Kumlinge Aฬland Islands
Photography
by Joyce Kim
1 View from a ferry window
2 Small harbor on Kumlinge
3 Guest suite at Hotel Svala
In
Conversation
Hotel Svala
from the field
Maybe you can start back in 2017 to contextualize the project. As you remember, this was not exactly a trip to make an album, but instead to help a friend and her mother barn raise a small hotel.
Marta
Right, of course. I can never just simply go on a trip or vacation without turning it into a project! (laughs)
So, Sage (Reed) had mentioned that she and her mother, Jannika (Reed), decided to rehab a small, 20-room hotel on Kumlinge, in the Aฬland Islandsโ a place familiar to them as her mother had grown up nearby. For me, it seemed like an easy excuse for us to travel to Scandinavia, work on something, and explore a new placeโ one where the summer sun never sets. I also quite liked the idea of (long-term) developing an artist residency, workshop program, or network that bridged a relationship between Los Angeles/U.S. and the islands.
Jeremiah
I remember us looking up โKumlingeโ on the map and zooming so far in to this tiny island on the Baltic Sea, in between Finland and Sweden. I think we were both surprised to discover the scale of the archipelagoโ 6,500+ islandsโthat neither of us had heard of before.
Marta
Yes, exactly. And in talking through the travel logistics with Sage, the journey to the islands would require a flight, to a ferry, to a car, to a ferry, and soon.
Thinking back to that initial invitation I sent out to our friends here in L.A.โ let's travel together for two weeks to an unknown destination to help someone you may not know create something specialโ I'm kind of surprised we pulled it off, twice! It was a huge ask for anyone, but for me, this is what it's all about. Thanks for trusting me, or at least humoring the trip.
Jeremiah
Marta & Jeremiah
in the Suite
Recordings from the Aฬland Islands
It didn't sound as bad as you're leading onโ you were really selling it! (laughs) My only hesitation was that weโ the groupโ hadn't traveled together before, some of us didn't know each other.
Marta
Right, I forget that now. I was sharing a studio with Sean (Pecknold) and Adi (Goodrich) at the time, but didn't really know Andy (Bruntel), Sage (Price), or Anabella (Casanova). I guess it was really Sean and Adi's shared enthusiasm that amped this all up.
The weeks spent there were amazing. While we were collectively consumed by the sheer amount of work it would take to start rehabbing and designing a space, we all saw the potential of what it could be. I think we all liked the idea of playing some role in making this placeโ The Hotel Svalaโ a special experience for artists and guests to visit in the future.
And to think that the same basic premise happened again in 2019 with Joyce (Kim), Jeff (Desom), and Monica (Rezman). I guess the second trip had many less unknowns.
Jeremiah
Drifting slowly on a ferry past all of those small islandsโ some with just a single house on themโ is such a distinct memory. The islands are incredibly peacefulโ it feels very distant from everythingโ existing on its own time. I had never experienced the midnight sun before, with that lingering glow on our late-night bike rides, the sun hovering along the horizon for hours. It gave us space to wander, to listen and reflect. I think you can hear this sense of time in the recordings.
Marta
Yes. The spirit of the place was such an inspiration to the way we were approaching how to edit and mix this record. Time, specifically, is one of the more interesting aspects of the album as the recordings are assembled from a variety of placesโ voice memos, field recordings, improvisations, formal performancesโ manipulated, chopped, sequenced, and collaged together to form the compositions.
In a lot of ways, this record is unlike something that we would produce if we had set out with a distinct vision to capture. There's a documentary aspect to it, though it's not about nostalgia or memory, so much as it is about transporting or providing you with an experience in your present time and space.
We brought our instruments, knowing that we would have the opportunity to explore, but that was it. It was only after listening back to everything in separate piecesโ and having time away from the materialโ that allowed the music to find its own form.
Jeremiah
Windmill on
Kumlinge
Our trip back in 2019 gave us some good momentum as the grant from the Department for Aฬland Education and Cult Kumlinge Ungdomsforening gave us an opportunity to stage a concert and collect more recordings. This trip was definitely more focused on recording, writing, and producing an album. It also gave us an opportunity to revisit some of the more special moments in the recordingsโ like the pipe organ at S:ta Anna Kyrka, or playing viola in the empty swimming pool at the hotel.
When we were working on the final mixes, it made sense to work solely from the captured, improvised recordingsโ rather than overdub new partsโ because you can hear the air in the recordings, the people in the room. It also led to me experiment with the viola recordings through a granular sampler to create new moments from the same source. There's a nice tension between hearing what is improvised and what is manipulated. In a lot of moments in the final mix, it's hard to distinguish what's played and what's edited.
Marta
Jeremiah
I love that aspect in a lot of my favorite recordsโ not exactly knowing how something was created, less 1:1. And while these recordings are often at a very slow pace, there's quite a lot of activity and focus, it's not something I would consider ambient, but that I hope lives as just contemporary musicโ improvised, experimental, collaged, music.
Kumlinge S:ta Anna Kyrka
1 Wall at S:ta Anna Kyrka
2 Jeremiah at the organ at S:ta Anna Kyrka
3 Ceiling at S:ta Anna Kyrka
4 Cemetery behind S:ta Anna Kyrka
1, 3 Summer 2019 performance at S:ta Anna Kyrka
2, 4. Jeremiah & Marta rehearsing at Hotel Svala
The
Aฬland Islands
1 Laundry hanging from a line
2 Hotel Svala kitchen
3 Driving from island to island
4 Looking out from a watchtower
