I’m terribly sad to write this post. I wish I had in a different circumstance to be honest. I always have the idea that with contemporary bands or not too old ones, it is better to do an interview rather than my sort of indiepop archaeology. If I have the chance to hear the story straight from the band, it is always better than finding small details on the web.
For the crop of fantastic Swedish bands that appeared in the early noughties and all the way to 2007 or so, I would have wanted to feature them on a series of compilations I titled “The Sound of Starke Adolf”. I only ended up releasing the first volume. That was one of my biggest disappointments. I couldn’t get the Swedish bands that I wanted to feature to hand me their songs, bios, or photos, for the 2nd volume. I asked time and time again but got I didn’t get the collaboration I wanted. After that had happened I thought that in a few years I would try to interview them at least. Tell the story of a period that was very important to me, a time where I discovered an exciting scene and where bands were popping up in Sweden out of nowhere.
It was the time of CDRs, Soulseek, clubs like Starke Adolf in Gothenburg, fanzines like Twisterella and cool festivals like Mitt Sista Liv. It was a second golden era for Swedish pop after the 90s. Though this time around it was much more underground, where smaller labels were the norm. An era I hope gets documented in a way or another in the near future.
One of the bands from that period I hold dear was the energetic all-girl trio The Sorayas. A band that released a few records in the noughties and who I shortly was in touch in 2006. A band I really liked, playing their CDEP time and time again years ago. Today, after hearing about the sad loss of Annika Forsberg, their vocalist, their leader, I’m listening on repeat their whole discography and thought to write a small little tribute hoping for many that weren’t familiar with their output, to discover a great band.
The Sorayas were indeed Annika Forsberg on guitar and vocals, Hanna Maurin on bass and Soraya Mirgalou on drums. And from a small bio on Last.fm I could say that it all started in April of 2000 when Annika Forsberg was searching for band members by putting up notes in local record stores: that’s how she met Soraya and Hanna. They quickly connected by a common bond in music and lifestyle, and after spending the evenings listening to songs they decided to name the band after the Persian princess Soraya and – of course – their own drummer.
The first time we all heard of them was in 2001. Until recently I thought their first songs were the ones on the “Drag Me Under” 7″, but my friend David shared with me a 4 song demo from that same year that I assumed were first. But actually I found on Popfakta that there was a 2000 demo CD that was self-titled and included three songs, “Bothered”, “All Night” and “Yezzebelle”.
The year after, they released the demo David shared with me. It was titled “All Night”, had 4 songs, “Drag Me Under”, “All Night”, “Bothered” and “Yezzebelle”. I’m not sure how these four songs were released, if it was a CDR or a tape. The band at this point sound a bit harder than in their later stuff when they were much punk-poppier I suppose. In any case, it seems this demo caught the ear of the Dolores Recordings label from Gothenburg and offered the girls a 7″. Take in consideration that this was a very important label in Sweden. It had released during its years big bands like The Sooundtrack of Our Lives or Håkan Hellström.
The “Drag Me Under” 7″ (DOL096) had on the B side another song from the demo, “Bothered” and the record came in the classic Dolores Recordings sleeve. The vinyl was pressed in pink. The record itself doesn’t have much information.
In 2003 they put out another demo which on Discogs is just listed as “Demo 2003”. This was released as a CDR and was recorded at Music A Matic Studios in Gothenburg, their hometown, in 2003. The CDR contained 6 tracks but only 4 were listed, “Perfekt Endings”, “Easy Tune”, “Tomorrow” and “You Decide”. Henryk Lipp, the founder of the aforementioned studios, produced all the songs.
2oo4 was another year for another demo CD. This one I found about too on Popfakta. There were three songs on the “How It Begins” demo. They were “How It Begins”, “Don’t Want To Be Like You” and “Tomorrow”.
Then in 2005 they will release two records and it is must have been the year I discovered them. I believe the cassette album released by the Italian label Best Kept Secret came first. Self-titled, the tape had 9 songs: “How It Begins”, “Don’t Want To Be Like You”, “Tomorrow”, “Perfect Endings”, “You Decide”, “Easy Tune”, “Drag Me Under”, “All Night” and “Bothered”. It was kind of a collection of all their previously released songs plus a few new ones, including the classic “Easy Tune” that was going to have a promo video. It is strange now that I think of it. Today tape labels seem to be thriving. But back then, 10 years or so ago, I don’t think that was the case. People preferred CDR over tapes.
Later that year, in October, a new label that was making some noise in Sweden called But is it Art? was to offer them a CDEP release. I was much of a fan of this label when it appeared. They had released albums by Fosca and also by the fab Friday Bridge. Their output in the few years they were around is very very good. And thus is no coincidence that The Sorayas best work, their 4 song CDEP was released by them.
“Hours to Days” was released with four songs on it, “Hours to Days”, “Easy Tune”, “Tomorrow” and “How It Begins”. All great songs. I remember that at that time Youtube was kind of a new thing. Videos were mostly shared through websites, sometimes they were embedded or some other times you would just download the 50, or 60megs, and play it on your computer. I had downloaded the video for “Easy Tune” of course and played it so many times. But I did end up uploading it to Youtube and it is one of the few cases when a video I uploaded hasn’t been duplicated later by another upload by a band, a label, or another fan. Everytime I watched it I thought how cool they all looked, with their colorful clothes, Hanna’s green jacket, Annika’s red jacket and white chucks and Soraya’s turquoise pants, on what looks like a derelict warehouse. The powerful guitars, and catchy chorus, resonate till these days, having had already almost 8000 views on Youtube.
Aside from those releases The Sorayas appeared on a few compilations:
- 2001 – Their song “Drag Me Under” appears on the “Populärmusik Från Göteborg” CD that was released by Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan.
- 2002 – This is quite the myster, a song called “-” appears on the CD comp “Demoscenen Hultsfred 2002”. I’ve never listened to this song.
- 2003 – Again they appear on a compilation by Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan called “Rokkulär – Fet Musik Från SV GBG 2003”. It was a double CD compilation and the song they contributed was “Boring Me Out”.
- 2004 – They will have their song “Easy Tune” on one of the beloved CDR labels of the era, Popkonst Recordings. It was going to happen on the label’s second release, “This is Popkonst and We Love You”. That same year a bigger label was going to notice them, Labrador included two of their songs, “Perfect Ending” and “Easy Tune”, on “The Sound of Young Sweden Volume 4”.
- 2005 – Discogs lists this compilation as their last contribution, and it was the one on “Bang Crash Boom!!! – A Popclub Compendium” that was released by the German label Little Teddy Recordings. On this CD compilation the band appears with “Hours to Days”.
But I do know of another compilation they were part of. I’ll come back to that later as it involves me. But now, I’m going through old information about them on the web, and I stumbled upon the press release for their CDEP. Here I read that the band played important festivals, like Hultsfred’s Demoscen or Ladyfest in Stockholm and Gothenburg. In their hometown they were locals at Pustervik and Liseberg and in Stockholm they played the classic Debaser.
I look on Google for more information about them. I don’t want to miss anything really. I do know that Annika had, a few years ago, put some songs up on Bandcamp as a solo artist. It was a 4 song EP titled “Slutet På Romanen” and had four songs produced by Stefan Larsson, “Slungas Ut I Rymden”, “Slutet På Romanen”, “En Dröm” and “Vita Nätter”. It is not The Sorayas, the sound has changed, but it is lovely anyways. The teenage angst is no more, but the energy is still in there, in a different way, in a more introspective manner. Before that, since the day she got her first electric guitar at age 16 and learned all the Hole songs, she had been in of course The Sorayas after she found an ad seeking for musicians at the music store Bengan’s, in This is Love and Vega.
I get very excited when I find a photo I’ve never seen of the band on an article dating from 2005 on the Gothenburg newspaper. Here they talk about why they haven’t put out an album. They say they couldn’t work under pressure. At the time of the article learn that Annika was working in Borås on a democracy project. Another newspaper mention dates from the same year but this time on the bigger newspaper, on Aftonbladet. Here the band mentions their rehearsal space which happened to be on a room upstairs a car garage in Fjällbo, 10 minutes away on bus from Gothenburg. At that moment of the article, the band was sure they were going to be offered a contract. It is not a surprise then that later that same year they were releasing something with But is it Art? and having a release party in November alongside the band Tokyo Eye at Uppåt Framåt.
There is a Q&A with Annika on the daily Metro newspaper for April 12, 2006. I’m using Google translate, so perhaps it is not the best translation though I can tell the topic for the questions is Easter.
1. It has got its own television program. It reaches success in the Melodifestivalen. Is the hair dryer back to stay?
The hair dryer has become increasingly popular, but the question is if it has not always been? When you thought it was gone, it was just lying out of the bush.
2. Easter is here. Hardcooked or toddy – How do you put your eggs in the feast?
Eggs do not feel so fresh, I’m jumping over them.
3. Mads Mikkelsen will be new Bond enemy on the white tablecloth. Which of your opponents to date do you like best? and why?
Jaws, he with the toothbrush. He likes me, we can become friends.
4. Where do you prefer to easter at Easter?
I’ll take care to relax now when I’m free, maybe go to some soft place with soft sofas and drink wine.
Another find is a PDF copy of the seventh issue of the Groove magazine. If you understand Swedish it is an interesting read from the time of their Dolores 7″ in 2001 on page 6.
Afterwards an entry on Lito Music. Gosh, do you remember that blog? I used to be in touch with the author, but can’t remember his name or anything now. I knew he was from Spain, but that’s about it. On his post he mentions a song that wasn’t part of any releases like “Another Day Honey”.
Then something unrelated to Annika, but still related to the band. I found that in 2006 an International Cultural Exchange grant was awarded to Hanna. It says that the grant includes a tour of Great Britain for the band. Did this ever happen?
Another Annika mention is that of a March 2007 article on GP. Here it mentions Annika and Hanna were part of the Gothenburg Academy for the Popkollo, a summer camp for young music girls. Malin Dahlgren from Douglas Heart and Cecilia Nordlund were also part of it.
I find a Myspace for Annika’s band This is Love. Sadly I can’t stream any of the songs. How did they sound like? I’m curious. Anyone can point me out where there’s anything to listen to? And for Vega I could find just a small clip of the song “Sex Mayhem” and “Månen” on CDBaby. As I said previously, Vega was her last band and it was formed by her, Jonas Begtsson, Marcus Bergman, Malin Dahlberg, Torbjörn Johansson and Ramo Spatalovic.
That is about all the information I could find scattered on the web. But as I mentioned earlier there was another compilation where The Sorayas were part of.
Back in 2006, at the tail end of the year when I was still running the blog Mira el Péndulo, I had the “brilliant” idea to make a C-06 tape celebrating 20 years since the release of the NME’s C86. I remember the blog Indie-MP3 had done some sort of C06 compilation on their blog, but it was quite irregular for me, not the best of selections of the current bands. Also it was only a download compilation. I wanted to make a physical record, thus a tape, to have the same format as the original. Then 22 songs, 11 on each side. Same as the original. It was a tribute indeed but I wasn’t going to have the noisy and rockish stuff from the original. I was going to have only the indiepop sounding bands. And you guessed it. I asked The Sorayas for a track.
This tape run was very small. I made I believe 100 copies. 75 to sell, and 25 that went to the bands. I only have one single copy now. And I’ve thought about making these songs available on this blog for some time. If I find the original artwork it could be a good idea. I assume the reason that there is barely any information about this tape on the web, aside some few Spanish blog post, is that of the little amount of copies I made. Though I must say I’ve seen smaller releases on Discogs. But sure, there was no label behind the tape or anything. Today I wonder who still owns a copy of it?
This was the one time I was in touch with The Sorayas. I wrote to them on Myspace I believe. Or maybe it was through email. The band used to have a website I remember. I asked if I could include in my tape the song “Hours to Days” and explained them what the tape was about and all. It was all very straight forward I remember. Annika who answered my email was keen on it and gave me the green light. “Hours to Days” was included on the B side of the tape, the sixth song, in between Strawberry Whiplash and Foxglove. And I’m not going to lie now, it was one of my favourite songs on the tape.
I do know I mailed a copy of the tape to the band. I wonder if they still have a copy. Or maybe they made copies of it for all three. I wonder. It was a small enterprise, if not I would have mailed many copies. I hope they were happy about it and that they liked the selection. I never talked with Annika again. I wasn’t in touch with the band again. I thought the band was no more by the end of 2006, so I didn’t ask for a 3″CD on Cloudberry when I started the label. They would have fit nicely. Then I lost track of them.
Sadly I get to be aware of The Sorayas again with this terrible news. It wasn’t that long ago that I played one more time their CDEP at home, I think just before my trip to Spain. I don’t know what pushed me to play it. I don’t play many of my old records. I’m always playing new purchases. But I got back to this one. The energy of those 4 songs always bring a smile to my face. That must be the reason.
I don’t know when exactly the band stopped, and when did they start new music projects. I feel from the many articles on Swedish newspapers that the band wasn’t that obscure, that they earned a well deserved recognition.
I’m sad about this news. As I see some bands reunite these days, I think why not, I would have loved to see The Sorayas play live once. I never did in the past. Or what about them releasing a retrospective album with all their recordings. The truth is, I will forever be grateful for the songs they wrote, for the chance I had to DJ once “Hours to Days” in Hamburg many years ago, for the many years of me playing these brilliant songs. Thanks to The Sorayas. And many many thanks to Annika.
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Listen
The Sorayas – Hours to Days
