All that jazz and more inspired the debut LP by sir Was’ Joel Wästberg
“Digging A Tunnel is full of heartbreak, alienation and fear,” says Joel Wästberg with a laugh. The man who records as sir Was adds that he rides his own emotional roller coaster with a philosophical nonchalance.
“I was going through a lot of suffering and uncertainty when I composed the tracks,” he says. “I was low on cash, breaking up with my girlfriend and didn’t know if I was gonna stay in Stockholm or go home to Gothenburg. I was insecure about my music, even though I’d played on more than 20 albums and made my living as a musician.”
When Wästberg was 15, he heard Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Swedish jazz man Lars Gullin. He became obsessed with the saxophone, but while he was playing in jazz bands and pop groups, he was also writing hundreds of songs that went unheard. “I spent 15 years creating stuff I didn’t show to anyone, except maybe a friend or two when I was drunk,” he says. “In 2014, I knew I couldn’t continue. I decided to make an EP and put it up online or something. I had many sketches/demos/ideas from all my ‘secret years,’ and as I began recording, I suddenly had an album.”
Wästberg made Digging A Tunnel in a small studio/rehearsal space, singing and playing everything himself. The music is dense and multilayered, informed by pop, jazz, rock, funk, rap and world music. There’s even a hint of John Cage in the found sounds that float through the mix to create its challenging soundscapes.
“I like the feeling of being totally absorbed in a world of sound, musical and nonmusical,” he says. “Perhaps we can call the noise ‘nonarranged sounds’ that are later put into a controlled environment and become ‘arranged.’ It’s just the result of everything I’ve been listening to over the years, coming out in another form.”
—j. poet
