Description
Here Be Wolves is a duo consisting of Karla-Therese Kjellvander and Mikael Peterson who both sing and play guitar and piano on the album. It also includes appearances from Christian Kjellvander and Ruben Engzell.
When Karla-Therese in 2018 was introduced to folk musician and poet Mikael Petersson, it was obvious that they had to work together. Mikael had a shitload of rough song sketches and a lot of great ideas for lyrics, but since they both live quite far away from each other Mikael sent her some fifty songs, and she picked out a handful that she wanted to work with.
The lyrics are Mikael Petersson’s, and while he is deeply religious, Karla-Therese is not. Not at all, actually, which could have led to some conflicts, but it didn’t. And in the tradition of folk music there is often lyrics with christian themes, so Karla- Therese wasn’t unfamiliar with that.
Ready to begin the process of recording an album a huge problem emerged: due to a severe esophagus infection Karla-Therese completely lost her voice. She couldn’t speak at all for over six months: communicating with her family with made-up sign language and written notes. The doctors couldn’t really tell if she would be able to fully recover, and there was of course a huge risc of her never being able to sing again, at least not on a professional level.
Thanks to medication and dietary restrictions Karla-Therese made slow progress, but during the first 8 months of working with the album she only heard her vocals in her head. Her voice was so fragile that she had to save it for singing, which meant she couldn’t speak in between. But all of this actually forced Karla-Therese to try out new ways of singing – softer and less dynamic, and she liked it a lot. It suited the music well, so Karla-Therese and Mikael decided to do the recording even though her voice hadn’t quite healed yet.
The album was recorded in Karla-Therese and Christian Kjellvander’s former home – an old church in the Swedish countryside where they’ve built a studio and done a lot of recordings during the years. The ambition was to keep the songs as clean and de-cluttered as possible, keeping focus on the vocals. The goal was to create beauty and warmth with a little touch of something mystic.
The album is limited to 204 copies of 180gr black vinyl.
Tracklist:
A1. Hollow
A2. Egersis
A3. The KC Moans
A4. Lady Of The Water
A5. Apokalypsis
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B1. Stone (By The Great Trees)
B2. Funeral For Foxes
B3. Bird Of Prey
B4. Augustine
