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| Arts Calendar / February 26 / Clubs |
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23:00 | Molly Nilsson (Sweden) |
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Molly Nilsson is a Swedish-born, Berlin-based synth-pop artist whose songs are made out of vintage electronics and beautiful vocals. Molly Nilsson has earned a reputation for being press-shy. But her aversion to doing interviews has nothing to do with being a shrinking violet. "I'm not very shy at all, and I do have a great lot to say about things," she explains. "But I like to let the music speak for itself, and once it's found a listener, I don't want to interfere like a mom knocking on the door with cookies. "I never read interviews for the same reason. I prefer not to know about the artist behind the work." Molly Nilsson is the reigning queen of the Dark Skies Association, a label she has founded and has been running since 2007. Her albums, numerous EP-s and a string of thought provoking videos have been released under this label, with Molly as creator, manager and mastermind. Raised in Stockholm, the 27-year-old moved to Berlin for the same reason many artists and musicians flock to the German capital: it's affordable. "Berlin is a good place to experiment if you're an artist," she says. "Had I stayed in Stockholm, I would not be making music in the first place." Her music is raw, heartfelt and utopian and is filled with a political and social urgency as well as tender lyricism. "Each song tells a story, and together they form a narrative. No one life weighs more than another, yet not everyone ends up in the history books. I took this opportunity to feel what it's like to hold the pen that writes history." Nilsson's a charming, erudite composer adept at writing pithy pop songs that sometimes recall the tragic romanticism and ironic wit of the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt. She sings: "Online I never feel alone. I never feel alive. Call it what you like, in real life." Her first album, 2008's These Things Take Time, was released on CD-R with only 500 copies made, then followed the next year by another album, the nine-song Europa. Still working by herself, and relatively quickly, she self-released a record a year on Dark Skies Association (Follow the Light in 2010, History in 2012, and Travels in 2013, the latter co-released with Night School). Along the way her profile was boosted when she and John Maus recorded a version of "Hey Moon" from These Things Take Time for his 2011 album, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves. Always fond of traveling, Nilsson took a step out of her comfort zone recording-wise by heading to Argentina for two months, where she made Sólo Paraíso: The Summer Songs EP. The process of recording her next album proved to be a little more difficult, as she ended up scrapping a finished version after taking a hard look after a two-month break and realizing it wasn't quite the next step she wanted to take. In its place she made the expansive Zenith, her most melodic and user-friendly album yet. It was released by Dark Skies Association and Night School in late 2015. More info Sixteen Tons |
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