin and Gothenburg, expelling her feelings onto the album has enabled her to shut the door on a difficult period of her life.

“It’s a record about Gothenburg and my time there, the struggles and there are plenty of field recordings from my mobile phone too which we’ve used,” Klara says.

“The next record after this will certainly have a different perspective,” she continues. “It’s nice with records, they take a lot of time to make but they give you opportunities to reflect on your life, where you’re at, your sound and what you can explore too.” The influence of producer Henrik cannot be underestimated. As the second half of the project, his role is as an architect, helping Klara piece together her ideas to immerse her in creativity. 

“He’s like a sounding board, we always talk and send sounds to each other, then we work together in the production process,” she says. “Our relationship allows me to make things, then he makes sense of them.”

“He also pushes me to be more open minded as well,”Klara continues. “We want to do great groovy songs but be unafraid of abrasive sounds or harsh expressions. He’s been brilliant at making me feel able to own the darkness completely. And not excuse it - to embrace it full on.”

Among Klara’s album highlights is the eight minutes of ‘Jag går när jag är klar’ (I'll leave when I'm done). The song came into life as she was finishing music academy in Gothenburg and was sitting at her trusted piano for the final time. 

“Leaving music school was a very sentimental moment for me,” she remembers. “I was about to leave this safe space of the university and go out into the real world and had written a lot of songs on this piano. For the last time, I sat there and wrote this verse and chorus and recorded it on my phone.” This recording was used as the basis for the chorus for the song - but played backwards. Klara built the verse around this concept of reversing the original version, then Henrik came up with an idea to add a beat to it.

“It became this kind of backward train that moves through these memories,” she says. “It’s super lo-fi, and became very filmic for me as I was building it out. It’s now this long, weird personal song, full of strange ideas. Those are always the most satisfying to pursue.” When it comes to advice for aspiring creators, Klara has found that cutting the creative process up into different sections has been helpful in the decision-making process. 

“I find that it’s important to create a focus for my music,” she states. “I write it first, I know what I have can stand on its own —- then I can investigate sounds, how to fill them out and take them apart.” This is useful for Klara as her songs are constructed out of so many different ideas. By utilising a map for her music-making, it means she stays locked on target rather than being overwhelmed.

“Otherwise I would go insane as most of the songs consist of at least 100 tracks,” she says. “I need to be prepared to go into a creative space too. We have all of these ideas and I need to capture them before they disappear.” Now the album is ready and ripe for release, Klara’s focus has turned towards taking this into a live setting. At the same time, work on a new record has also already started and is getting Klara excited about even more possibilities… 

“Live is now becoming this great thing which I want to utilise on the next record. I want to figure out how to use the live setting in the recording studio. Ultimately, it’s all connected - I just never want to lose the energy or momentum.”

The Swedish Rage releases 27th January, 2023.