Love Is All: Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk

When life in twee Swedish pop minstrels Girlfriendo became, in equal parts, no fun and too cold, Josephine Ollausson, Nicholaus Sparding and Markus Gorsch decided to form a new band and to inject some frivolity and central heating into the equation. Gigwise caught up with Love is All’s frontispiece Josephine, on the telephone from Gothenburg, to figure out how the split, some saxophones and Morrissey’s drummer led to the most exciting, fresh and sometimes a bit scary Scandinavian pop import of 2006.

So, perhaps central heating doesn’t appear obviously central to good rock’n’roll but you try coming on like a sleazy leatherclad punker when it’s –10C in an empty and cavernous factory in Gothenburg. It was after a particularly depressing Girlfriendo practice session that the shivering embryo of LIA decamped to the pub: “We just kind of decided to split-up the band”, says Josephine still sounding a little unsure of how it came about. “And on the journey home me, Nicholaus and Markus started throwing ideas around for a new band and more importantly a new practice space, with radiators”. Love Is All were born.

Freshly ensconced in a toasty new rehearsal space LIA slowly nailed down a tight, clean punk funk sound, but something was still missing. “I’ve always luvvvved the sax”, says Josephine on the addition of saxophonist Fredrik, an acquaintance of Markus’ from music school. “And the only band that unites our disparate influences is Roxy Music”. Come back kids, stop running away. This isn’t the saxophone of an ‘80s power ballad or some basal Zuton-style tokenism. This is brass played with the abandon of Spiritualised at their most withdrawn; nearer the phrasing and off-key discordancy of free jazz than radio2-lite muzak. Normally accompanied by some skittering toms its adds a vague melancholy which makes LIA’s music sound permanently fried in the afterglow of a debauched weekend.

The final piece in the jigsaw came when Kevin Pedersen, head of their NYC based record label What’s Your Rupture? suggested they send their recordings to Woodie Taylor, who drummed on Morrisey’s ‘Vauxhall and I’. Josephine: “We had toured with Woodie and his current band, London based, Comet Gain whilst in Girlfriendo and loved their stuff. So we sent our demos to him via the Internet. A few weeks later it would come back and it was like, what is this?! It sounded like nothing we had ever heard before - amazing”. Taylor the de facto, albeit virtual, 6th member, brings a fuzzy, casio wall-of-sound to LIA’s punky breathlessness. Under Taylor’s duress, LIA’s songs tend to collapse in on themselves in a glorious addled mess- spent but sated.

“I keep / the one / I love / in the freezer” burrs Josephine, wrapping her tongue thickly around the thrilling midnight on the dancefloor bassline which opens acid-fried punk funker ‘Aging Had Never Been His Friend’. The second track on Love Is All’s debut album, immediately torpedoes any misconception that thematically LIA are a flowery hippy "love in". LIA do deal with love, but it’s a love noir: themes of obsession, inertia and confusion play out over the fuzziness. The riotous melodic cacophony, a perfect metaphor for the blurry lines of modern love.

Josephine’s past as a writer, imbues her lyrics with a sense of narrative and drama. ‘Used Goods’, an unnerving tale of the stalking of an object of desire, has lyrics which are initially lost in reverb. Upon some attention they yield brilliant, throwaway detail “We like the same kind of cheese”. “I guess I try to avoid cliché in my lyrics, but it puts a lot of pressure on my writing when people put such focus and read so much into my lyrics”. So, Josephine, have you ever stalked anyone? “No…” long pause “well maybe, but I was young and he was much older, so it wasn’t that spooky”. Hmmm. Her voice adds light and shade to her dark tales, managing to sound coy, naïve and psychotic in the same song.

LIA’s combination of melody, punk attitude and morally ambiguous storytelling has slayed SXSW, collected critical plaudits aplenty in the States and now freshly signed to Parlaphone they’re ready to mount an attack on our shores. ‘Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up’ is out in early October backed by an Andreas Nilsson video (who’s made videos for Jose Gonzalez and The Knife) and a 12-date tour. Submission is a formality.

LIA said they named their album ‘Nine Times the Same Song’ to make it easier for critics to slate them. It’s a nice offer but one that will go begging.