Jonas Bjerre has just opened a webshop for his art prints which you may have already seen on his Instagram account. As of now, there are four different artworks available and each of them come signed by the artist and naturally they are also numbered. Depending on the edition, only 25-40 prints are available and the number will not exceed from there. The website will let you know when a certain print is sold out.

BIRDS by Jonas Bjerre

Shipping is available to almost anywhere in the world, except to countries that have a very complicated postal system. Artworks come in two different sizes. The bigger ones (Birds and Chooseday) and the smaller ones (What Else? #1 and What Else? #2) have all been printed on a very thick 310g paper.

Jonas Bjerre is, as we know, a man constantly with a lot of irons in the fire. When he’s not making music with Mew, he always seems to have some sort of art project going on, either solo or in collaboration with other artists. More recently he’s found a passion for modular synths, most notably with his group Tachys. Together with his old friend, Tobias Wilner, he’s brought his synths with him to the stage, and also released an album last year. This new obsession with modular synths has also extended into other projects.

Back in September 2021, a four-piece group, assembled by American musician and writer, Alex Maiolo, performed their experimental music live on Estonian national television. Maiolo was joined on stage by Estonian musicians Jonas Kaarnamets, Erki Pärnoja and Mew’s Jonas. They had gone together in recording ambient sounds from Estonia’s capital city of Tallinn, with the purpose of making music from the recordings. 

The live performance happened at Tallinn Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel), during Tallinn Music Week, and had almost 1,000 people in the audience, including Estonia’s president at the time, Kersti Kaljulaid. They were so happy with the quality of the recording, they decided to release it to the public.

The album is available for pre-order, and will be available as a digital download and on vinyl. The release date is February 3rd.

To find out more about this project, you can read this interview with Alex Maiolo at Tape Op.

You can watch the performance in its entirety here:

While on hiatus from their main projects, old friends Jonas Bjerre and Tobias Wilner (Blue Foundation) finally found the time to work on a project together. The first sign of life from the new supergroup, Tachys (presumably named after a type of ground beetle), was a cryptic social media post in January 2020. What this project was supposed to be from the beginning, is unknown to me, but from what I’ve picked up, a full album wasn’t necessarily the original plan. It grew organically out of their creative process.

Summer 2020, a light in a dark time, was hearing Tachys on the radio for the first time. “Signify” was played on Danish radio station P6 Beat.

“Sick of triggers, deadly flickers.”

The dark and visual lyrics tell a story about how we’re forced to deal with a constant flow of information and FOMO, and perhaps the need to disappear for a while. And they did. Not much was heard about other songs, but they kept posting cryptic animations on their various socials, with fitting mysterious audio. Not until the next summer, did we get an actual song release. “When the World Wakes Up” was the first single and music video. Based on initial reports and their social media posts, the song was a bit of a surprise to many. It was so… catchy. The chorus will stay with you. I personally expected the sound to be much darker and hard to digest.

“When the World Wakes Up” was however a song I liked a lot, and seemed to fit perfectly with the time we were in. In familiar fashion, Jonas‘ lyrics are darker than the music, singing about how worried he is about someone, and what will happen “…when the world wakes up”.

A couple of months later, single number two came out. “Signify” could finally be heard again, and was accompanied by a music video, showing different sides of Tobias and Jonas than we had perhaps seen before, like getting beaten into a bloody mess. A metaphor for the lyrical content.

Another few months went by, and single number three, “Magenta”, came out in December 2021. Once again it sounded different from what we had previously heard. The first thought that popped into my head was, “Is Jonas mumble rapping now?” The song is apparently built on an old FastTracker II sample, made on Jonas‘ old PC in his adolescence. A track that quickly grew on me. Jonas’ style of singing here is quite different from what we’re used to from him, and it seems like he’s enjoying experimenting with his vocals on the album.

It took a few more months, but now we finally have the whole album, so let’s get to the rest of the songs. The first track on the album, “Fall Down”, starts off with the voice of a young girl seemingly asking what we all thought when we first heard the name of the band; “Tachys?“ The song is built almost entirely on modular synths, reminiscent of the glitch/electronic indie pop stylings that found some popularity in the 90s and 00s. As you would guess from the strong love song chorus, the song is about a kind of endless love between two people.

“Hello. I wish I could have known you. I’d carry you inside too, with me.”

My personal highlight of the album is, “I Wish I Could Have Known You”. The droning instrumentation reminds me a lot of one of my favorite groups in the genre, British duo Fuck Buttons. The song is 4:29 long, but I would have enjoyed it perhaps even more as a dragged out drone number. As much as I love how beautiful the first half of the song is, it’s especially the way the song builds up towards the end that makes the song so great to me. Italian avant-garde drummer Federico Ughi, known for his work with Daniel Carter, William Parker and New York United (a project with Tobias Wilner) plays the drums on the track.

There are two vocalists in Tachys, and although most of the songs have Jonas Bjerre as main vocalist, the quiet and vulnerable song, “Thunder of Color”, is sung by Tobias Wilner. The song is about a broken soul that remembers the hot summer nights of free love. A heartbreaking song that to me can be read as a commentary on more current events, and how good things used to be when we were younger.

Malaysian singer Yuna is featured on “You Can Be My Guide”, a beautiful duet about escaping the clutches of narcissism and finding your true self. A chorus that stays in your head, and is sure to be one of the more popular songs on the album. A gorgeous piece of music.

“Pierce me, fiercely. We all deserve to be destroyed.” 

Those are the last words from the up-tempo, happy-sounding, “Pierce”. Jonas delivers this dark and sadistic message, sounding like he has no cares in the world. Like we’re all getting what’s been coming for us. The next track, “The Rain Keeps Pouring”, doesn’t seem like it offers much more hope. This is another glitch-style song, like “Fall Down”. The song was written in a taxi, driving through a big city. A heartbroken clown is gleefully tearing down all the pretty things around him.

The album ends with a quietly majestic song, with oscillating synths in the similar vein of Swedish synth electronica duo The Knife. They are every bit as haunting as the lyrics. Tobias sings about a single father missing his grown up daughter, who’s left her childhood home. An album closer that leaves you feeling quite emotional. Not only because of the lyrical content, but because the album is over.

Luckily we also get a bonus track. “Sometimes We Do”, is a five minute long drone track, ending as suddenly as it starts. The atmospheric synths and vocals by Jonas, is a fitting end-of-the-night song at any underground rave club. This sounds more like what I expected the whole album to sound like before having heard as much as a note from Tachys.

Tachys‘ eponymous album as a whole is an experimental victory, with a mix of trippy dancefloor music, dark themes, romance, droning synths, catchy melodies and nostalgia. The only fault I can find is that it leaves you wanting more. What started as a little side project, has turned into a fantastic album which deserves a lot of attention. What Tobias and Jonas decide to do in the future together is up in the air. If this ends up being a one-off album, it would be a shame, but I’m grateful that it happened.

Text by: Oddvar Røste

Photo by: Tachys

Track list:

1. Fall Down
2. When the World Wakes Up
3. I Wish I Could Have Known You
4. Thunder of Color
5. You Can Be My Guide (feat. Yuna)
6. Magenta
7. Pierce
8. The Rain Keeps Pouring
9. Signify
10. Dear To Me
11. Sometimes We Do (Bonus)

Aarhus, Denmark (February 5, 2022) / Odense, Denmark (February 6, 2022)

During Comforting Sounds, the man next to me shows his wife his raised arm, replete and complete with goosebumps and hair all stood up. This is Odense, February 2022, and in all respects, the few thousand of us who are the lucky ones tonight are alive, heightened – that’s what we have. 

In sixteen years of coming to Denmark, I really should know more about the Danish language than this. But I don’t. I really should have seen more of the country than the capital city, a field near Roskilde, and some fleeting visits to Helsingør and Vejle. So I decide to try and remedy the latter, with the former remaining a low-level guilt. Undskyld, jeg kan ikke tale Dansk. But Aarhus and Odense, what ya got?

I am sorely unprepared for what I go through in Aarhus. A latent criticism of this band is that they have been there, done that, and continue to be there and to do so. They do not use the scope and depth of their discography enough. There are other songs, options that would help keep things fresh. Tonight, the range is apparent. Tonight, they do.

Some – most – of the orchestral arrangements are thrilling, refined, elevated. This is almost unspeakably grand, and why not have any excuse to relive the inner reaches of No More Stories? It’s a record that was worth being there for because of its density, because of how frustrating it is. It has demanded these past thirteen years to unpick it, and I had assumed that had been long left to the audience to do themselves. As it turns out, I was in need of a good crib. The opening bars of Tricks Of The Trade and Cartoons and Macramé Wounds are intimately known, but also difficult to instantly reconcile. Really? Right here? Right now? I thought I knew better when I assumed this was all history. I did not know better. I did not think of Cartoons as being up there with the greatest songs of this canon. Now I do.

The experience of this show borders on actively being too much. I feel like half a person, in a good way.

If Aarhus is a sleeting Saturday night Aalborg Jubilaeums and hotel bar blur of too many emotions and not enough wit to say what I want to say properly, Odense is crisp and clear. It is calm and still. What I hear in Odense cannot be misunderstood. It says that, if you’re really lucky enough to be able to do so, this is a tour worth seeing twice: once to be hit in the gut, and then once again to think about why that happened.

If geography, time and funds were all no object, I think I would like to pretend it is 2009, and that I am still buzzing with the energy of my early 20s, and to find a way to see this performance every available night (maybe minus Cross The River, however we all have what we say are our red lines. I say so too, but ultimately we all know I will compromise if that’s what it takes, because that’s part of what unconditional love is). But despite what I want to think, time is an obstacle these days. Age is somewhat more of a constraint. There are practicalities too. Too bad.

I had been waiting for these songs to be performed on this kind of a widescreen scale for most of my adult life. There’s no point being flowery. There’s no point getting poetic to avoid talking about home truths – I think that more of us should not deny the primacy of the fluctuations of mental health, and what is needed to achieve a living balance. Jonas’s voice being more fragile than usual at moments, right on the edge once or twice, seems like a nice metaphor. For a change, even if just for a while, shall we all just say what we mean, and mean what we say? Time doesn’t have to run out. It needn’t be like that. It needn’t be that way.

I mean that these shows will stay with me, and I mean that if there is still this, it feels like things will be fine, if only for now. And that is OK.

We’ve all been through the mill to a preternatural extent, and this hasty Danish trip is not an end to anything. I’m broken and tired on a Ryanair flight home as I tap this out, frowning that the internal rhythms of the sentences are not quite what I want. Nothing could feel less romantic than ruminating on flight number FR2675 – nothing could feel less like a fresh chapter.

But if one thing is obvious from the past two years, apart from that revolution could again be a directly useful tool for us masses, it’s that we are collectively quite good at taking strength where we can. If the strength was already extant before the bad dream, then maybe it is redoubled now. Raise your arms, raise your hands, goosebumps and heightened hair.

If we can’t smell burning, if revolution and the direct power of the people to demand more from the Leviathan, is still apparently a little too much to ask, then at least it helps to have something to believe in. Find it, and go and fight for it. If you’ve already found it, fight harder.

Text and Photos: Ally Winford

Setlist (both shows): Nothingness and No Regrets / Tricks Of The Trade / Satellites / Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy / Cartoons and Macramé Wounds / Why Are You Looking Grave / In a Better Place / Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy / Cross The River Own Your Own / 156 / Carry Me To Safety / Comforting Sounds

Turku, Finland (August 6, 2021)

”There are no perfect live shows.”

Mew: ”Hold my smørrebrød.”

Someone wrote this on Twitter right after the show, and it’s funny because it’s kind of true.

I haven’t written about Mew in a while, but that is mainly because there hasn’t been any new material or live shows in years. The last Mew live show was nearly three years ago when they ended their lengthy Visuals tour in Osaka, Japan (November 7^th, 2018). The band had planned to have a year-long break only and were supposed to play many gigs last year. Then COVID-19 hit and shows were being rescheduled multiple times or were even canceled entirely. We’ll see which shows they are still able to play this year as restrictions change country by country ever so often.

Kesärauha festival was also rescheduled three times, but they finally pulled it through. In a newspaper interview, the festival’s artistic director said that he even shed a tear when Mew had a soundcheck before the festival gates were opened. The band played Special which had been the power song for the festival organisers for a year and a half. They had done everything amazingly well. For example, each festival-goer had a whopping five square meters to use when some of the bigger festivals don’t even have one per person. So, safe social distances were pretty easy to keep. Face masks were free and washing places plenty. No one can complain about their arrangements.

This was the fifth time that Mew played in the oldest city in Finland. Ruisrock Festival is held in Turku and Mew have played there four times in the past, but this time they were headlining a smaller festival that mainly relied on local bands due to travel restrictions for international acts. Less than 5000 tickets per day were sold, but it was a rather large area, a beautiful setting by this magnificent medieval castle built in the 13^th century. Mew and the crew were able to come, but one person was sadly missed. Nick could not travel for rehearsals to Denmark from the UK, so Mew had to teach another guy to play keyboards. Søren Møller did fantastic job, as far as I can tell.

Originally scheduled to play 75 minutes, Mew had asked to play a little longer, so they eventually got a lovely 90-minute slot. It is possible to play shorter sets – and they have – but it’s not very easy now when an hour is spent on And the Glass Handed Kites alone. This was the first time that they performed the 15^th… *cough*… 16^th anniversary show of the album and Jonas surely remembered to mention that on stage before coming back for encores. They opened at exactly 9:45pm with Kites and it was still sunny. This is a problem in Nordic countries in the Summer, but around half way Kites it was getting darker and the background visuals could be seen in all their intended glory. Many of them were new and some old ones had been slightly altered.

The album is about 55 minutes long, but it takes a little longer to perform live, because at the time of writing they probably never actually planned to play a concept album like that in full from start to finish. Or they may have thought about it, but there’s a reason why something like The Seething Rain Weeps For You has never been on their setlists before. You know, there’s a lot going on in that song, and that may even be an understatement. Some of my musician friends can’t even fathom how Mew can play An Envoy to the Open Fields live. The band used to have that track on their setlists quite a bit, but even they admitted that it is a tricky one.

Why Are You Looking Grave is another one that has been absent for a long time. The ”shorties”, Fox Cub, Small Ambulance and Uda Pruda were all performed with actual instruments and vocals, and Jonas’ voice was as strong as if he had just played another gig yesterday. A Dark Design also had its premiere here and it came with some pretty impressive background animations. As we all know without checking the album track listing, it was immediately followed by Saviours of Jazz Ballet (Fear Me December) that was previously attached to Apocalypso. Now, for the first time it was in its rightful place. I should also add that Silas was absolutely on fire and Johan and Mads were rocking like they never had a break from being on stage. How big was their rehearsal space?

The encores had two surprises. Although not a rarity, I did not expect Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy (full ”I Am Shaky” version), followed by another premiere – Learn Our Crystals – which also had very impressive animations. It was very much expected that festival favourites Am I Wry? No, 156 and Comforting Sounds would end the whole show. It will be interesting to see if some of the future gigs open with random tracks and that Mew will finish with Kites. Fine, but that is tricky to do at a festival. I mean, can you leave an audience to such a sad place where Louise Louisa takes you? Probably not.

Before the Frengers hit songs, Johan said that it was quite surreal and emotional to be back on stage. Back at you, man.

Text: Tero Heikkinen
Photos: Marie Cover
Photo Gallery

Setlist: Kesärauha Festival (Turku, Finland)
Circuitry of the Wolf / Chinaberry Tree / Why Are You Looking Grave? / Fox Cub / Apocalypso / Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy / A Dark Design / Saviours of Jazz Ballet / Fear Me, December / An Envoy to the Open Fields / Small Ambulance / The Seething Rain Weeps for You / Uda Pruda / White Lips Kissed / Louise Louisa — Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy / Learn Our Crystals / Am I Wry? No / 156 / Comforting Sounds

Soundtrack for the documentary series Scandinavian Star has been released on various platforms today. You can find it at least on Jonas Bjerre‘s new YouTube channel and on Spotify. He wrote approximately 60 pieces of music and 38 of them were released. The whole soundtrack is nearly two hours in length which is somewhat unusual, but we can’t complain, right? Many of us have a lot of extra time right now.

The show itself has premiered in three countries so far. NRK1 in Norway (March 8), DR1 in Denmark (March 9) and TV4 in Sweden (April 2).

In related news, Apparatjik has a song in the motion picture London Fields which is now available on Netflix.

From the official press release:

MEW – Jonas Bjerre, Johan Wohlert and Silas Graae are delighted to announce the special edition reissue of their iconic album And The Glass Handed Kites, as part of Record Store Day 2020 on Saturday, April 18th 2020.

Released via Music On Vinyl (and A:larm in Denmark), the special edition reissue will mark the fan favourite LP’s 15th anniversary – the record which won several music prizes on its original release, including four Danish music awards, and Gaffa’s Best Danish Album of 2005. The exclusive Record Store Day limited edition release is a fully expanded edition of the original record, available as a 2-disk LP, and a 2-disk CD:

• The original 2005 album, including the singles Apocalypso, Special, Why Are You Looking Grave? and The Zookeeper’s Boy.
• 10 bonus tracks, including the unreleased song Wherefore Are You Not There.
• 2-LP in a gatefold sleeve, including an extensive booklet with unseen pictures and liner notes.
• Limited, individually numbered edition, on black & white marbled vinyl.
• Album will be released on 2-LP and 2-CD on Record Store Day, April 18 2020.

Tracklisting 2-LP:
Side One
1. Circuitry Of The Wolf
2. Chinaberry Tree
3. Why Are You Looking Grave?
4. Fox Cub
5. Apocalypso
6. Special
7. The Zookeeper’s Boy
8. A Dark Design

Side Two
1. Saviours Of Jazz Ballet
2. An Envoy To The Open Fields
3. Small Ambulance
4. The Seething Rain Weeps For You
5. White Lips Kissed
6. Louise Louisa

Side Three
1. Drown
2. Animals Of Many Kinds
3. Like Chaser
4. 白い唇のいざない (Shiroi Kuchibiruno Izanai)
5. A Dark Design (Red Version)

Side Four
1. Killer
2. Forever And Ever
3. Wherefore Are You Not There
4. Apocalypso (Waltz Version)
5. Why Are You Looking Grave? (Mogwai Remix)

Tracklisting 2-CD:
CD 1
1. Circuitry Of The Wolf
2. Chinaberry Tree
3. Why Are You Looking Grave?
4. Fox Cub
5. Apocalypso
6. Special
7. The Zookeeper’s Boy
8. A Dark Design
9. Saviours Of Jazz Ballet
10. An Envoy To The Open Fields
11. Small Ambulance
12. The Seething Rain Weeps For You
13. White Lips Kissed
14. Louise Louisa

CD 2
1. Drown
2. Animals Of Many Kinds
3. Like Chaser
4. 白い唇のいざない (Shiroi Kuchibiruno Izanai)
5. A Dark Design (Red Version)
6. Killer
7. Forever And Ever
8. Wherefore Are You Not There
9. Apocalypso (Waltz Version)
10. Why Are You Looking Grave? (Mogwai Remix)

After covering 11 songs from Mew’s back catalog, we’re wrapping up the first season of The MewX Podcast. We’re lucky enough to get help from Mew’s lead singer, Jonas Bjerre, who answers a lot of questions we had about the songs we’ve covered so far.

Have you always wondered what is sung in the opening of Introducing Palace Players, or who the Palace Players even are? Why are there so many versions of I Should Have Been A Tsin-Tsi (For You)? Why have they not played The Seething Rain Weeps For You live? What is the inspiration behind Louise Louisa? This and much more is answered in this week’s episode.

We also get into the hidden mixtape Jonas made for us, which can be found at the end of Episode #008 – She Came Home For Christmas. This includes a lot of previously unreleased material, and is a real gem for every Mew fan.

Track Listing:

1. Sport Master part 1 (Silas and Jonas free jam in Venice Beach in 2004)
2. Nervous (straight up version)
3. Happy Jazz Jam
4. Girl’s voice from the woods
5. Carry Me To Safety verse (demo)
6. Water Slides (excerpt, early very different version)
7. Number 5 In The Sky, The Doc And The Prof Up So High (5th floor, Singapore)
8. My Complications (excerpt, recording glockenspiel)
9. Sport Master part 2 (Silas and Jonas free jam in Venice Beach in 2004)
10. I Am Shaky (early demo from 2004, later changed into part for Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy)
11. Making Friends (otherworld version)
12. Recording Of Intro, Self-Oscillation from South By SouthWest show in 2015
13. I Am Shaky (as sung by Mari Helgerlikova, demo version 2008)

Photo Credit: Sasha Ryabina