Indians wake up a dormant volcano

(© Piper Ferguson)

Less than a year ago, Indians – not a gang from the subcontinent, but the nom de plume of the blond Dane Søren Løkke Juul – uploaded “Magic Kids”, after which the fragile song about loss was soon picked up by the blogosphere and started touring extensively. He even made it to the States in the wake of Beirut, Other Lives, and Perfume Genius. The einzelgänger is now debuting on the renowned British label 4AD (The National, Efterklang) with Somewhere Else, a gem that thaws slowly like a frozen mountain lake.

Juul gives voice to Scandinavian dreaminess with fleeting electronica and warm acoustic guitars, which he gently wraps in his ethereal, high voice. It all sounds very fragile and raw. “I believe in first takes, they keep things spontaneous and fresh,” Søren Løkke Juul tells us. “I think it’s dangerous to record a song, and then record it again and again."

Juul has been making music for ten years, playing keyboard and singing backing vocals in various bands. He is only now calling his own shots. “We performed often, but things got too normal, I didn’t feel challenged anymore. Music started boring me, which was very frustrating. I started writing songs myself, to get out of the deadlock.” Søren Løkke Juul explains his own creative outbursts using the image of a dormant volcano. We might attribute a certain taste for exaggeration to him, however circumspect he might be, but we get him. “There is a diamond shape with an orange glow on the cover of Somewhere Else: that might be the lava rising now.” [Smiles]

Søren Løkke Juul is referred to as the Danish Bon Iver, and we can see why. Just like Justin Vernon, he has mastered the art of giving very intimate, refined songs a far-reaching élan. He started to write and record in his apartment in Copenhagen, but after a while set out to seek isolation in Bösebo, a remote corner on the countryside in Sweden. “To see the world, you sometimes have to look at it from a distance. At the same time, I was able to relax and I could dream without being disturbed. I think dreaming is very important. To me, making music is like creating a world that doesn’t exist outside. I don’t like reality much. Sometimes I’m so far gone, without being stoned or drunk, that I don’t remember where some of the songs came from.” [Laughs]

“The war is just outside my door and I’m going out to win, my clothes are lying at the floor and I’m naked in the wind,” Juul sings in “New”, a song about shedding your skin and letting go. “That song is about the strange feeling you get when you’ve been daydreaming for hours with your headphones on and then you go outside into the real world. I felt very vulnerable and naked, like people could do anything with me.”

Søren Løkke Juul may be a loner, but he enjoys spending time with people and moving them with his music. “Now that the record is finished, I think it’s great that other people will be able to ‘use’ the songs. Perhaps people will fall in love by listening to my record, or perhaps it will help them through difficult times. I find that very exciting.”

Indians • 4/2, 20.00, SOLD OUT!, HUIS 23, Steenstraat 23 rue des Pierres, Brussel/Bruxelles, www.abconcerts.be