Totally Stockholm 1
Death and Life In Pop A collaboration that had it
s first stirrings in 2013 eventually bloomed in 2018. Gothenburg’s Maja Gödicke, who makes music under her own name along with other projects, and Stockholm’s Kåre Vernby, of Farväl Till Ungdomen, had released a couple of singles over the past few years together, after initially making contact in 2013, but this year they became a fully-realised band. As Kassia Klein, they released the album Death To All Things Pop, an record of graceful, classical indie-pop. We had a chat with Gödicke about the band’s origins, collaboration and DTATP. Words: Austin Maloney Photos: Olle Kirchmeier To go right back to the start of Kassia Klein, how did you two start collaborating in the first place? You both obviously have your various own projects outside of KK, when and how did you start working on music together? Kåre sent a song over in 2013. He had heard my first single Ligga Still and had an idea for a duet. It was called Death To All Things Pop and had a lot of distortion on it, it was lovely but I felt ‘not for me’. I tried for a while, but we ended up not recording it at the time. Then Kåre sent another one over in 2016, En Vinternatt. And I realised right away, there was something very special about it. You initially released the tracks En Vinternatt and Såg Du Röken? before your collaboration even had an official name. Were those intended as one-off collabs, or did you guys always have the idea to become a proper band and work towards an album? 14 The first singles were most definitely intended to be stand-alone pieces, and we had no idea of forming a band or making an album back then. But we liked working together and exchanging ideas, so some time after the second single, we decided to start up a proper collaboration and do an album. The next question focuses on two names, both of which are interesting. Where did the name Kassia Klein come from for the project, and why call the album Death To All Things Pop? We wanted a female name as a pseudonym, and then we started searching for one and ended up with Kassia Klein, a mash up of two names. Kassia was a poet and composer in former Constantinople, back in the 800s. Klein we took from Yves. Since our first contact was via the song DTATP, we felt it would be the right name for the album. A bit confusing of course, since the record is in Swedish. But who does not like a bit of confusion? You wrote the record with both of you in different cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg. Did that make it challenging to write across a long distance, and how did your usual writing process work? Usually, we just sent ideas and musical fragments back and forth until we started to see a full composition, after which we started recording the song for real. It was not challenging to write across a long distance. On the contrary, we think it made the creative process easier in some ways. We both have lots of stuff going on in our lives, and it would have been difficult if we had to make room to sit and write at exactly the same time. Also, we have tried to make a simple and beautiful album, which is really open and emotional. And those kind of themes can be kind of hard to explore when facing another person. The song Death To All Things Pop feels like a centrepiece of the record, the album’s most cathartic song, and it’s also one of