Året Var – Är Du Nöjd Nu?
Today, Året Var – the progressive, political indie band composed of celebrated Swedish musicians Tove Styrke and Sanna Sikborn Erixon – have released their debut EP, Är Du Nöjd Nu? (EN: Are You Happy Now?).
Året Var came about through the band’s shared love of Swedish prog, indie pop, rock and poetry. The influences here range from National Teatern to Broder Daniel, Kjell Höglund and Adrienne Lenker. The EP features beloved local actress Ulla Skoog and TV-host / writer Lotta Lundgren.
Speaking on the formation of the project, Styrke says “From my perspective, the world is falling apart and at the end of the day I got nothing but my brain, my heart and my creativity so I might as well use all those things to the best of my abilities. The band is a result of that. We make music from our own point of view about what we see in society today, especially in Sweden. There’s a lot to cry and to laugh about, and we try to do both with this music.”
The four-track extended play is an introduction to the music and the band ahead of their debut album Året Var 2026, which will be released just before the Swedish parliamentary elections in September. It is a political full-length album where the band looks at both society and themselves in a time where everything seems to be on the line.
In Året Var, the music is written by Tove Styrke and Sanna Sikborn Erixon and fronted by both. Tove also plays bass in the band, and Sanna has toured around the world for many years as a guitarist for Tove and a number of other artists. A triggering factor for the band’s creation was also the feeling of a general attitude that politics has no place in music. That artists, in order to reach a wide audience, are sometimes expected to tone down clear opinions.
Året Var’s purpose is to do something unifying in a time that is often divisive, something healing when all dreams have been shattered, something that awakens a spark and a desire for change and something to reflect on and laugh at when needed.
“This music is born from an acute longing for warmth, community, solidarity and commitment in a society that we experience has become very individualistic and cold,” the band says. We want to look away from ourselves and feel that we are actually part of a context, a society we all share, and which, although it may not always be noticeable, still exists.”
Speaking on the band’s origins, they say “We have talked so much about society and politics in recent years. We have laughed and cried about the state of the world, the lack of vision and our own inability to get involved despite high ideals. We never thought we would write music together but suddenly we found ourselves in a situation where lyrics and music almost wrote themselves. Året Var was born and we can’t call it anything other than a prog band. We feel that there is a general nervousness among people today about expressing themselves politically because they are afraid of ‘making a mistake’. It is okay to make a mistake! Otherwise, that fear risks becoming a gag for an entire generation, and no one wants that in a democratic society. The task of art is to reflect the times we live in. It is the politicians who are in power who should be put to the test.”
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