biography
Pineforest Crunch was formed in 1994 by former schoolfriends Åsa Eklund ( Vocals ), Ole Söderström ( guitars ) and Mats Lundgren ( Bass and Keyboards ). As a weapon against boredom and as a way of getting over broken relationships the three starting recording a demo called “ Slumberparty at Sandra’s “. Convinced the recording was a no-brainer the band went confidently to all the major labels. The band soon got frustrated of waiting for the record deal that so surely would turn up in the mail anyday soon so the band started booking gigs. To do gigs you need a full band so Jonas Petterson ( electric guitars ) and Mattias Olsson ( Drums ) were called in to fill out the gaps.
6 demos later and almost 80 gigs later the letter from the major label finally showed up. This resulted in the critically acclaimed debut album Make Believe that was released on Polygram. The album was rich with pop hooks, soaring vocals and jangly guitars to both the critics and publics delight. The album contained the hit single “ Cup Noodle Song “ which lead to tours of Sweden and Japan, gold records and award ceremonies.
The band decided that the best way to follow up the debut album would be to start stacking analog keyboards, spending long nights experimenting with sounds and song formulas and to tear apart every song into minute pieces and then to piece them back together backwards. It takes a very special producer/engineer to take on a task like this and who better than Jim Warren who had worked with Radiohead and Peter Gabriel. The band moved to England and started burning the midnight oil.
When they came back to Sweden proud and pleased with their sophomore album Watergarden. The press were shocked. What had happened to the indie pop darlings. Somewhere the songs had been turned into mini-epics often containing strings, backwards guitars, orchestral percussion and multi layered guitars that often more sounded like keyboards built by blind midgets wearing boxing gloves.
Let´s put it this way….Watergarden ( 1998 ) is an acquired taste.
Fast forward to the year 2000.
Pineforest Crunch in a tour bus going over the Nevada Desert heading for Vegas. The bus filled with instruments, records and old friends. Everyone rediscovering the joy of being in a band on tour again. Far away from ice-cold things like critics, snow and recordlabels. The band filled up on energy and enthusiasm and started to find their way back to the spark that was lit with Slumberparty at Sandra´s.
Somewhere in the bus the seed was sown to what was to become the bands third album Panamarenko.
This time no one from the outside was let in to the studio while recording. The band fired just about everyone engineers, producers and managers. This album was going to be the bands own. How it turned out. In one word…Amazing. Sounding like a blend between Make Believe and Watergarden, Panamarenko is the bands strongest album to date. Experimental yet melodic, Immediate yet multifaceted Panamarenko is an album that will keep on growing. A modern classic.
