A new album by Simon Steensland

Simon Steensland has never been a cosy laid back in the sofa kind of musician. Listening to his music you need to be committed and ready to pay the price of admission. Then you are given the opportunity to be deeply moved … or not. Over the years he has created a niche of his own, not classical, not rock, not Varese, not Zappa. Yet all of it at once … or not. In which genre is Steensland doing his magic today? In no genre? Or his own? You never can tell, especially not this time.

The title of his new album is Explosion of Bad Music. Is that his niche, bad music? When we sit and talk, he mentions his lack of knowledge in harmonic theory, and I say, that´s not true. Maybe you lack the classical code, but still, you have a code of your own. And silently I wonder what would happen if he went to a four-year class in composition in the Royal College of music in Stockholm. I fear the unique Steensland-sound would disappear … or not. At least, then he would be a part of the classic network and be played in concert halls and in the radio and be entitled to the musical academy awards and maybe receive a medal from the hands of the king.

Simon says this album hasn´t been as fun in the making as his previous ones. It has been more hard, stubborn labour. My last album, Let´s go to hell, contained parts that were the best i´ve ever made, and I asked myself: How can I top that? But then I remembered Stravinsky saying “Appetite comes by eating and inspiration when you start working. You cannot wait for some godsent spark of creativity.” You’ve got to put in the hours of work, lots and lots of hours. And I did, but somehow, I couldn’t find the joy in the work.

I suggest that this might have something to do with the world we´re living in today, I should say this is your darkest album yet. But he just shrugs. I know, he says, that the world is screwed up, but I’ve always thought that the only thing that affects my music is my own imagination. Yes, I agree, but what affects your imagination, if not the world outside your studio? He is quiet for a while then he says, more to himself: Maybe later, I´ll find the joy.

But later that day, I pick up the CD again: Explosion of Bad Music, a bomb ready to explode. There´s only one way to defuse it, and that´s to play it. It starts with a short drum intro and then a strong hard noise. I feel that it is a picture of the world in which his music demands to get its place. And it does, but the world fights back and this struggle is one of the major themes in this work. Another theme, (maybe only in my ears) is the burning question: is there any solace to be found?

Your imagination can let you hear lots of things in this music. I heard dinosaurs 65 million years ago howling out their sorrow over a lost world, or the Salvation army’s enormous, united choir in Grand Canyon, many thousands of voices seeking salvation where there is none. For a short while I heard a couple of old men sitting on a porch somewhere playing quiet music, but then the camera zooms out and you find that their little porch is surrounded by the noise, the thunder, the world.

Of course, this is a Simon Steensland album, and you can identify his language and his musical grammar, but less than usual, I should say. It feels like he is covering new interesting grounds and is going in a new direction, both inward and outward. As I mentioned, this is his darkest album. He doesn´t agree on that, but it really is. I think this is a part of his problem. If you describe the world you´ve got to seriously consider one question; is it worth saving, or should we let the politicians, the military and big business destroy it?

The music consists of two parts: Not Dragon, and Dragon. I won’t try to guess what that means. Maybe the howling dinosaurs I heard wasn´t so farfetched. Simon’s music can sometimes be funny, but the only time I laughed this time was a what-the-hell-laugh when the thunder got too overwhelming. When I ask him why he mixed down the drums so low, he just answers: This is not a drum album. As usual the drums are being played by his old friend, the world-famous Morgan Ågren.

At the end of our talk, he says: If I´m to make a new album I must change completely. I´m getting tired of sitting 15 hours a day alone with no one to bounce ideas with. Maybe there is an answer there to why he feels the album doesn’t “let him in”. Maybe this is the last of his old albums, something for him to leave behind, something for future historians to study closely, the last one before the Steensland famous “happy”-period … or not. The album contains almost an hour of amazing music, and it ends with a wordless choir that could be a consolation for worried souls, or maybe a lament over a world lost, for people and dinosaurs.

Staffan Castegren