It’s been a while since I wrote about Swedish band Phogg, but I still listen to their 2019 album 'Mofeto Mashine Adamkosh' fairly regularly, and it remains a real favourite – particularly for the inspired track ‘With Love’.
They’re now on the verge of releasing a new album, and ahead of it they’ve set out their cheery synopsis of where indie rock music sits against the world situation, with their new track ‘Sharkness’. Now if you thought that today’s other featured artist Tuvabands’ pint of Guinness was only half full (not sure she’s a stout drinker, but stay with me here), Phogg are all sitting with empty pints next to a line of empty barrels in a dry bar in Brunei.
I’ll let them explain:
“What does it mean to be a rock band these days? How does it matter? We are all closing in to the dirty thirties. We have ended relationships and people have ended it with us. We have lost treasured memories and have had our computers and hard drives stolen. We have lost rehearsing spaces and studios, gigs and opportunities. The glory days of Rock have faded away in this pandemic apocalypse’s fart of the times. There is no fun making songs about an allegorical downfall when you are in the middle of it.”
Cheer up lads, we've got Eurovision to look forward to and everything.
Anyway Phogg are a darn clever band, they do psych rock with style, innovative, leftfield music that’s always fairly unpredictable, with driving groovy rhythms and warped melodies. This time they join together with songwriter Indrielle (we’d love to feature her when she releases new music) who adds an extra dimension to the track.
Aside from the general misery about the world situation, they’ve also explained more about the track. “Sharkness, the title track of our new album, came to be while recording the album. ‘Sharkness’ means to hold a kind of self-destructive self-preservation drive. To navigate through difficulties and hardships. To push down instincts of worries and prance forward in life. This is to hold Sharkness."
Look forward to that album, it’s released in April and it’ll definitely be something to raise a glass too. Even if it’s an empty one.