Gaining fame on the social media/music platform Myspace, Carolina Wallin Pérez locked down a record deal with Family Tree Music in late 2008. In 2009, she released the album Pärlor och svin, which consisted exclusively of covers of the Swedish pop group Kent. Naturally, you’d think an album devoted to cover songs in Swedish, where the original versions are also in Swedish, would not be particularly successful. Well, think again. Wallin Pérez’ experimental jazz-pop proved to be extremely popular with the Swedish crowd. Now, four years later and another record with her own songs, her top ten most played songs in Spotify are exclusively covers of Kent songs, with the song at number one almost reaching eight million plays.
On her second album, Där vi en gång var (2012), Wallin Pérez worked with Andreas Mattsson, singer and frontman of the legendary ´90s pop group Popsicle. Wallin Pérez’ silk-smooth voice was perfect when making jazz versions of old Kent songs, and on her second album she took some steps further, picking up the pace where her voice was the engine that kept the machine going. Awarded with the ”Årets Textförfattare” award at the Manifest Awards in February earlier this year, she has proved that not only is she is phenomenal when interpreting Kent songs, she’s doing more than well on her own.
Because of the love for her interpretations, Carolina Wallin Pérez has now decided to go out on tour with the songs from the 2009 album. She has promised to even play some new interpretations as well, and for the lucky people jazzing it up at one of Stockholm’s coolest joints, Fasching, the night is sure to be something very special.
Words by David Johansson
Carolina Wallin Pérez will be at Fasching on 20th November.