Solander "The Garden" off of Passing Mt. Satu

Solander is a Swedish inventive trio making pop music with a folky and a playful approach. Passing Mt. Satu, Solander’s new album, was recorded and mixed in the compact darkness of Swedish winter by Emil Isaksson at Studio Möllan in Malmö and released by the influential Swedish label A Tenderversion Recording.

“It is the result of a collective creative process with the songs reflecting our ever on-going travelling through a world of magical mountains, deep woods and golden fields.” says Solander.

Solander’s playful songwriting results in an album wherein the mood swings one song to another and keeps the listeners ear guessing. However, everything is tightly bound together by the characteristic voice and guitar picking of Fredrik Karlsson, the innovative playing of cellist Anja Linna and the driven rhythm section handled by Mikael Persson! To vary their sound, Solander adds touches of unconventional banjo playing, metallophones, haunting organs, distorted hand-claps, a passionately played piano and lots of other odd sounds spread throughout the album. Adding to all of this there are also lyrics of sorrow, longing and desperation. A mix of happiness and sadness that is best described by Solander themselves. ”The songs we write may often sound a bit sad, but for some reason playing sad songs makes us happy”.

Solander, originally a constellation of Gothenburg, self released several EP’s and contributions to a few Swedish movies Solander released their debut album Since We Are Pigeons in 2009. The album was received with open arms by press all over Europe and the US and an extensive tour of Europe followed throughout the next year and a half. By the end of that rigorous touring, the band solidified as a trio and entered the studio in their newly adopted home of Malmö to record the follow-up.

Passing Mt. Satu is Solander’s second album and shows a more focused and determined band whose music is now finally getting widely spread and distributed in the US.

In March 2012 Solander crosses the pond with Passing Mt. Satu freshly released in the US (it’s already almost completely sold out in Europe) to attend the SXSW with a two week long west coast tour to follow.

As the title “Passing Mt. Satu” insinuates, Solander wants their music to take you places, as if you’re traveling abroad and catching disparate glimpes of a varied countryside. The name Solander itself is also associated to the same feeling! Taken from the Swedish botanist Daniel Solander who traveled the world in the 18th century in order to discover and categorize new plants and animals, it’s a very fitting name for a band that is eagerly searching for new elements to use in their music and new places to explore.