Four Albums in Five Days

37 songs, two very different musical worlds, and a release schedule I never actually planned.

I should probably begin by saying that I did not write 37 songs this month.

In fact, the slightly absurd release schedule I am about to describe was never really a plan at all.

Two very different musical projects that have occupied me for a long time simply happened to reach the end of their journeys within a few days of each other.

On Thursday, August 27, The Red Feather releases The Occult Club: Noir and The Occult Club: Neon.

Three days later, on Sunday, one of the songs from another project will receive its live premiere in the small village of Abbekås in southern Sweden.

And the following day, August 31, Klangstigar: Part I and Part II are released.

Altogether, that means 37 songs across four albums in five days.

It sounds slightly insane when I write it down.

Two versions of the same darkness

The Occult Club began somewhere completely different from Klangstigar.

It is music written for an occult musical, and from quite early on I became fascinated by the possibility of allowing its songs to exist in two different musical realities.

Noir looks backwards. It is rooted in 1940s inspired jazz, smoky clubs, acoustic musicianship and an older cinematic darkness.

Neon takes the same world somewhere else entirely: into dark electronic music, EDM, pulse and artificial light.

They are not simply two different arrangements of an album. They are two interpretations of the same underlying musical and dramatic world.

The connection between them is the writing, the characters and stories behind the songs and, importantly, the voice.

Both albums are sung by actress, singer and traveller Clary Stevenson, who recorded most of her vocals in Stockholm, with additional recording in Canada. Musicians from several countries have contributed to the recordings.

I wrote all of the music and lyrics, but one of the great pleasures of making these albums has been hearing that material transformed by other musicians and, particularly, by Clary's interpretation of it.

I don't really think of Noir and Neon as an album and its electronic counterpart.

They are more like two parallel versions of the same place.

Same shadows. Different lights.

And then there is Sweden

If The Occult Club is about constructing an imaginary world, Klangstigar has been almost the opposite.

It began about a year ago as a very personal project built around real places, people and memories.

Across the two albums, the paths lead through Abbekås, Tyresö, Växjö, Västerås, Liljeholmen, Sundbyberg, Harads, Kall, Salsån, Runmarö, Tokalynga (in Halland), Gräsö, Gräddö, Gotland, Korgil and Bohus.

There is also Sjung för Ane, written for a person (even though Siv, whom the song is written for, lived in Sundsvall) and another journey to Runmarö in instrumental form.

Eighteen pieces in total.

Some of these places are connected to my childhood. Some to people I have known. Some to particular moments in my life. Others simply did something to me when I was there.

The idea was never to make musical postcards or to describe what these places look like.

I became much more interested in what a place leaves behind. I wrote almost all the melodies on the locations. I was inspired by the actual places, but sometimes also by a person, a memory, a relationship, sometimes loss, sometimes something considerably harder to define.

That gradually became Klangstigar.

Music from Sweden, played around the world

There is another contradiction at the heart of the project that I have grown very fond of.

Klangstigar is deeply rooted in Sweden, but much of the music has been made together with people far beyond it.

The recurring singers are Frida Choi, Isabella Le Gall and Anna Johansson, with Karl Ytterberg appearing on one of the pieces. Across the two albums there are musicians from a whole range of countries, many brought into the project through Musiversal, alongside musicians and collaborators I have worked with in other ways.

On Tokalynga, the musical landscape expands all the way to southern Africa through the Umgibeli Zulu Choir.

There is something I love about that.

A melody can begin with a small place in Sweden, with a memory or with someone I once knew, and eventually be played or sung by somebody thousands of kilometres away who has never stood there.

The geography becomes personal rather than literal.

And despite all those musicians and all those distances, Klangstigar is probably one of the most personal musical projects I have made.

Before the albums arrive, one song goes home

There is also something wonderfully appropriate about what happens the day before the two Klangstigar albums are released.

One of the pieces was commissioned in Abbekås.

On Sunday, August 30, the song will be performed there in connection with the inauguration of a new cultural trail.

Lina Hofvander Hovstadius will sing, together with musicians and choir. Lina has also worked with the musicians and singers preparing the live performance.

That means that before Klangstigar becomes two albums available to people anywhere, one of its songs gets to exist exactly where it belongs.

In Abbekås.

With people from Abbekås.

I like that enormously.

It also says something about what I wanted Klangstigar to be. These places aren't titles added to pieces afterwards. The relationship between music, place and people is the reason the project exists in the first place.

37 songs

Releasing this much music within five days inevitably creates the impression of an enormous burst of productivity.

The truth is almost the reverse.

These recordings have accumulated slowly.

Songs have been written and rewritten. Arrangements have changed. Musicians have recorded their parts in different countries. Vocals have been recorded and revisited. Mixes have changed. Ideas have been discarded. Other ideas have appeared unexpectedly. And, gradually, both projects have found identities of their own.

There are also a great many people behind recordings like these.

That matters to me.

My name may appear under "music and lyrics", but music stops belonging entirely to the person who wrote it the moment another musician starts interpreting it. Voices, instruments, performances and choices made by other people become part of what the work actually is.

Neither The Occult Club nor Klangstigar would sound the way they do without them.

And none of this was designed around the idea of releasing four albums in one week.

They simply happened to be ready at almost exactly the same time.

Two worlds meeting by accident

Perhaps that's the part I find most amusing.

For a few days at the end of August, an imaginary occult world built from jazz clubs, darkness, theatrical characters and electronic music will coexist with another project about villages, islands, cities, landscapes, friends and memories across Sweden.

One looks deliberately unreal.

The other could hardly be more personal.

One moves between Noir and Neon.

The other moves between Abbekås and Harads, Tyresö and Tokalynga, Runmarö and Kall.

And somehow they have all ended up here at once.

All four albums are being released by The Red Feather, which also makes this a particularly meaningful moment for the house. The Red Feather began as a home for much of my own work and rights, but has gradually grown into something broader, working with publishing, representation, licensing and long term stewardship of creative works.

These releases are four very different examples of what I hope that home can contain.

But mostly, this week is about the music.

Four albums.

37 songs.

A rather large number of musicians, singers, places, memories and late nights.

I don't expect anyone to listen to all of it in five days.

It took me considerably longer to make it.

---

The Occult Club: Noir and The Occult Club: Neon are released by The Red Feather on August 27, 2026.

The live premiere of Abbekås takes place in Abbekås on August 30, 2026.

Klangstigar: Part I and Klangstigar: Part II are released by The Red Feather on August 31, 2026.