Introducing... Swedish songstress Sara Forslund

Photo by Lisa Ljunggren

On “Morning Is Leaving,” the first single from Sara Forslund’s debut album Water Became Wild, her voice is barely a whisper, yet she immediately commands your attention. Mystical and intimate, she’s minimally accompanied by a simple piano melody. Other songs on the album, just released on VOLKOREN, feature cello and trumpet in addition to piano. Water Became Wild was produced by Forslund and fellow Swedish musician David Ahlen, mixed by John Wood (Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Richard Thompson, Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens), and is available from VOLKOREN (CD – Digipack in Europe) and from Time Released Sound (CD – limited edition – U.S.).

Forslund’s melancholy imagery and spiritual introspection is perhaps inspired by her father, a priest in the small Swedish village of Borgvattnet, who offered to exorcise the ghosts from the village’s haunted vicarage. Now based in Stockholm, Forslund began in the folk band Birch and Meadow, where one can hear the seeds of her unique style being sown. They released their debut album Butterflies and Graves, but a concert by singer-songwriter Gareth Dickson (and subsequent introduction to the music of Nick Drake) inspired her to strike out on her own. She has performed in Sweden, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.