The Complete Club 8 Appreciation Page + Discography

Club 8 is a pop band from Sweden that started in the mid 90s when Poprace’s Karolina Komstedt and Acid House King’s Johan Angergård came together. Jonas writes the songs and lyrics, and Karolina graces most of the songs with her hushed whispering voice. Sometimes they do a duet together and a few songs the guy goes it alone. The developed sound of Club 8 is polished, reverberating, and restrainingly economical, under Karolina’s prim voice. The magic of Club 8 is the way Karolina can take Johan Angergård’s lyrics and make it her own.

The songs range from bubblegum happy Europop (with the characteristic Swede craft that we’ve come to recognize ever since ABBA) to trip-hop dub, with occasional crystalline acoustic numbers that verge on the sublime, and then, some of the most stately love songs I’ve ever had the good fortune to come across. Influenced by the British trio St. Etienne, Club 8 skillfully balances the spotlight on both performers where St. Etienne fell wayside to being more about Sarah Cracknell’s voice alone.

They sing, they dance, they smile, but make no mistake, the underlying genius of Club 8 is the bittersweet sense of impending advancement of time, age, and death. Song after song, in the bubbly summertime feel of Club 8’s sweet disposition there’s a threatening dark cloud off in the distance. They may sound as if they are singing happily about the silver lining, but listen carefully and you discover they are really chiming about yet another ominous outline behind that silver lining. That’s the craft of Komstedt and Angergård: this notion that our time is brief and our stay is short continues to creep up like ivy along the walls of their club. The duo successfully harnesses into their pop creations what the Brazilian bossa nova masters know as a certain sadness.

Club 8 is really a band that deserves more exposure here in the US. I know they are very big in Asia and popular in Europe.

 

 

The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming (2007)

To understand Club 8’s irony better, you need to know some of their influences. As bright as their music sounds, there is a dark edge to the brilliance. This, I believe, comes from their appreciation of the works of film-maker David Lynch. The opening of their gorgeous song "We’re Simple Minds" (from the album Spring Came, Rain Fell) sounds like a note-for-note quote from Lynch’s Twin Peaks theme music. Also, this cd features the beautiful song "Jesus, Walk with Me," which echoes the David Lynch compilation of Twin Peaks in his movie Fire, Walk with Me. Maybe this is just a happy coincidence, but it is the thing – the dark cloud behind that silver lining, the sadness behing the joy – that makes Club 8 songs so magical.

Next, you should realize that the songwriter and lyricist is Johan Angergard (the guy). I love Karolina Komstedt’s singing, and it is extremely beautiful in its reverberated, hush-filled whisper. I used to think that it’s terribly romantic (in a literate sense) that here was a woman in her middle ages (my age) singing about the things we all fear to a certain degree (passing time and aging). The feeling I get is that Komstedt is a woman who is pretty with no signs of aging showing, and singing the songs that teens can still relate to, but at the same time, there’s an introspective wisdom, warning all of us to carefully mind our time here. It was as if a big sister was telling us "use your time wisely, because i have this fear, and you should have it too."

"Time is short now, we’ll be here, nowhere left to go, and if you’d miss me when i’m gone, go when i go." (from Hopes and Dreams)

"in my first years there were sunny days….when winter came i was still the same…in a time ahead, no lights would be shed" (from Heaven)

"Fool me into believing, I don’t care if you’re deceiving me. Before I go I need to be, something more than the skin and bones you see" (from Jesus Walk With Me)

Though Komstedt does give an irreplaceable presence to the Club 8 sound and the songs come to life with her voice, it is Angergard’s views and sense of passing time that makes Club 8’s songs so meaningful. It is sheer genius that Komstedt is enlisted to deliver the message; however, in the same way that Paul Jonathan Court wrote all the lovely lyrics of The Primitives for Tracy Tracy to sing, it is ultimately the mind of Angergard that these words of wisdom emanate from.

Both the first track ("Jesus Walk With Me") with all its ambivalence "fool me into believing, i don’t care if you’re deceiving me, i wouldn’t want it any other way, cause then i’d only stay the same" to ("Whatever you want") which may or may not be a reference to their legion of Asian fans "whatever you want from me, whoever i try to be, i will never be there, i can never be her, in your society." Amazingly, this can be read as a message hidden within a message by lyricist Angergard, in reference to Komstedt’s vocalising of his thoughts.

The bottom line is this: Club 8 is a great duo and they have a sometimes poppy, other times introspective sound that carries on the tradition of Francois Hardy, France Gall, and St. Etienne. With it’s ruminative, intelligent lyrics and loner sensibilities accompanied by the polished Swedish pop sound that Abba and Eggstone has introduced us to, they will undoubtedly become a hit in the US one day. I just hope more people discover them sooner than later.

 

Jesus, Walk With Me 5-song EP / CD-single (2007)

This is a 5 EP supplement to Club 8’s 2007 "The Boy Who Can’t Stop Dreaming." Normally, EP’s are either for the collector who wants to own every release by his/her favorite band, the person who just wants that one song but doesn’t want to purchase the whole album, or worst case scenario, the band who wants to make release songs that didn’t make it to their final album.

This EP holds a distinction in that one asks "why DIDN’T these songs make it to the album?"

Track 1 is the only song that appears on "The Boy…" Ascetic with nothing but an acoustic guitar and Karolina Komstedt’s gorgeously haunting reverberating voice. Lyrically, it’s a piece that can be read on many levels. Religion is seen as a source of ecstasy even to the questioning believer who is doubtful of its existence.

Just to hear Karolina’s voice break in it’s fragility:

"Cause I need this,
God feed me with your love,
and take me through the day"

is worth the price of the ep.

Certainly not a religious song, "Jesus Walk With Me" knowingly accepts the subject as both a spiritual savior and a product of our own deception we agree to let into our lives.

"fool me into believing
I don’t care if you’re deceiving me
before I go I need to be something more
than the skin and bones you see."

Track 2: "What I’m Dreaming of Is Something I Could Have" is a sweet sounding, adorable little piece with Karolina singing about confused innocent love above the signature Club 8 rhythms of handclaps, tambourine, subtle congos, matched nicely with guitar, bass. The chords are quite lovely and really a logical follow-up track to Jesus, Walk With Me.

Track 3 is a somber march with organ drones, guitar, and a hihat with a strong Joan Baez ‘69 Woodstock feel.

Track 4 is a very accessible version of "Jesus Walk with Me" with almost all the elements that make Club 8’s music so lovable: string accompaniement, trap (simple) drum set with rim clicks (set in a more complicated pattern than usual), light organ riffs, all combined in an understated but still Pop, radio-ready version, for those who feel the original mix is too bare.

Track 5 is a dubby, chilled-lounge version of "Jesus Walk With Me" with Komstedt’s voice in radio frequency, something Club 8 often likes to utilize.

Track 1, 2 and 4 are the standouts of this EP. Unless Club 8 decides to release alternate version of their album (which they have done in the past) that includes these pieces, one would be wise to grab these, because once they are gone EP’s sometimes don’t get re-released many years later.

 

Strangely Beautiful (2003)

Strangely Beautiful was my first exposure to the Swedish duo comprising of Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt. And it’s been a sweet albeit mildly apprehensive journey ever since. A friend once told me that the quieter you become the more people will strain to listen to you, and that’s part of Club 8’s allure.

Their 5th album opens with my favorite all-time Club 8 track: "As Lights Go Out" – a superbly crafted mid-tempo pop song about the erosion of time and it’s effect on fading love. The lush synthesizer drone wraps around a listener like a luxuriant coat before Komstedt’s now established reverberating hushed vocals enters. Angergård’s tremeloed guitar follows, emanating ethos against Club 8’s arch-enemy, the ever advancing time.

Vulnerable, honest, a touch of neediness born from doubt, this song gently opens the vista into Club 8’s world.

"What Shall We Do Next" picks up the torch and follows the same tempo leading into the lines "we want someone to long for, we want them here, all we can strive for, we want it now, and when it’s here, we don’t know what to do next."

"I Wasn’t Much Of A Fight" gains momentum. Though drama is sung about, small musical elements weave together to make a polish pop song: minimal trumpets, expertly placed tambourines, doubled vocals in radio voice, all around a whispering voice.

In the unique style that only Club 8 can evoke, "Stay By My Side" is a slow love song of longing, sung with a saccharine sweetness. Listen carefully however, and you will hear these devilishly cynical lines:

"stay by my side
as we hope for someone to show
don’t leave my side
though it’s not what we hoped for

you may take what you need when you want to
and use me up if you wish
feelings stay the same as i’m asleep"

(Stay by My Side)

"Cold Hearts" moves in a stately Bergmanesque procession towards an even slower, ruminative short acoustic guitar instrumental "Between Waking and Sleeping." The latter is a track that serves as a prelude to the fugue that follows: "This Is The Morning," a wonderful and gorgeously fleeting acoustic song lead by Angergård, joined by Komstedt.

"This Is The Morning" not only shows the musical daring of Angergård: the pause after the lines "follow the stars of the light" is held longer than is safe, until one almost thinks the song is over (classical fans will be reminded of Claudio Arrau’s heroic pause in the intro in Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto or Ruth Laredo’s first movement in Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Chopin), but it also displays one of the most endearing qualities of Club 8; their songs, like Swedish design philosophy, exhibits chaste economy, never needing to be longer than is necessary. There is never a moment of overindulgence where the same lines are repeated ad nauseam.

"The Next Step You’ll Take" carries their signature tradition of coming off like some cheery Mary Tyler Moore soundtrack with the jarring lyrics:

"we’ll look out for you.
thirty two
it’s not so young here…

surely time will come to an end soon
but it’s still on your side
and everything must come to an end here
but you can still leave gracefully"

(from The Next Step You’ll Take)

"The Beauty Of The Way We Are Living" is pure popcraft; paternal, concerned, benevolent, inviting listeners into their accommodating club. "Saturday Night Engine" is a raucous lo-fi rock piece featuring Angergård doing a strangely beautiful Swede Cockney in radio voice.

"We Move In Silence" features a plangent organ above the band, leaving us with the final closing admonishment that until the next Club 8 album, time is steadily gnawing at the gates:

"by doing it right now
we’re not counting the time
and we won’t measure
what we feel inside."

 

Saturday Night Engine (2003)

This 5 song EP features the title track (identical to the album version), a somewhat bombastic and bass-organ accompanied “I have no better plan” lamenting as if a Philharmonic band was supporting the duo. “So Tied Up” is pop the way Asians like it, while “Giza” feels like a short segue Hotel Costes track. “People” is Club 8 in Italodisco mode in a phone voice. An unexpected and beautiful bridge suddenly blossoms like a crowd of daffodils. As you settle in for a real treat, the song suddenly ends, making us yearn for more. “Sometimes I Felt Like A Loser” is the crowning glory of this EP. One wonders why Club 8 did not include it on their full length album, Strangely Beautiful.

 

 

Spring Came Rain Fell (2002)

A direct quote from the twangy guitar riff of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks begins Album #4 from the Swedish duo of Johan Angergård and Karolina Komstedt. "We’re Simple Minds" a laid back pop song propelled by snare rim clicks gradually opens into the interiors of what is either repressed love or a je ne sais quoi a girl feels for another (since Angergård is the lyricist and Komstedt the vocalist, a transposition that only serves to add to the ambivalence of the song).

"Spring Came, Rain Fell" sounds like a cheery tv commercial in print, until you are hit with the opening lines of Club 8’s signature hidden darkness: "Waiting for the fall, to take us all."

Angergård sings on "Close to me" a 90s Manchester scenester sounding piece, where "Baby, I’m not sure if this is love" returns to Karolina.

"The Chance I Deserve" is a poppy bassy dance tune with radio voice, minimal distorted bass, and programmed drums and handclaps.

"I Give Up" is an experimental fragment, so reminiscent of St. Etienne’s early days, that is to resurface in full later in track 11 "The Girl With The Northern Soul Collection", a polished quiet shuffle using the rhythms that became so popular in the Manchester sound of the early 90s.

"Friends and Lovers" is a dubby bare bones track with Komstedt on radio thin voice.

Angergård sings of teenage love in "Teenage Life" while Komstedt revives the voice-lone guitar-handclap combo that she used so successfully in "I Don’t Need Anyone" (from the album Club 8).

The set comes to a close with "We Set Ourselves Free" a song framed by a bass riff that veers dangerously close to St. Etienne’s "Nothing Can Stop Us" bass riff.

All in all, a threadbare offering from Club 8. Compared to their other albums, orchestration and electronics take a backseat as rim clicks, guitar, and a trap set (drums) populate most of the 12 songs.

Though I greatly enjoyed the first two songs, I felt this was a point in Club 8’s discography where they were in danger of succumbing to the trap St. Etienne fell into (for a few albums): when their sound became more about Sarah’s voice then about the band as a unit. Happily, my apprehensions were chucked out the window with their superb following album "Strangely Beautiful."

 

 

Summer Songs 5-Song EP (2002)

This 5 track EP features "Things We Share" a great example of something I have come to associate with Club 8: the ability to sing about death, aging, and unstoppable time in a sweet sunny disposition, almost an admonishment to their audience to spend their time wisely:

"if something’s on our mind we’ll say it
we won’t last long
soon we will be gone
if there’s no light in the night there’s nothing
in darkness and in passion we will live"

(had you seen these lyrics elsewhere, you would think it was a goth band at the helm, not a couple of blond candystripper Swedes)

"Mornings" is the song that I suppose most of us conjure in our minds when we hear the album title "Summer Songs." Acoustic guitar and a lone voice, ruminative.

"You and me" is a duet full of sunshine, whistling, guitar, and vibraphone.

"Don’t Stop the Night" is yet another gentle admonishment to enjoy the life and time you’ve got.

"Sounds from the gulf stream" is the first full length instrumental, bathing us in a summer morning glow, ruminative after all the lessons dispatched in the last four songs.

 

 

Club 8 (2001)

The Swedish duo Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård return for Club 8’s 3rd album. Here their signature sound is fully developed (hushed whispery reverberating vocals from Komstedt), where the previous "The Friend I Once Had" had the band playing around and experimenting with trippy dubby sounds. Also Angergård returns to his part time vocal duties.

"Love in December" opens with a vibroluxed guitar riff before a rim-clicked snare drum propels the song into a melodic pop rumination. "Boyfriends Stay" is a nagging piece sweetened only by Komstedt’s breathy hush of a voice intertwining with a plangent harmonica.

"She Lives By the Water" is an gorgeous, lush creation, shimmering the crests of each wave as emotions ebb majestically towards shore. An crisped snare played with brushes tremble beneath a drone before xylophone belltones chime in for the chorus. (electronic)String accompaniement mix with rattling percussion.

"Falling from Grace" has Angergård hiply shuffling back into the picture after being vocally absent from the last album. Komstedt joins him for the chorus and happily our duo is back together audibly reunited.

"Hope for Winter" illustrates how the "new" setting for Karolina’s voice makes all the difference when paired with the earlier sound from Nouvelle. Of course, the chiming xylophone adds a brilliance to the overall crispness carrying the band away from their early Smiths influence.

"A Place in My Heart" is my probably one of my two most favorite Club 8 song. The tremoloed guitar brings a sentimental feeling to the surface:

"the streets still look quite dark.
their closing down something that we started."

"I don’t need anyone" with nothing but a voice, a guitar, two snapping finger and a dozen chirping birds. A great loner anthem (I am a noted authority on the subject).

"Keeping Track of time" closes with Angergård taking the lead vocals. Hip, full of squeaks, over a shuffle rhythm and cool swatches of guitar here and there. Minimal, economical, and kinda groovy.

 

Friend I Once Had (1998)

The album arrives in 1998. (note: some may see the omission of track 8 "Calcutta" This is a 30 second instrumental segue that I believe is on alternate version of the album.) This album has the added distinction of Johan Angergård not singing in any of the tracks. When the two duet, it’s actually quite sweet. I do miss that.

Club 8’s second album begins exactly where 1996’s Nouvelle left off: vibraphone, Smiths-like broken chords (notes of a chord individually played in sequence), mixed with a delicate sense of doubt that Karolina Komstedt expresses so well.

"All I can do" is cool, swinging comfortably in its textbook like issuance of advice in the chorus:

Be patient, try harder
I’ll help you in my own way
See clearer, be happy.

"Someday" follows, and it’s the first appearance of the heavily reverberating vocals that will come to cloth Komstedt’s voice so well in later recordings. Fans of the Housemartins will instantly recognize Club 8’s roots.

"I wish you’d stay" opens with a quote from the movie Blade Runner’s soundtrack but soon introduces more contemporary programmed drum sounds.

"The end of the affair" starts very reminiscent of the Smiths, but soon returns to familiar Club 8 territory.

"Summer Rain" employs the jungle, drums & bass samples heard so often back in the day.

"Better Days" is one of the highlights of the album. Confessional, vulnerably honest, and uncertain. Of course, as a listener and songwriter, I could not help but wonder if these were truly Johan Angergård’s thoughts (as a lyricists), what he imagines his bandmate thinking, or perhaps, a product of their conversations. Something we may never learn.

Track 12 Missing You opens an entire universe into Club 8. It’s dance music! Not the trendy clubby deep house or progressive tribal (although there’s nothing wrong with those), but EURODANCE. You know: happy major chords, upbeat rhythms, handclaps. Succinctly: Disco that is not afraid to be called disco.

Of course, being Club 8, the topic of this happy dance song is being unlucky and being unhappy.

A gorgeously produced mid tempo pop song "My heart won’t break" is next.

Several versions of Missing You and one remix of "My Heart…" follow, with the "making love to a machine mix" being experimental, trippy, and dubby, it’s amazing how far a band can go in the span of one album.

"The friend I once had" closes the album. Sentimental, honest (as usual) and just a touch of sadness, a quality of the Brazilian bossa nova masters that Club 8 has so successfully distilled into their pop creations.

 

 Nouvelle (1996)

(note: Nouvelle CD’s with he barcode on the back of the CD case reading "8430217 030422" on the lower left of the back flap will have the first 3 songs (look below) of their debut EP as bonus tracks at the end.)

Club 8 is a pop band from Sweden that started in the mid 90s when Poprace’s Karolina Komstedt and Acid House Kings’ Johan Angergård came together. The guy writes the songs and lyrics, and the girl graces most of the songs with her hushed wispy voice. Sometimes they do a duet together and a few songs the guy goes it alone.

This first offering from the duo is noticeably lacking in the lush reverb that arrives in later albums. Recorded in 1995, the sound is slightly dated, ranging from a Smiths-like "Those Charming Men" (albeit without Johnny Marr’s chords but with similar, individually picked guitar notes) to early distorted Primitives "I guess I was wrong." Komstedt’s singing sounds a bit stiff, but that too will soon change.

Along the way, prim and economical lines of trumpet, vibraphone, and organ are sprinkled throughout the album.

Lyrically, the magic of Club 8 is already surfacing. What is the magic? It is Karolina singing Johan Angergård’s lyrics and *making* it her own.

"Stupid girl
Those Charming men won’t look at me.
I’m not blond enough
But I still believe in love.

How could I be so wrong?
It wasn’t my time."

(Those Charming Men)

I mean, what girl hasn’t secretly thought these lines at one time or another?

Some of the sweetest moments occur when the two get together for alternating duets: "Look Out!" and the gently bickering "Girlfriend." (bonus track)

"Before I came"(bonus track) closes the set with bossa nova congas and a hint at the polished style Club 8 will soon develop.

 

EP (1995)

This 3 track EP marks the beginning of Club 8’s career. If you are looking for these 3 songs, search for the CD version of Nouvelle with the barcode on the back of the CD case reading "8430217 030422" on the lower left of the back flap. The Nouvelle CD itself should read "Siesta 42 +" "d.l.m-10656-2002." If you get the right copy, you will have all these three tracks as bonus tracks at the end of the CD.

Track 1 is Me Too

Track 2 is Girlfriend

Track 3 is Before I Came