FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Josefin Öhrn

FEATURE:

Modern-Day Queens

Josefin Öhrn

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I will end with…

a review of the magnificent Cherry. Josefin Öhrn is a terrific artist who I have been following for a while now. I am going to start out with a couple of interviews with her. Songwriting Magazine who write how “Cherry, marks a slight departure from the hypnotic psych-rock of her former band, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, with whom she released three albums and earned a Swedish Grammy nomination”. This is an artist that you really need to follow:

“First of all, where did the decision come from to do a solo album, and how did that change the way you went about writing the songs?

“During the pandemic, my tour was cancelled and everything was so shut down. I actually studied photography for two years, but I couldn’t stop writing songs. All of a sudden, I realised, ‘Okay, I have a whole album. I have enough songs.’ I reached out to Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm from The Soundtrack of Our Lives. He had co-produced one of my earlier songs, and I also really liked his studio and his sound. I was like, ‘Oh, maybe we should do something?’ So yeah, that’s how it all happened. I flew over to Sweden a couple of times to his studio and recorded there with him.”

In the studio, is there a push and pull between letting the musicians be free but also getting them to play the songs how you want them to sound?

“The people I worked with are really talented and also had great ideas; it fit perfectly. For example, Andy Bell [Ride, Oasis] put guitar on some tracks, and I just loved what he did. Also, Björn Yttling, from Peter Bjorn and John, who also works with Lykke Li, added some synths. I’ve always loved his sound, so I was really happy when he added that layer. That was really fun, actually, getting these ideas from other people.”

Is there a time of day or a place that you find is best for that to happen?

“I think maybe evenings or mornings. During the day, if you’re out and about, you get all these impressions, but sometimes when you just wake up, or in the evening, your surroundings are a bit calmer. I usually write with pen and paper, and then on my laptop. But for melodies, I use voice recordings. It’s so like: overfill my phone with all these melodies.”

Which of the two tends to come first?

“Often, melody comes first. But I sometimes also have a lyric idea – a theme or something that I want to write about, and then I start. But then, with the lyrics, when you have the melody, you have to see which phrases work rhythmically. Or, if you already have lyrics, you try and match with them. If you’ve got the rhythm, you’re trying to write the lyrics that fit that rhythm.”

Let’s talk about a couple of the songs. We really liked The Real Thing with its rippling synth. How did that one come about?

“Thank you. I’m so glad you like it. That was the last song that was added to the album. Me and Kalle had this idea: we had done all the other songs, and then we thought we should have something more dancey. We wanted something 70s, a bit like Donna Summer, something you could dance to, a party song. Then, the lyric was just a comment on this dating-app era.”

That suggests that you’re aware of an album being one entity that ebbs and flows rather than just a collection of individual songs…

“I wanted this album to be like a film, like a journey. I do also like albums where the songs are maybe more similar in tempo, or it doesn’t matter that much to me. It’s about having an interesting atmosphere, or an interesting experience when you listen to an album. We wanted the album to keep the attention”.

The next interview I want to cover is from God Is in the TV Zine. This is a big moment for Josefin Öhrn. I have never seen her perform live, but I can imagine that she is wonderful on the stage. Cherry coming to life there would be a magnificent experience. I was aware of Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, so I was excited to hear a solo album from Öhrn. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next from this amazing artist:

“London-based Swedish singer/songwriter Josefin Öhrn bewitched and transfixed as frontwoman of the intoxicating psych-rockers Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation. Here in 2026 Josefin steps out of the purple smoke of psychedelia to present her solo album Cherry, out later this month. Produced by Kalle Jerneholm Gustavsson (Soundtrack Of Our Lives), the record is a showcase of songwriting as storytelling in a classy, and close form. The songs beautifully pull us in to reflect on themes of love, sadness and absolute joyfulness through the contemporary female lens.

Josefin talks to us about writing the record, the pleasures of collaborating with Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Andy Bell (Ride/Oasis), covering Elvis, and the positives of asking.

How did you approach making Cherry? Was there a plan from the start, an intention to make something so different from previously? Clearer messaging, metaphor-free?

My last album with the Liberation was in 2019, just before October, and then the pandemic happened. It was so shut down, the music industry. I was so used to touring a lot, and so I was almost “oh, what do I do now?”. I studied photography for two years, but I couldn’t stop writing songs! I didn’t really have an intention in mind to make an album. I just had inspiration and melody and I wrote about my own experiences and themes of female perspective. Maybe that’s just natural to me because it’s like the life I live.

It’s a beautiful record and romantic in both the relationships and the broader sense.

It just happened naturally, I could definitely see that there are these themes of longing and love relationships, and I guess I you can hear the vocals more than on my previous albums. I wanted it to be more forward. I do love like guitar layers of the psych rock but I wanted to be a little bit more intimate on this album. That was definitely something I wanted. So it’s more like a film in your in your head, maybe for the listener.

‘Lose Yourself‘ is a collaboration with Anton Newcombe which manages to be both bold and tender. A duet with Anton unexpectedly delivering in baritone.

I really love Anton’s music, and I admire him as a songwriter. I met him once before we did this. It was long time ago. We played a festival in Sweden. My producer and me, we just asked him if he wanted to do something and he said he’d love to. I’m so happy with how the vocals turn out.

I was like, do what he wants, and this what he sent me – I think there’s so much soul. To hear our voices together made the song so much more.

So. Cherry. Your debut solo album. How does it feel as you approach its release?

I’m really glad that it’s going to be out there and people have access to it. It’s been so lovely during these years since I released my last album with the Liberation that some fans have been reaching out and like, “we want more music, we want more music”, so I feel so glad that I can give that to them now!”.

I want to end with a review of Cherry from Back Seat Mafia. They provided a detailed and positive review of one of the standout albums of this year. I will end here, but I would urge people to follow Josefin Öhrn on social media. A truly incredible artist who you cannot afford to overlook. I will keep an eye out for future tour dates:

“Josefin Öhrn has made an album about falling headlong into desire again, and she isn’t the least bit coy about it. ‘Cherry’, her solo debut, was written during a period of reinvention and recorded while she lived at Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg, a residential studio far from her London routine, where she was breathing music every waking and sleeping hour. You can hear that immersion in every track. It’s a sensual, unguarded record, made by someone who knows exactly what she’s feeling and has decided to say so.

Öhrn arrives with serious form. Between 2011 and 2019 she fronted Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, whose hypnotic psych-rock took them from Rocket Recordings to Glastonbury, Roskilde and Berghain, earning a Swedish Grammy nomination along the way. Those who loved the band’s motorik trance will hear echoes of it here. This time, though, the avant-garde edges are sanded back in favour of clear hooks, laid-back atmospheres and her voice placed firmly at the front of the mix. The obvious reference points are Kurt Vile, Lana Del Rey and Natalie Bergman, and she keeps some very good company too. Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis, and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream all appear, with production from Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm of The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

The album is about fresh starts, desire, love and grief, written during what the press notes call “a giddy second adolescence.” It sits alongside recent records from Robyn and Lykke Li in which women’s experiences are laid out candidly and without apology. Öhrn herself describes it as a document of endings and awakenings, which is as good a summary as any.

Opener ‘Electrified’ sets the tone, a dreamy rush with Gillespie on backing vocals, capturing the dopamine glow of new love. The instruments ripple like a skipping stone thrown across a pond with a buzzsaw spine. Öhrn describes the sensation as:

that super heightened state of mind, that dopamine bliss.

‘Dreaming of You’, lifted by playful synths from Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, is pure sunshine as it skips and dances with a joyful restlessness and a wandering bass line. Öhrn describes it as all about desire, about that longing for connection, with that someone.

First single ‘Cherry Tree’ is slow, hazy melancholy pop, and the clearest bridge between The Liberation and the solo Öhrn: a breathy meditation on love that will never be returned. ‘Lose Yourself’, with Newcombe, drifts into Mazzy Star territory with its brittle crystalline guitars and hypnotic roll.

‘The Real Thing’ is pulsing psychedelic disco and a sharp comment on the dating-app era of love bombing and projection with a Donna Summer pulse and a Jesus and Mary Chain barbed-wire spine.

‘What If’ has a Jane Birkin/sixties insouciance, slinky, sensuous and antheimc.

‘I Want You’ continues with this feel, going unashamedly pop, with breathy vocals, swirling bongos and nostalgic Moog. It’s almost day-glo pop with a skipping pace that evokes dappled sunshine and euphoria.

The two covers work as the album’s emotional anchors. Her take on ‘Always On My Mind’ is suitably sultry. Her version of ‘Jag Ger Dig Min Morgon’, Fred Åkerström’s 1970s Swedish cult song, is a tender nod to home with its trilling instrumentation and gentle exposition.

That idea of home comes back on closer ‘Shoreline’, a reflection on growing up in Sweden, with family in France and Belgium and a decade in London, and on not quite knowing where you belong. Crystalline guitars etch a thread throughout the track as Öhrn’s vocals are dreamy and reflective, delicate and heartbreakingly beautiful.

What makes Cherry compelling is that its giddiness is earned. This is not youthful naivety but the rush of someone with life experience, and a long-held sense of responsibility, choosing freedom anyway. Creativity does not have a use-by date, and neither, it seems, does falling in love.

‘Cherry’ is an epic work of art, delicately crafted and expressive, melodic and anthemic. There are echoes of JAMC, Mazzy Star and Jane Birkin – a delicious sonic kaleidoscope that shimmers”.

The amazing Josefin Öhrn has released one of the best albums of this year with Cherry. Even though there are collaborations on the album, it is Öhrn and her incredible voice that stands out. So many highlights to choose from, go and listen to this wonderful work from an artist that everyone needs to check out. I was keen to spotlight someone whose work I really love. Josefin Öhrn is truly…