Description
mi décembre 2022
Heavy dub pop on love as a blood sport – Badlands release the album « Call to Love »Dressed in dusky unconventional electronica with organic orchestration and a touch of dub and gritty techno, Badlands a.k.a.producer, songwriter and sound designer Catharina Jaunviksna, invites us to thrilling emotions and bass lines on the new album « Call to Love », which will be released on November 18.
« ‘Call to Love‘ is a result of suppressed feelings, both my own and others, channeled into a series of love letters to people and situations left unfinished. Often because the courage or the opportunity to act on one’s feelings wasn’t there. The record is a call to/for merciless intuitive love, in an age where love is capitalized and being emotionally unavailable has become an aspirational ideal.” says Catharina Jaunviksna.The new album follows the acclaimed album « Djinn » which was released last year. Badlands’ sound changes and evolves with each release and « Call to Love » is no exception. The organic and vinyl-dusted sound is created with exclusively analog electronics and instruments, organic orchestration (eg piano, cello, double bass), vinyl samples, field recordings, electronic errors and overdubs on magnetic tape.. and is very different from Badlands previous releases in its nakedness and lack of synthpads and arpeggiated elements.
Jaunviksna writes, plays, records and mixes all material alone. This time inspired by early 90s dance music, warehouse dub and techno, trip hop and British classics such as Underworld:“I tried to imagine what Badlandsy love songs would be/sound like through crappy reverbs bouncing off broken tiles outside a warehouse rave at 6 in the morning. Funny enough, it was Radiohead’s « Burn the Witch » that inspired me to mix classic chopped-up cello into this mess. Then I invited the master and my studio neighbor Felisia Westberg (who records and tours with Ane Brun) to play the cello hooks. And that’s how the sound was born. The sound has been crucial in getting my message across; what is beautiful and vulnerable emerges in what’s broken and imperfect (i.e. the analog dirt) and in letting yourself lose control.” says Jaunviksna.“As far as songwriting goes, I had to make these songs in order to move on with my life. I am an expert at storing and using my emotions creatively, to the point where they have become my currency to me. I wanted to break that pattern and speak from my heart. But it turns out that running away from and diving into one’s heart are pretty much the same thing. Regardless, ‘Call to Love’ is a celebration of love in all its wonderful, brutal, mean, horny and embarrassing forms.”On a daily basis, Jaunviksna works from her own studio at Tambourine Studios in Malmö, with music production, composition, mixing, sound design and media production.
