Info about Lena's third album: "PARIS TO BERLIN"
”Berlin - you give me time to think. Berlin - it’s so damn close I surrender, start to sink, but I’ll rise again.”
If Lena´s debut album ”A New Time, A New Life, A New Religion” was influenced mainly by country music, and her second album ”Real Love” by soul and blues music, her third album has got its inspiration from old gospel music and sounds from the 80’s. Two quite opposite genres that together mixes and blends into something very interesting. By collaborating with Mats Björke (Mando Diao) Lena’s music has reached a new level.
- Before starting the recordings we listened a lot to traditional gospel tunes, says Lena. We took inspiration from their desperate and rough sound and used that to create a modern sound that still had that old burning fire. Lena´s lyrics handles the hardships of life and real pure love. Again, two opposite topics that comes together in an interesting mixture. As Mats and Lena already knew each other personally and musically, the initial part of the recordings went smoothly. They got through half of the album, but all of a sudden they ran out of inspiration. Getting the last songs together felt impossible at the moment so they decided to take a break. Before recording her second album ”Real Love” Lena went on a four week trip through Europe. The city that made the biggest impression and inspired her the most during this trip was Paris. With this in the back of her head Lena started to think that a change of environment could be the answer to her lack of inspiration. The question was where to go. On a tour opening for the band Friska Viljor Lena, her boyfriend Daniel (one half of Friska Viljor), their son Olle (aka the Pirate) and her friend Joakim (the other half of Friska Viljor) decided to move to Berlin. Said and done, the four of them rented an apartment and spent the spring of 2010 in Berlin.
This was probably the best thing that could have happened. Lena took long walks, spent a lot of time with Olle in the parks, cooked a lot of food, had beers with the boys, won a Yatzy tournament, made new friends, had old friends visiting, enjoyed life and didn´t think that much about her music. Berlin with its nice people, the beautiful parks, the countless bars and the allowance to leave home in pyjamas affected Lena´s state of mind. Suddenly she felt the motivation and inspiration returning! Finally the urge to finish the album was there again! Lena went home and she and Mats finished the recordings. She’s now got both a new favourite city and a new album; “Paris to Berlin”.
Facts about some of Lena´s songs:
In December 2009 Lena went to New York. At a bar she met Eugene Charrington, a poet working as a bike messenger. ”Messenger Blues” is one of his poems with musical setting by Lena. ”It´s Time For A Decision” is a song about falling in love. The lyrics needed a male counterpart and ended up as a duo with Carl Norén from Sugarplum Fairy. In ”Världens finaste gosse” (The most beautiful boy in the world) Lena sings about her biggest love, her two year old son Olle. ”Until You Say Goodbye” is dedicated to Lena´s aunt and deals with the thoughts around ending your own life.
Additional vocals by the artist Elin Ruth Sigvardson. In the song “Killer” Lena sings about a very tragic double murder that took place in a small town in Sweden.
From Lena herself:
I was born in a little town in the southern of Sweden called Värnamo. On my 9th birthday my eleven year older brother Anders gave me the best gift ever; an LP record with Muddy Waters. At once I fell in love, and after that birthday I only wanted records from my brother, because he knew my taste. I can now see that it have affected my taste in music very much. I still love the basic elements and ideas of the blues music. My debut album "A new time, a new life, a new religion" was released in May 2006, the EP "Good Time EP" in March 2007, my second fullength album "Real love" in May 2009. In November 2010 I released my third album "Paris to Berlin" produced by Mats Björke (Mando Diao) and me.
All the best! /Lena