From Gothenburg, Sweden, Magnus Wahlstrom and Andreas Christakis make up Boat Club, a duo that put out their mini-album Caught the Breeze in 2007 for it to be rediscovered and remastered courtesy of Cascine in 2013. Float downstream and into the deep blue now with the opening “All The Time” that reaches out toward the sun with the passing melancholy of, “with doves passing by, we're moving on”. The keys, production and slight effects create a kind of waterside therapy, as the pursuit and search for the warmest places continues on “Warmer Climes”. Boat Club excelled in curating the sound for the perfect holiday, where Summer feels like a year round affair. “Always Away” rides off on transportive keyboard loops that bring out the exchange between half-wakened guitar strums and sentimental synth sustains.
“Nowhere” is an intriguing piece that keeps your internal pocket watch guessing what year you're living in where all recalled memory points you toward the music of the future. Taking us from no place in particular to the locales of the familiar, “Memories”, is a song we explored in detail with Magnus a few weeks back in Boat Club's headlining Week in Pop feature. The former long nights, and longer days are met like past and present expressions sent and forgotten in the post, but finally remembered; “holding a letter I got from you, the words I forgot but now I know”. “Spanish Castles” brings back all the Balearic hype, as Andreas and Magnus book you a vacation to the coasts and islands off Spain where every day the sun rises, shines, and feels like an extended weekend in heaven.
We continued our conversation with Magnus Wahlstrom about how him and Andreas caught the Gothenburg oceanic breeze, as a snapshot of a moment in time.
Having initially released the mini album Caught the Breeze in 2007, how does the Balearic oceanic music breeze sound to both of your ears in 2013?
There was a definite oceanic breeze streaming out of Gothenburg at the time, and we did want to capture that in its essence. We wanted it to be a short and concise snapshot of the moment, so the mini-album format was perfect for us. It’s definitely a conceptual album, a reflection of a moment in time. Since we never had any statements to make, or points to get across, I hope we managed to make it somewhat timeless. Which is a ridiculous statement in itself, since it’s forever bound in time and location. Listening to it today still recalls those feelings of that perfect summer in '06, or the love for a city few could even point out on a map, or just a bunch of personal memories. For years all we heard was things we wanted to change or improve, but now I think we can finally listen to it with some distance and let it be whatever it is.
How do you describe the shifts in Sweden's indie pop sounds between 2006 to now in 2013?
The scenes emerging from Sweden has been pretty short lived. There are no grounds for really sustaining anything for any considerable amount of time. Someone once said this about the mid 00s-swedish indie scene coming to the US, “it’s like watching an exploding star, when the light reaches us, the star has been dead for a million years”. That’s pretty much what it’s all about. New things come all the time, and nothing really ever happens with it. That’s what’s exciting over here.
How was re-engineering the disc and what was the process of remastering with the technologies available 6 years on from it's original release?
We recorded and mixed Caught The Breeze at our different homes, with whatever simple equipment we had at hand. Mastering been out of our hands in both occasions, so whatever magic they worked over at Elysian in LA, I have no idea.
Any words you can expand upon for a possible follow up album or EP to drop in the future?
Boat Club was Caught The Breeze, there is nothing to add anymore to either Caught The Breeze or Boat Club. We will both keep making music in one form or another, although it will always be sporadic and disorganized. Another short-lived, conceptual project might still happen, but it also might be not for another 6 years. The boat is now a wreck at the bottom of the Balearic Sea, for the formidable Cascine dive team to explore.
Boat Club's Caught the Breeze is available now from Cascine, and digital via iTunes.
