Joakim Buddee and Linnéa Atieno are the duo behind Heart/ Dancer, one of Sweden’s brightest new electro-pop acts. We brought you news of their single ‘Under’ a while back, and they’ve since released their debut LP My Heart Is A Dancer, earning what’s known in the industry as ‘an enormous, overwhelming amount’ of great reviews. We caught up with them to talk origins, songwriting and and of course, mass murderers and brain cutting.

So can you give us a little background on the band? What are both of your individual musical histories before the band and how did Heart/Dancer form?

Linnéa has a very mixed background, with everything from rock bands to jazz ensembles and symphony orchestras. Joakim was more into hiphop, both rapping and making beats. When we met we both had come to the point where we felt like we wanted to make some kind of electronic pop, and something with a more true feeling to ourselves. We did a lot of stuff before that didn’t really match our personalities, so our main goal was to do something that reflected our feelings in a clearer way.

Your sound is quite hard to pin down, because there are so many elements there, there’s a lot going on. So you use a lot of these harsh atmospheric sounds, you mix them with poppier melodies and really inventive harmonies. It doesn’t really sit solidly into any one genre. Is that diversity something you aim for, to consciously try and avoid being a straight-up synth-pop or electro band? Or is it just the way the music naturally turns out?

It’s definitely just the way the music turns out, we don’t aim for any certain genre. Though, one thing we do aim for more consciously is the feeling of a song. We almost always decide beforehand exactly what feeling the song is going to be about.

And as a follow-on from that question: What kind of bands and artists are you influenced by in your music? How does that feed into your sound?

Influences always change and we always find new interesting music to be inspired by, but during the two years of making this album we have been listening a lot to acts like Grimes, Niki & The Dove, Shura, Lykke Li and Kleerup, among others. Sometimes we get inspired by a sound and sometimes it might just be the overall feeling of a song. And of course –  The xx (like you couldn’t tell already). But we listen to a lot of other things as well, like techno, hip hop and the one and only – Justin Bieber [Check out Atieno’s remix of Bieber’s ‘Baby’ over at her Soundcloud]

You said about the single ‘The Void’: “’The Void’ is about nothingness. The hole left of someone or something now being gone, so blatant it comes alive […] we wanted to write a pure heartbreak story, about a deep wound that takes years and years to heal”. Listening to the album, I would say that a lot of songs, in addition to ‘The Void’ tend to have slightly bleak themes and moods. Would you agree? Do you think it’s easier and more interesting to write songs about these kind of themes and emotions because they’re rawer, more vivid?

Making music is often a therapeutic tool for us, so a lot of times it becomes a drain bucket for feelings. These can be all kinds of feelings, but many times when we’re happy we don’t really feel the need to process it that much. But there are some more uplifting songs on our album, like ‘Outro (Entry Code, Dial Tone)’ and ‘My Heart Is A Dancer’. Also there are many songs that have a more comforting theme, that maybe can seem like sad songs at the first listen.

Something that struck me about the band is that both of you are producers, musicians and vocalists. Most bands don’t have shared abilities and roles to that extent, they generally tend to split up duties and responsibilities more clearly. So I was wondering how that works for Heart/Dancer, do you both have equal input into all aspects of the music?

Yes, usually one of us starts on a song and works on it until that person gets fed up with it. Then the other one takes over and does the same thing. Sometimes we sit together, but mostly we just take turns. All the songs on the album are made that way.

‘Never Stop’ is a reworking of an earlier song, ‘Eyes Shut Tight’. What made you want to revisit that song again, and to rework it into something new?

It was actually part of a remix EP that followed the first single, and in fact we just made it to get more tracks on the EP. But we ended up liking the remix better then the original, so we kept it for the album.

Linnéa, you said in an interview that you like the control and ease of writing music on a computer. Would you say that applies to both of you, that the flexibility and freedom of making music on a computer is very important and useful for your music?

Partly, yes. We wouldn’t be able to switch sessions and still have the possibility to change whatever we wanted if everything was printed in audio. Although, Joakim is still into old school recording, so usually there’s some analogue synth track in every production. But most things are digital when we work together, and we both like the benefits of it.

You’re called Heart/Dancer and one of the tracks on your album is called ‘My Heart Is A Dancer’. What attracts you to those two words and the connection between them, the way they work together?

We just thought ‘My Heart Is A Dancer’ was a nice sentence that described how you should aim for to live your life. Then we wanted a shortening for the band name because long band names are a pain in the ass.

Less serious questions now. If I’ve got my research right, the first song you wrote together was called ‘Mass Murderer From Hell (I Cut Your Brain)’? I would love to hear a little more about that one.

We actually created that song in the exact same way we still work, so it really defined Heart/Dancer, haha. Linnéa sent a super weird track to Joakim as a joke, like only a distorted kick drum and some creepy synth strings. Then Joakim recorded some vocals saying the words ”brains”, and stretched and chopped it up. It’s a very scary song, but it has a happy ending. If we win a Grammy we will release it.

And finally, the album is out now. Now that that’s out there, what have you got planned over the next few months and into the future?

We are planning on doing some live shows by spring, and eventually start to work on an EP or something. All we know is that the next thing is going to have some new elements, and maybe going to be a bit wilder. But who knows? Maybe we’re going to make instrumental ballads. Anyway, until then there are a couple of things we are working on separately that will be out pretty soon. Stay tuned peepzzz.

Heart/ Dancer’s debut album, My Heart Is A Dancer, is out now on Sommarhjärta Records.

Words: Austin Maloney