Grammy award-winning Swedish trio Deportees release debut UK album
Award-winning Swedish band Deportees today released their new album, All Future, their first full UK album release, and unveiled a video for the beautiful album track Lost Future / All Future – watch here.
The trio from Umeå, a remote city in the far north of Sweden, are possibly this most musical of countries best kept secret. Over five distinctly different albums, Deportees have won plaudits, fans and awards for their constant creativity and reinvention. Their last album, 2015’s The Big Sleep was awarded the Swedish Grammy for Best Rock Album, an award the band had also picked up for their previous long-player Islands & Shores.
And now, not before time, with All Future the UK finally gets its chance to fall in love with Deportees blissfully melancholic sound. Produced by Pontus Winnberg (Miike Snow, Amason), Johannes Berglund (Fever Ray, Ane Brun, The Radio Dept) and Måns Lundberg (Shout Out Louds), All Future picks up from where the EP Re-dreaming from earlier this year left us: in distress over our inability to dream. Amongst lost futures we wander with broken imaginations and look – if anywhere at all – backwards. The band reveal:
Not even now, when we are certain that the light in the end of tunnel is a train and not paradise, are we capable of imagining other worlds. It truly seems as if we are stuck in time. And it is from this depressing insight that ‘All Future’ originates. But also, that from a situation where nothing can happen, maybe anything is possible again.
Where The Big Sleep was sad, apocalyptic and gloomy, All Future is – if not hopeful – at least forward-looking. And the music follows suit. It’s wishful, eager and emotionally engaging. The statements are grand, but the settings are always ordinary, personal and relatable. On the single Covered In Dreams we encounter someone that has managed to create a crack in the glass ceiling above us. Lead singer Peder Stenberg explains:
There is a type of person that gets rarer by the day. A useless yet completely vital being that somehow has managed to maintain his or her capability to see beyond the given. This song is about the promise to keep this very someone forever covered in dreams.
Deportees recently unveiled a cinematic video for Covered In Dreams, shot in the stunning countryside surrounding Stockholm. Watch here.
Despite its remote location and unwelcoming weather, Umeå has proven to be a perfect pasture for creativity. In the 1990’s, its musical trademark was the vegan hardcore punk scene starring bands like Refused. Brothers Peder and Anders Stenberg alongside Thomas Hedlund, young kids back then, were transformed by this vibrant subculture. They discovered the power of music in mosh pits and soon began playing in various hardcore-bands themselves. When the time came to rebel against the rebellion, they named themselves Deportees and drew influences from diverse artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Prince and The Band. And suddenly, everything came together.
They managed to cop the ears of French pop royalty Phoenix, who drafted drummer Thomas Hedlund to share his time between the two bands, while guitarist Anders Stenberg was recruited to partner up with Lykke Li as touring band member – two fruitful collaborations which have now lasted over 10 years.
Stand by for news of upcoming UK shows.
DEPORTEES ARE:
Peder Stenberg, lead vocal
Anders Stenberg, guitar
Thomas Hedlund, drums
ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY:
The Big Sleep (2015)
Islands & Shores (2011)
Under The Pavement - The Beach (2009)
Damaged Good (2006)
All Prayed Up (2004)
AWARDS:
2 Swedish Grammy Awards ‘Best Rock” for the albums The Big Sleep and Islands & Shores
2 Swedish National Radio P3 Guld Awards for ”Best Pop” for album Under The Pavement, The Beach och ”Best Group” for Islands & Shores
Deportees have had a total of 8 Swedish Grammy nominations + several National Radio P3 Guld nominations.