Sven Wunder // The Eisenberg Review Interview

Photo by John Henriksson.

With the release of 2020’s Eastern Flowers and Wabi Sabi, Sven Wunder immediately captured the attention of jazz, psych and instrumental music lovers alike with his evocative technicolor soundscapes that showcased sounds ranging from Anatolian rock to traditional Japanese melodies.

Returning in 2021 with the lusciously orchestrated Natura Morta, Wunder joined The Eisenberg Review for a conversation about his new album, love of Ampex tape machines and rigorous creative process.

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The Eisenberg Review: I first discovered your music through the British label Mr Bongo and, as a result, I had assumed that your debut project Eastern Flowers was a re-issue of some long lost psychedelic masterpiece. While I was happy to be proven wrong, the experience nevertheless underscores a part of my fascination with your music: namely, this unique feat of time travel you’re able to accomplish by melding the sounds of past and present into glorious soundscapes. What do you view as music’s role in contextualizing time and the world around us?

Sven Wunder: It’s a geeky answer maybe, but I’m really into this period of music, so I never really see my music as a kind of “retro” perspective or something like that. It’s more that I mainly listen to music from the ‘60s and ‘70s and I love how music sounded back then.. . I have a small world with the music I listen to. It’s a lot of ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s stuff. Maybe that’s the answer, why [my music] sounds the way it does.

So, it’s just an authentic expression of the music that you love and listen to and you’re adding to that cannon in your own unique way?

My goal has always been to make songs that I want to listen to myself and that I want to collect on records myself. I’ve tried to do a song with a modern touch, but I don’t know how to do it… *laughs*

I do music for movies and production and stuff and often get the comment "Oh, it sounds a bit old or retro… It sounds like music from the past.” I try to mortalize myself, but it’s hard.

I think there’s a timeless to the music that you’re channeling. I’ve always called it, for lack of a better term, library music. It’s music that was traditionally used for TV shows, productions, or even advertisements to soundtrack something and set a scene. I always end up being fascinated with the composition of this type of music than just your standard pop song. Both are intricate and both have their intricacies in terms of producing it, but there’s something so evocative about this kind of music and it’s way of conjuring, without words, something totally different. I wonder, where does your interest in library music come from? Do you have a first musical memory that provoked and interest in it?

I’ve always been very interested with instrumental music, and through that you always find your way to scores, like movie scores, and then of course library music because it can be very good music. It also can be like elevator music… I think I searched for that type and then I found soundtracks and library music. Also, I’d been working with library music for many years now or made music for media. It’s my way of making music and I’m strongly connected to that scene. My record collection is maybe 80 percent soundtrack and library stuff.

Photo by John Henriksson.

That is so cool. I know a lot of turntablists and people that use samples, and oftentimes, that’s where they’re drawing from, so I’ve always had a strong interest in it. I find there are a lot of artists who use it as an instrument to then create other organic sounds, but the interpretation of that style and bringing it forward the way that you I find just as fascinating. You’ve touched on a lot of different styles in your cannon over the three records you’ve released dating back to August of 2019. You’ve done Anatolian rock, you’ve tackled the sounds of Japanese music and now on your latest release, Natura Morta, you’ve taken much more of a cinematic soul approach. Given that stylistic diversity that you’ve showcased, and I’m guessing are going to continue to showcase as these records have been met with a lot of success, how do you approach the creative process when it comes to writing these records? Are you going and digging into your collection of LPs that you mentioned, finding styles that resonate with you at the moment and sounds that are inspired by and then launching into recording a record in that vein? What does that process look like?

I have a very strict process that I try to stick to. It’s a bit like when you hear writers talk about how they work. It’s very important to be in the studio at a certain time every morning and then have like two to three hours of uninterrupted time where you can be improvising, maybe a classical piece or something, and get slowly into developing composition mode. For me, it’s mainly about having to write compositions. But then, later, when you have a stack of songs, you have to rest them and address them, put them in a record or a concept or so. The important thing is to constantly write songs. That’s my main thing. I try to write something every day, so I have a pile of songs that I can take from later when you need to fill up a record. But, maybe the Eastern Flowers record, the first one I did, was more of a vibe made during summer during a pretty warm period here in Sweden and I was on vacation and got more like of a creative bliss. So, that process was a bit different than Wabi Sabi and Natura Morta, which is much more song driven compositions. Eastern Flowers is more of an intense jam. Also, the concepts of the records are an image of what I’m into at the moment. During 2018 and 2019 I was really into Turkish rock and listened a lot to that. Then, I was really into Japanese jazz and interested in Asian scales and wanted to use them. And then Natura Morta is more of a soundtrack, more straight up compositions the way I want them. They’re less dressed than the others, its less of a strong concept, you could say.

That makes sense, and I think honestly that’s perhaps the most honest way to write music. It’s very naturally coming to these sounds and interpreting them in the way that they come to you. it’s an honest interpretation of the sounds you’re feeling at the moment, and I think that that’s all we can ask of our artists. We ask artists to interpret the world around them through their own unique perspective. I’ve always heard that in each of your releases and certainly with this latest one, Natura Morta. It seems to me that nature has always been something I’ve heard in your music. I’ve always heard these explorations of natural beauty and it seems like this new record is almost the deepest exploration yet of that: nature as a standard for beauty in art. Certainly, there is the reference to still life painting that is made by the album’s title. It’s a really profound point that you make about natural sources being turned into early paint which are then used to depict natural sources. There’s a transformation that occurs in perspective that gets you to a different rendering of what you were looking at in the first place. I’m curious: what do you view as the relationship between nature and art?

For me, I think it goes back to my childhood years. Me and my mother had books with pictures of nature and we used to put on classical music and look through these books. That probably affected me a lot. In Sweden, we have a close relationship to nature. In Swedish, there is a word for a “nature romantic” and I am definitely one of those.

I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but art and nature are probably the only two places where I feel some presence of something greater than myself, so I think it’s only natural that those two things would be related at some point and be used to interpret one another. We are talking about Sweden, where you are from, and all three of the releases we’ve been referencing have been produced with financial support from the Swedish Arts Council which is a structure that, I must admit, in the States I pretty am jealous of, because our own National Endowment for the Arts is similar, but kind of pales in comparison. How does this program work and what do you think its general impact has been on the Swedish music scene?

This is fun, because this is the most common question I get… I understand that its a unique thing for Sweden, but we have this funding system that you can send in demoes for a record and say “here, I want to record this [in] proper.” Then there is a little jury who determines “Oh yeah, we could fund this with money,” and then you get a certain amount for the record. Not everyone gets it, but we had the fortune to get money for all of these three records, which feels lovely and which made it possible for us to do it, especially the last one, which was very expensive due to the huge string section… It’s a unique system for Sweden. I hope it will stay like that.

That type of direct support is something that I wish more countries, and even state governments over here, would contemplate because I think that the creative arts are something that make life worth living, ultimately.

You broaden the cultural spectrum… For example, there are a lot of modernist composers who get money to record with a symphony orchestra, which is a lovely thing because, commercially, you don’t get that money back. It’s good for progress and musical progress. They have similar systems for all types of art here. It’s a very good thing.

What’s next?

I was down in the studio in Sweden three weeks ago and made recordings for a new record. It’s a jazzier type of record, I would say… I shouldn’t spoil this, but we recorded with a Rhodes, a trio, with double bass and drums.

Ooh, this is very, very exciting. Your secret is safe with us.

And also now, I have to finish it, now that I told you.

Happy to provide additional incentive! What’s one question you don’t get asked that you wish you did?

Maybe something geeky about the music, like, what tape recorder did you use on the recording, or something like that.

Well, what tape recorder did you use? What does the process ultimately look like in fleshing out and recording the compositions?

It’s analog. I try to record everything to tape and record as many instruments at the same time as possible as well to get as much life into it. The texture you get with recording to tape, for me that’s very important. No one ever asks me about that, but for me that’s like… “Where am I going to record this record?” Okay, they have his tape recorder there, let’s go there. So, that’s like the first thing I check when I go to a new studio.

What tape machines are you typically using to record? Like a JH24?

I record more on Ampex. They are more common in the states… The Ampex 440b, the eight channels one, I would love to record with that. There isn’t a functioning one in Sweden. Maybe next time we have to go abroad to use one of those. But here, we have the Studer recorders, which are also nice, a bit more transparent, and little bit more boring in the sound, but you can’t get it all. I would love to get my hands on one of those Ampex. I have the master recorder version of it and try to use it as much as possible, but it’s only two channels and now one of them is broke, so now its only one channel… *laughs* Sometimes I do run things through there afterwards, just to get that Ampex sound that I am totally in love with.

It’s a great sound, and I’m curious, but it sounds like it vibes with your approach as well. Certainly, there are people that think there is a right way to record a record and bemoan the fact that it’s been democratized to the point where we can all do it in our bedrooms with technology. The approach has to influence the type of music that you make, yes?

I think you can say it’s like the same thing as painting on an iPad or a canvas. It’s such a big difference and it’s a bit more complicated of course and it costs a bit more money and you can’t save everything, but I think its really worth it to get the texture. Texture is very important in music, to get the right atmosphere.

Absolutely. And, just the fact that it’s even seemingly more tactile adds to the connection with the music, I think.

Say, even compare it to live music, which I am not a huge fan [of]. If I had to choose live or recorded music, I’d choose recorded music any day because of just the atmosphere. It’s like when you take an analog photo, you get a slice of reality with a shimmer on it that makes it into something else. That something else is the thing you want… the alchemy.

In closing, I’m going to ask the same question I ask everyone: what are three records you’d recommend to the audience?

First of all, maybe a library soundtrack… I will go for Bruno Nicolai’s Love Birds. That soundtrack is one of my favorites. Beautifully recorded, the songs can literally be put on constant repeat.

Then, I will go for something jazzy, I would say. I’m really into Lee Konitz at the moment. I’m listening a lot to him. Grab anything from the late ‘50s, early ‘60s I would say. The song “Background Music,” I love that one. I’m spinning that one at home a lot now.

And last, I would have to take something with a vocalist, I would say. I recently got a 7” with Betty Chung doing a version of “Bang Bang.” A lovely song. A groovy bit of Hong Kong beat.