Carl Liungman – Photo: Gabriel Flores Jair

Music Interview – Carl Liungman

We were lucky enough to catch up with musician Carl Liungman, following the superb release of ‘SHINE’. Read the full interview below!

Hi Carl, what is your earliest music memory?

Hi, first, I want to thank you for highlighting my music and me as an artist!

I grew up in Sweden. I remember folk rock music festivals in the 70s that my mother visited together with me, aged 5. I also remember when I, at the age of 8-10, discovered tv serial themes in ‘The Macahan Family’ and ‘Dallas’. And I played them by ear on the piano. At the same age, I started to listen to The Beatles and Mozart from my mother’s LPs and music tapes in the living room.

How did you get into the music industry?

Is there really a specific ‘music industry’ to get into nowadays as it was in the early days?

I am a self-made musician. Just playing the piano, rehearsing, finding my own style and my own mix of genres over the years, and developing my professional profiles in social media to establish myself as a Neoclassical pianist.

Since the 2000s, I have got to know a lot of people in the music business in Sweden. In Stockholm, I was first signed by an indie label, but I realized I was better off by myself and started my own label Caliu Piano instead and took control of my distribution.

Who influenced your superb latest album release, ‘Shine’?

For many years I have been influenced by the great Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett as well as the Swedish Esbjörn Svensson. But my son introduced me to the French Neoclassical pianist Riopy, and I was very moved by his story and music. I am also a big Coldplay fan, as well as a fan of John Legend and other piano-based pop music.

My girlfriend Malin (songwriter/artist Carla Barks) helped me focus more on my unique style of mine that she saw great potential in. Making the songs for ‘SHINE’ was a kind of therapy for me after some years of hardships. I also was a lot influenced by singer/songwriters like Martha Wainwright, Olivia Broadfield and Greg Laswell.

Does ‘Shine’ follow on from your 2020 album ‘BORN’?

Yes, ‘BORN’ was kind of a late bloomer album debut for me where I wrapped up the musical style I developed during the 2010s. Before making this album, I wrote music for short films, published piano songs on SoundCloud and played live on smaller occasions.

The music on ‘SHINE’ was already during the ‘BORN’ creation taking shape in my mind. It was like many years of creating music suddenly starting to flow and rush into releases. While ‘BORN’ was a grand piano/big studio recording with more outgoing energy ‘SHINE’ became my intimate personal diary project, so to speak. Quiet piano music was spontaneously recorded in my home on a smaller piano.

‘Shine’ is a beautiful, classical-cinematic release; what draws you to the genre?

I have been into film music all my life. It started in my childhood when I was mesmerized by John Williams and other film composers. I studied both music and film history and have seen a lot of movies in my life, noticing the scores all the time. Hans Zimmer’s simple composing style, from which he creates wonderful scores, has been inspiring to me. Music from the Christopher Nolan movies Inception and Interstellar is a direct influence on both ‘BORN’ and ‘SHINE’.

Also, the music by Max Richter in the Denis Villeneuve film Arrival, together with the film’s music by the Icelandic Jóhann Jóhannsson, went straight into my heart.

What draws me to the genre is that I, in my music, want to create a kind of magic moment and deliver an inner story to the listener like the instrumental song would be a small movie in itself, making pictures and scenes for the listener.

Who would you most like to collaborate with?

Good question. I can’t mention fellow pianists, of course, but I would love to have creative master classes with Hans Zimmer, the Coldplay songwriters, Max Richter or with the German ‘techno Bach pianist’ Nils Frahm, for example.

A concrete collaboration with Björk would be awesome. Forgot to mention Björk before. She was my musical stepping stone for my creativity in the 90s and early 2000s. I would also like to cooperate with a cello player. There are quite a few good ones.

What’s your dream venue to play?

Hard to point one out. There are many great concert halls. It would be very special to do a solo piano concert in my hometown Malmö where I grew up in Southern Sweden. The town built’ Malmö Live’, a fantastic concert hall only some ten years ago where I saw Philip Glass play a solo piano concert. It could be kind of cool to handle the grand piano there, I must say. One of Europe’s best acoustics in this hall.

Other than music, what are you passionate about?

I have already mentioned films as a passion. Also, the modern art of all kinds, and writing poetry and lyrics. I am fond of Architecture and renovating old houses.

What changes would you like to see in the music business?

That the digital platforms change their algorithms to make indie artists more visible along with the major label artists, and foremost, all artists get paid better for every stream. An issue is that the mainstream media cooperate with the major labels and that the indie labels and artists have difficulties reaching out also in public service channels. I’d like to see a change in the system so that it opens up the broad media channels for indie artists much more.

How do you feel about how the Internet plays a role in today’s music business?

I really liked the early years of smartphones and music platforms on the Internet; how MySpace and the starting period of SoundCloud worked as democratic music platforms where the users were very actively sharing and commenting on each other’s tracks. SoundCloud of today is not the same thing at all.

Today I see great potential in social media like TikTok. But also recognize how Instagram and Facebook have been trashed down by the algorithms holding back the growth of indie music creators and opening doors for the major labels. Twitter is like a confusing place that is not of much importance anymore, I think.

Spotify and other platforms are important, but I see similar structural holdbacks as Insta and FB. I think there could pop up a new form of MySpace on the Net. Let’s also see if TikTok gets competition when it comes to spreading indie music.

What would it be if you could choose one thing for fans to take away from your music?

Hard to choose one thing, but it would be that I hope my listeners and fans experience the magic I try to mediate in the moment of listening. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but why not own the word myself?! I have messages, talking with my instrument and hoping my music awakens and soothes.

Have you started working on your next release?

Yes, I work on a piano concerto for solo piano where 19th-century style blends with modern piano. It is to be released in 2023. I also work on songwriting and have a couple of pop songs ready for collaborations or own releases. I do sing myself, so maybe I might surprise you with a singer/songwriter piano album sometime in the near future. You never know.

FVMusicBlog December 2023

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