CORRESPONDENCE #2: Sternpost special
Interview + exclusive song + current LP influences.
Welcome to the second CORRESPONDENCE newsletter, which consists of these three items:
1. Text: Interview with Petter Herbertsson (Sternpost, Testbild! etc).
2. Audio: ”Sounds Everywhere” by Sternpost. New, exclusive song!
3. Top 10: Petter Herbertsson’s influences for the next Sternpost album.
1. Text
Petter Herbertsson’s music is neither modern nor retro, it’s rather an invite to a part of town where Melody and Mystery live next to each other. The prolific Swedish musician has released music for 25 years, as Testbild!, The Ocean Tango, Anaglyfparken, Partikelbana, Sjtjekn and Room For Teeth, with Sternpost as his current solo alias. The 2023 Sternpost album Ulrika even received more international – unexpected but well-deserved – recognition for Petter’s music than ever before.
Detail from the cover of Sternpost’s unworld.afterpop album, released in July.
”Sounds Everywhere” is an exclusive song for the CORRESPONDENCE newsletter —it’s not included on the next Sternpost album which will be released during the Summer. This brief interview is an extract from recent messenger correspondence between me and Petter.
For me “Sounds Everywhere” is a perfect stand-alone single, sounding a bit like Cole Porter-meets-Cositech or Buggles mixed with some film theme from the 1940s.
Yes, I guess that’s kind of what I had in mind— the inspiration mainly comes from early Prefab Sprout, which you can probably hear, but also from old Broadway musicals, the “Great American Songbook”. It’s also a bit outside my comfort zone… it’s a little too cheerful, you know? At the same time, I like it.
The next Sternpost album will be released by the Concentric Circles label in the beginning of July. How would you describe it?
– It's called unworld.afterpop, conceptually centered around four different characters in four different settings, played by Katja, Siri, Petter S, and Douglas. A bit complicated as usual, but otherwise it’s probably one of my most poppy and accessible albums ever. Very influenced by both Swoon and I Trawl the Megahertz.
2. Audio
Sternpost “Sounds Everywhere”
when the din of the town
strikes you with its grin upside down
architecture’s damp dressing gown
sounds everywhere
suddenly there’s a clang of stars
I don’t mind all the rain
every drop of bling spells the same
I should know these moments by now
lights overland
neon signs in my head will drown
twinkling search lights underscore the plan
stars in the palm of my hand
sparks in the dark radioland
Top 10
Petter Herbertsson’s influences for Sternpost’s next album, unworld.afterpop:
1. Clarice Lispector – The Hour of the Star (book)2. Clarice Lispector – A Breath of Life (book)
3. Prefab Sprout – Swoon (album)
4. Paddy McAloon – I Trawl the Megahertz (album)
5. James Lapine – Six by Sondheim (movie)
6. Slapp Happy (band)
7. Svend Hammershøi (artist)
8. Terence Davies – Distant Voices, Still Lives (movie)
9. él (record label)
10. Robert Wyatt (role model)
correspondence(n.)
early 15c., "congruence, resemblance, harmony, agreement," from Medieval Latin correspondentia, from correspondentem (nominative correspondens), present participle of correspondere "correspond, harmonize, reciprocate," from assimilated form of com "together, with (each other)" (see com-) + respondere "to answer" (see respond). Sense of "communication by letters" is first attested 1640s; that of "the letters which pass between correspondents" is from 1771.