This year a lot has happened to you as an artist. Can you tell us in short what you have done in this year?

It has definitely been a true pleasure to do music this year. I've done a lot of things and I've released albums both solo and with my side project APF. I've also been writing much new material and has been given  the chance to tour ractically as much as I have wanted with shows in Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, England, Ireland,  Wales, Scotland, Croatia, Italy and Latvia over the year.

You toured a lot, and also went to The Netherlands, did you like
coming back to The Netherlands?  It must be different playing in The Netherlands and playing in Sweden.

What are the main differences between playing in The Netherlands and playing in Sweden?

I always love coming to play in The Netherlands. I always feel so welcome and people are making me dinner and lending me their guest rooms. This was my fourth tour in Netherlands and it really starts to feel like an extension of Sweden - if you don't mind desribing it like that. It feels like a home.

You played last week at the Cinematics Festval in Brussels, what kind of festival is it and was it special for you? How did it go?

Cimatics is an audio/visual festival with an experimental angle. I went playing there with APF (A Perfect Friend), the duo I'm in together with C-J Larsgarden. We had a great time and I think the show was really nice. C-J had made some video that was projected on three big screens behind us. Also, we had two bathrooms in our hotel room and therefor felt like kings.

If I'm correct APF is a side project you are working on with a
friend. This year APF released a new album. How did the album came
together? Who wrote the lyrics, where did you got the inspiration
from and how did the recording process go?

Yes, APF was formed by me and C-J last year and we had our first album coming out on Belgian STILLL in June this year. Before I felt a big urge to start something like this aside of my solo stuff. Together it corresponds more to my musical taste in whole, where I like the
indie/folk-scene for sure but I also have a big affection for the more
experimental, ambient and minimalistic music, electronica, clicks and
hiss, post rock and such.

Me and C-J had talked about trying to do some stuff together for ages and once we finally tried we instantly felt like we've got something good doing on. I doubt we had continued with it if it hadn't felt good at that first occasion. First we took it as a fun thing to do, now I feel that APF is as an important thing to me as my solo songs.

I'm responsible for the lyrics, but we've made it as a sport to write the lyrics under 10 minutes, barely no corrections at all, just letting it
flow. It's definitely a pleasure doing stuff together with C-J, he's great
and has a musical ear that can't really be described. I also love the
freedom in APF in terms of spanning over genres. We can do pop,
electronica, drone, noise, (dub?) whatever we feel like. It's also a good way for me to use all instruments I bought over the years. I've got an air organ, a stylophone organ, a glockenspiel and a dulcimer I'm very keen of playing.
What do you think of the result, was it what you expected? Or did it
turn out different?

I'm very satisfied with the result. In fact, APF is the only part of my
own music that I can really enjoy listening to myself. I never been able to do that with the Thomas Denver Jonsson-albums but I can be very self-obsessed with APF.

APF is based much on improvisation and in a way you can never really foretell how the result will be and that is some of the excitement of it. But looking on what the key elements are and how we use it, it became pretty much how I wanted it would be.

The new APF material sounds to me more experimental then your solo work. Is it different to work on solo material then working with APF?

It's quite different. Solo songs is mostly finding ideas around a given
structure and APF songs is often the other way around, to build something solid around an initial idea. However, I've noticed working on APF-songs has helped me thinking in new directions with my solo songs and vice versa. It's making me write more and hopefully better material.

You are going to make a theme album on arctic, can't wait to hear
more about it. Can you tell us something about this new project.
Where did you get the idea from?

I'm considering changing my alias, starting with that album. I have a lot of personal reasons to do that but for the listener it's just a matter of a name-change and nothing to focus too much on.

My music is very much idea based and if I get an idea I like I can write forever about it. I feel that the songs for the arctic album is a couple of steps forward than all of what I've done before. I can't tell what other will feel but that's my opinion. I think it'll be more acoustic and bluesier. I've been fascinated by the artic for a long time, it's silent but violent.

I'm quite surprised how much I'm touched by this topic. I've never done any autobiographical songs really, but I have never felt so close to my personal feelings as now - when I've written songs in the perspective of the north pole and polar adventurers. It's funny. I guess I'm rather a polar bear than a rock star really.

You did a Gene Clark cover. I didn't know this man until you
mentioned him. Is he a big inspiration for you? And why did you
choose the song Set You Free This Time? Does it mean something
special to you?

I was invited for the Gene Clark tribute album "The World Turns All Around Him". I haven't listen that much to Gene Clark and I don't like the Byrds, but I liked that song, it has something of Frank Sinatra / Gentle on my mind over it.

You have recently finished your new solo album. Did it take long to
record and finish it? What was your biggest inspiration for this album?

It's called The Lake Acts Like An Ocean and took a while to do. Over two years all in all, much longer than the last album. I wanted to take
somewhat of a new direction with this one and that also took time to
define. We have more complex and bigger arrangements and I had much more material to choose from compared to earlier albums.

The process with The Lake began when my guitarist, producer Carl
Edlom and I were on tour in Austin and I bought M Ward's by then brand new album Transistor Radio.  M Ward has been my favorite artist for years ever since I discovered his "End of Amnesia" back in 2001-02 so it was no big suprise that I loved that album. But I didnt know then that it should become my alltime favorite cd and such a leading influence of my new album. I just love the way how he surroungs a topic by all kinds of short and long songs and together they built a unity much stronger than if every song would
have aimed directly at the core.

To me the intention with "The Lake Acts Like An Ocean" was to sharpen my expression in both the band and solo songs and to get more contemporary - I've become quite tired of the Neil Young and Springsteen comparisons  (but I still love all that Bob Dylan has made). Topicwise, The Lake Acts Like An Ocean is partially about sudden calm moments that can make your life beautiful and true.

What are your three favorite tracks and why, and please tell a bit
more about those tracks.

From the album, first I want to choose The Tapdancers' Union, one of the two instrumentals. Just because It's became exactly how I wanted it to be. It's only a solo guitar, but it's something as rare as an accurate adoption of the idea I had for it. I'm a big fan of John Fahey's music, so it's also a proud moment for this guitarist to be able to myself do instrumentals that I'm actually think become really nice. I don't claim to be anywhere near Fahey's technique, still it's a direction worth aiming for.

"After The Earthquake" became really good too. I like when you don't have to say everything out loud and you still get the whole picture. I also like the production on this one really much.

At last, tied between The Border and Possession. They got really nice
arrangements and Elina's voice is perfect on the Possession. I just cry
when I hear her and It's such a gift to get the opportunity to sing with
her. For all these 3 or 4 songs goes that I really like what happened when me and Carl put a lot of space and silence in the songs and productions. Even when we have a lot of instruments and stuff we still allowed the material to breath. Carl has a very good finger finger with things like that.

So last year I asked you for your top 10 albums/bands of the year,
what's your top 10 this year and why?

 1. Fennesz/Sakamoto - Cendre
 2. Aroah - El Dia Despues
 3. Seabear - The ghost that carried us away
 4. Helios - Ayres
 5. The National - Boxer
 6. Akron/Family - Love is simple
 7. Loney Dear - Loney Noir
 8. Feist - The Reminder
 9. Radical Face - Ghost
 10. Narwhal Invasion - If We Were Constellations

I have very hard to choose the places 1-3, but these are the records I've been liking the most the past year. I'm putting Fennesz/Sakamotos "Cendre" as number one, it's really a world of it's own. Perfect to listen to when you're travelling. I was thrilled to discover Seabear and Aroah, great melodies on both those cds. Helios' album "Eingya" from last year has grown to be one of my top 10 albums of all time so I was excited over the new minialbum where he sings for the first time. A late discovery, Brooklyn-act The National really blew me away when I saw their show at Vega in Copenhagen. Best show this year and one of the best rock shows I ever seen. At place#10 I've put Matt Longs' debut album as The Narwhal Invasion, it's great ambient experimental folk and a huge inspiration for the arctic songs I've written. Plus it also bears the coverart made my
Hollis Brown Thornton who also made the art for The Lake. I've had some e-mail correspondens with Matt now and I wish he will remain interested in contributing some things to my next album.

What is the biggest thing that happened to you this year? Did it
influence your music?

The travelling has been the biggest thing to me this year. Some of the highlights was when me and my girlfriend visited Bologna in Italy and Baldone in Latvia while touring. Bologna with the beautiful arcades and leaning towers and Baldone with an old fantastic sanatorium that has been in decline for decades. It was big moments for me and I was glad to share those with her. It does influence me a lot even if I can't put my finger exactly how and where.

What can we expect from you next year?

I've got big plans for 2008. "The Lake Acts Like An Ocean" will be
released in UK. I also want to finish and release the arctic album. With APF we're very close to finishing the recordings of our second album "Timber and Modern Ways" and we already have gathered some ideas for the next one after that. I also have some  collaboration plans I want to do, for an example me and Rachel Briggs are planning to do something of a cover project together. I hope to do some touring but mainly plan to write and record next year. I have so many ideas I want to do something with.

Photo on top: Gustav Gustafsson
Photo middle: Emma Månsson