Strulgattu & Meierkord
... is a trio that explores and translates observations, feelings, and fragrances associated with nature and the countryside into musical experiences. The song "Typisk svensk sommar" is a musical interpretation of summer as simultaneously being looked upon as scientific observation and subjective experience.
Weather and the shift of nature is a recurring topic of conversation, that has transformed from being a convenient way of getting in touch with people, to something that concerns an existential dimension about our survival as human beings. This is the Swedish summer, as seen from their Scandinavian outlook.
Strulgattu & Meierkord are ...?
Strulgattu consists of two members, Magnus and Matts, taking care of all the electronic elements of our sound. We grew up together in Siljansnäs, a small village in Sweden. During our childhood we were involved in a couple of fist fights during the school years before we decided to make peace and do something more creative together, such as starting a band.
Henrik Meierkord plays the cello and is from Helsingborg in the southern part of Sweden. Meierkord is involved in many international musical collaborations, but he also releases ambient music under his own name.
Who inspired you to make music in general?
Our name Strulgattu translates to “troublemaker street”, taken from the children’s author Astrid Lindgren’s book “Lotta on Troublemaker Street”. The name is from the local Swedish dialect used in our village, so most Swedish speakers probably have no idea what the word means.
When we formed the duo, we were strongly influenced by hip hop, not sound-wise, but rather by its credo of “keeping it real”. Since we were born and raised in the Swedish countryside, far away from any urban area, we had to translate the idea of “the hood” to this environment, which consists of lakes, woods, hills and fields.
This milieu is perhaps something usually associated with traditional folk music, but we thought we could renew “the sound of the countryside” by using subtractive synthesis rather than the fiddle, the harpsichord or the flute. So, before forming the band we wrote a manual (KLF-style), that ruled out the guidelines for our sound.
What's the story/the message behind your latest release "Typisk svensk sommar"?
This song is part of our forthcoming album “Ankomstkarta” (eng. Season Map), to be released on vinyl in October. The album motif is the four seasons, and we have made one musical piece for each one.
We like the idea of having a specific theme when we make music, and this time we made the thought experiment of how Vivaldi’s classical piece “Le Quattro Stagioni” would sound in context of climate change. Every track is named after blog posts found at the website of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.
So, if these blog posts deal with the typical Swedish summer (typisk svensk sommar) from a scientific point of view, we decided to focus on how summer feels, which today involves that worrying impression that the seasons are fucked up.
How would you describe your creative process?
The motto for the record label is “new sounds, new colors, new dimensions”, and our starting point is always about trying to find unusual soundscapes that trigger our imagination. So there’s a lot of jamming together, and fiddling with the knobs and faders on the synthesizers to find the sounds and tonal qualities that we’re looking for.
Sometimes we try to create sounds by modifying existing acoustic instruments or by doing field recordings. When we’ve come up with something that we find interesting, we send a demo to Meierkord, and he puts cello tracks on top of it.
For this specific song (and the album as a whole), we tried to match the things coming out of the speakers with our idea of summertime (and the shifting seasons) in our heads.
What are your "All time Top 3 Songs", right now, in this second?
The music we create at the moment is more uplifting and beat-orientated, so we spend time listening to new music with a punk rock attitude or songs with a nice groove, or unusual rhythmical elements. We think the following songs match these criteria:
1. Salamanda “Puddle Underwater”
2. Melt Yourself Down “Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In”
3. Sons of Kemet “To Never Forget The Source”.
What’s next for you?
This summer we’re in the process of making our next album. Our ambition is to create tunes with a lot of energy and funky vibes. We also have concerts coming up at some local joints, where the roads are narrow and poorly maintained.
