Melody A.M. | The Nordic Music Podcast

Nina Persson joins Melody A.M. for a conversation about her superb new work with the duo KITE as well as a look-back on her musical career, which spans three successful decades. Famous for being the super-charismatic lead of popular Swedish band, The Cardigans, Persson started her career with the group in Jönköping in the early 1990s. With massive international hits like “Carnival”, “Lovefool, “My Favourite Game” and “Erase / Rewind”, the band have managed to garner and maintain a significant global fanbase, whose loyalty has not waned despite the fact that the last Cardigans studio album came out in 2005.Over the years, Nina has consistently tested the tether of her creativity, complementing her Cardigans projects with solo releases, not to mention a second band she started in 2001, A Camp. Two years ago she joined James Yorkston and the Stockholm-based Second Hand Orchestra on a beautiful record called The Great White Sea Eagle, which marked something of a departure from her other releases, not merely on account of being an album recorded entirely as a live session.After years spent living in the United States, Nina’s return to her homeland has deepened her connection with Sweden and, in our interview, she tells Melody A.M. about her favourite corner of the country. She also engages patiently and thoughtfully with a question she must get asked all the time: why can’t we have another Cardigans studio record? Check out our Nina Persson playlist with a collection of highlights from her rich discography - you’ll find it at melodyam.com/nina

Finnish artist DWARA (Anni Kaismala) joins Melody A.M. for an in-depth conversation about all things music.  Hailing from Karttula - a part of Finland’s Kuopio region - Anni has lived in different corners of the world including India, Italy and the UK, and it was her collaboration with Spanish musician and producer, Khotton, which eventually brought about her move to Madrid, where she is currently based. Anni has been steadily building her musical body of work since 2020, when her first single, Power, came out just before the world went into lockdown. Anni’s rich and diverse range of releases means that it would be lazy to slot the DWARA and Khotton musical universe into just one or even two genres. Theirs is a much more involved and sprawling catalogue, covering pop, rock, folk and electronica. There’s a real strength in that, because it’s hard to get bored listening to DWARA with her discography offering surprises at every turn. Take, for example, the song There’s nothing I can’t do: it starts off as one thing and mutates through the bridge and then the chorus into something completely other.  In our interview, Anni tells Melody A.M. about the forthcoming EP, 'Plenty', as well as what her and Khotton’s creative process looks like. We also talk about being able to tell your friends “I love you” and living for the sake of the now. Check out our DWARA playlist with some of the best moments from Anni’s discography to date. You'll find it at www.melodyam.com/dwara

Päivi Hirvonen is a musician, composer and singer, who's a linchpin figure in the Finnish folk music scene. Blending tradition with innovation, she is best known for being a true virtuoso when it comes to the fiddle and the jouhikko - a traditional Finnish bowed lyre. It’s an instrument which musicians almost entirely assigned to history by the early 20th century but - good news! - it has, in recent years, started enjoying something of a revival.   Päivi was born in Jyväskylä, a city in the centre of Finland, that has been described as “The Athens of Finland”. These days, she lives in Tampere.  In our interview, Päivi talks about creating her last album, Kallio, during the pandemic and she also reflects on how the way she worked then has moved on to bear out on her next record, which will be out in the spring.  As a member of the band Okra Playground - one of Finland’s leading contemporary folk ensembles -  Päivi also gets to regularly collaborate with other musicians. Our conversation touches on how she determines whether a new emerging song would be going to Okra Playground or remain as a solo track and what it’s like working with her bandmates over the last 14 years or so.  Check out our dedicated Päivi Hirvonen playlist at www.melodyam.com/paivi with some of the gems from the Finnish musician's back catalogue, including some of her work with the band. 

Ann-Sofie Lundin, aka Min Stora Sorg, joins Melody A.M. for a conversation about divas, controversy, the challenges faced by independent creatives and making hypnotic, playful disco whilst also doing the laundry. A decade after the release of her debut album as Min Stora Sorg, Ann-Sofie reflects on the ups and downs of her career and the enduring collaborations (with close friend, stylist and costume designer, Daniel Åkerström-Steen, and her partner, the visual artist John Artur) that have sustained it throughout the past ten years.  Hailing from Gävle, a couple of hours north of Stockholm, Ann-Sofie grew up in a working class family and started playing music as a teenager. Friends thought she might end up as a politician, but her talent as an accomplished pianist meant it was inevitable that she’d become a professional musician.  Ann-Sofie’s admiration for Swedish icon, Camilla Henemark from Army of Lovers, her fascination with divas and popstars and a natural draw to Spanish culture have injected a heightened, camp and humorous sensibility to her visual aesthetic. Her most recent releases, created with former Melody A.M. guests, Pure Shores, and Swedish producer, Johannes Wikström (Yourhighness), bring euphoria, sexiness and hedonism to music designed to soundtrack a night out in the clubs.  You can also imagine these tracks (‘Klackskor’, ‘40+’ and ‘El Cielo’) being played - loud! - at Ann-Sofie’s own club night, Klubb La Reina, which she has been running with Daniel and John in Stockholm for the past several years. We’ve included these songs, alongside other highlights from the Min Stora Sorg back-catalogue in the playlist accompanying this episode at www.melodyam.com/mss

The pod’s guest for this episode is Swedish singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, director, water-colour painter, mother - both in the parental sense and the meme sense - ionnalee (Jonna Lee).  With a career spanning over two decades and 9 studio albums, Jonna previously joined Chris and Doron for an interview in season 1 of Melody A.M. to discuss iamamiwhoami’s 2022 record, Be Here Soon. In the autumn, Jonna put out two new albums, Close Your Eyes, and its Swedish language counterpart, Blund. She has referred to the creative process of bringing this new music to life as making something “in colour, shimmer, playfulness” - a contrast to having been brushed by darkness.  In doing that, she reconnected with her iamamiwhoami album from 2014, BLUE, which took the independence she had carved out for herself as an artist with the first two iamamiwhoami records - bounty and kin - to a whole new level. Close Your Eyes and Blund, therefore, were created and presented as siblings to that seminal album, which came a decade before them.  At the time of the release of BLUE, Doron travelled to Sweden to undertake what is believed to be one of the very first filmed interviews given by Jonna about the iamamiwhoami project (filmed for online music and culture publication, The 405, on Djurgården in Stockholm).  Ten years on, Melody A.M. explored the possibility of revisiting that filmed interview together with Jonna and having another sit-down, outdoors in Stockholm, for a chat. Jonna said yes and we met for what is now Melody A.M.’s first audiovisual episode.  Our meeting was an opportunity to reflect on Jonna’s growth and development as an artist over the years as well as the connection between BLUE and the new music that shares a strong family connection with it. We also spoke about Jonna’s recent residency at Stockholm’s Fotografiska Museum and the exciting new addition to her own record label (To whom it may concern) - the Swedish artist, Jenny Wilson.  This episode is presented with a big thank-you to John Strandh, who undertook the filming of the interview, and To whom it may concern.  On the ionnalee page of our website you can also find a playlist with our favourite ionnalee and iamamiwhoami tracks from the artist's rich discography.

This episode’s guest is Oslo-based creator, Live Sollid Schullerud, who produces progressive electro-pop under the act name, Mörmaid. Whilst Live is now associated with futuristic electronica, her musical roots lie in a very different genre: jazz. Before evolving into Mörmaid, she spent years as a jazz musician, an experience that Melody A.M. reckons continues to influence her work in subtle but significant ways, particularly in her attention to rhythm and melodic complexity. Live’s first Mörmaid release came in the summer of 2020 with her debut single, ‘Turn Away’, but - as you’ll hear from our interview - the groundwork for her sound had been laid much earlier. She began conceptualising the Mörmaid project by experimenting with production and songwriting well before that. Signed to Beat Palace Records, the UK-based label, Live released her debut album, Pearlescent Dark, earlier this year. Recent single, ‘Wet Summer’, has received a lot of attention, first of all because it’s great and because of the eye-popping music video that accompanied it, created using the Generative AI tool, Midjourney.  The use of AI in art has long sparked debate and Live herself has expressed ambivalence about the part it plays in her artistry. In our interview, we talk about the reactions to the music video as well as the impact of AI. Very shortly after we spoke, Live put out her latest music video, ‘Bury All’, in which artificial intelligence didn’t play a part and which makes for a fascinating watch in its own right – we would highly recommend giving it a couple of minutes of your time. You can also check out the Best of Mörmaid playlist, which accompanies this episode, on our website at www.melodyam.com/mormaid

Dino Medanhodzic is one of Sweden’s leading songwriters and producers: he’s a record maker and he’s a record breaker. Growing up in Arboga, a small town situated an hour and a half’s train journey westward from Stockholm, Dino started out as a guitarist in Death Metal bands at the age of 17. Not necessarily where you’d guess that the guy who has made pop history as the songwriter with the most Melodifestivalen entries-that-have-gone-directly-to-the-final-in-a-row would have begun his career. Apart from his successful writing and production collaborations with former Melody A.M. guest, Dotter, Dino is also involved with Manchester-based writing & production collective  - the global powerhouse known as The Six. He’s worked with South Korean superstar TAEMIN, James Blunt, Callum Scott and Swedish hit makers Smash Into Pieces and LIAMOO. And that’s just a small selection of the vast number of people he has spent quality time in the studio with. This year he was in charge of both Jacqline and Dotter's entires to Melodifestivalen, both of which have been massive radio hits in Sweden. And, in fact, as Dino shares with us during our interview, Jacqline’s much loved track, 'Effortless' came about when Dino and the writers of Loreen’s 'Tattoo' went into the studio to try and write a follow-up single for Loreen. Oh to have been a fly on the wall in that writing session! Check out our Dino Medanhodzic playlist on the Melody A.M. website - it includes (just!) 30 out of too-many-to-mention bangers that he has had a hand in writing and/or producing over the years. www.melodyam.com/dino

Clever-pop is Norwegian singer-songwriter Sandra Kolstad’s craft. And that is not to say that her music isn't easily accessible or that there's any pretentiousness to it. Far from it! It’s just that her songs have a distinct… otherness, possibly as a result of the experiences Kolstad draws on from her other artistic occupations (including being a novelist, actor and composter). Kolstad started off as a pianist, training with Norwegian composer, Wolfgang Plagge, but the wild Berlin scene where she spent a chunk of her 20s re-directed her attention from classical music towards dance and club culture. From her very first album, Crux, back in 2011, it was clear that Kolstad had something interesting to say as well as an interesting way of saying it. Her take on electronic pop has resulted in an eclectic interpretation of ideas, marrying intricate melodies and clever lyrics with unpredictable arrangements. Kolstad’s attitude to pop has always offered a genuinely fresh feel. On Soft Hard, her latest album, which came out in the first half of 2024, Kolstad returns to her roots, embracing the piano and inviting it to socialise with the more machine-made sounds that characterise her discography. Teasing the album’s release last year, Kolstad put out ‘Unlearning’, a song she’s described as being about shedding the learned perspectives that shape how we see the world, ourselves and others. A song that goes in several different, unexpected directions, ‘Unlearning’ proved to be the perfect foreshadowing for an album that is always surprising and which allows you to discover new things with every listen. One of the people who helped Kolstad create this unique piece of work is Danish artist, Asbjørn, who co-produced the record. Asbjørn, ⁠the very first guest on Melody A.M.⁠ back in 2022, joins Doron as a guest-host on this interview with Kolstad. Together, the two musicians discuss their collaboration, share stories of their friendship and offer insights about their respective creative processes. On the ⁠Melody A.M. website⁠ you’ll find a playlist with some of the best moments from Sandra Kolstad’s career to date and on the Asbjørn page of the website you can also check out a playlist dedicated to the Danish pop master.

Klemens Hannigan is one of the founders of and driving forces behind the beloved Icelandic band, Hatari. Earlier this year, he brought out his debut solo album, Low Light, where he has embraced quite a different sound and aesthetic to his band’s signature style.   In his solo work there’s vulnerability, finesse and elegance that he and his Hatari compatriots have often actively shied away from with their focus on industrial, techno punk-rock.   Based in Reykjavik, Hannigan is also a fine artist and a carpenter, whose work has been exhibited in galleries and featured in his music videos.   On Low Light, Hannigan joined forces with Leifur Björns and legendary producer, Howie B, giving further expression to his artistic philosophy, first aired through a public manifesto in which he prompted readers to reflect on the essence of art and the role of the artist.   The manifesto challenged conventional norms, advocating for a blend of naivety and perfection, and emphasising the importance of risk-taking and self-discovery in art.   In our interview, Hannigan discusses his manifesto and its impact on his work, we consider the difference between his solo project and the music he makes with Hatari and Melody A.M. finds out how he manages to make the time for all his creative endeavours whilst also raising three young daughters with his wife, Ronja. Check out our Best of Klemens Hannigan playlist on the Melody A.M. website for highlights from Hannigan's discography. Visit: www.melodyam.com/klemens

Hailing from Värmland, a county to the west of Sweden,  singer-songwriter, Johanna Jansson - better known as Dotter - celebrates a whole decade in the music industry this year. And she does so with close to 110,000,000 streams under her belt (on Spotify alone!). A hit factory? Yep, you could say that. Starting her professional music journey with more of an Indie and, at times, folk-acoustic flavour, Dotter’s sound has changed and added layers over the years. So much so that, by the time she entered Sweden’s Melodifestivalen contest for the second time (in 2020), the enormously pop-fuelled explosion of ‘Bulletproof’ not only showcased her as an electro-queen but also very nearly sent her to Eurovision as Sweden’s representative… but for two small problems:  ‘Bulletproof’ lost out by 1 tiny point to The Mamas and, in any event, the pandemic brought about the cancellation of that year’s song contest. Mind you, the song still went to number one on Svensktoppen, the weekly Swedish chart on Sveriges Radio.  Returning to Mello the following year with the not-less amazing, ‘Little Tot’, really helped secure Dotter as one of Sweden’s leading pop powerhouses.   Johanna’s career as Dotter could be described as interlinked with the career of her fiancée, the writer and producer, Dino Medanhodzic. She has worked with Dino closely for the past ten years and it’s a collaboration that has really brought out the best in both artists and continues to give us massive hits.  In this interview with Johanna, we discuss her work with Dino, including this year’s return to Melodifestivalen with the beautiful ‘It’s Not Easy to Write A Love Song’ as well as newest single, ‘We’re In This Together’. We also reflect on the hard work Johanna had to put in at the start of her career, in an endeavour to get signed as an artist and how she was able to bounce back brilliantly when, years later, as she was awaiting the birth of her and Dino’s first child, her record label dropped her. Our conversation explores whether Johanna would consider releasing a full album in future and, she also answers the inevitable question: would she compete in Melodifestivalen for the 5th time?