Biography

The release of ‘Attention Stockholm' marked the beginning of a new direction for indie. Taking its cue from the mode of moving images, the single was not so much sung as ‘spoken'. The speaker being Swedish translation student Virna Lindt. Her intention was to make a record like "a Hitchcock theme with a rock ’n' roll beat”. Thus, the urgent-sounding 45, recorded in Stockholm in one live 3-hour session became the first record on the influential Compact Organization label. Out of nowhere, ‘Attention Stockholm’, distributed by Rough Trade, was suddenly atop the UK indie chart and an album, SHIVER, was in production. Weaving together twangy guitars of surf-punk with the lush strings of Hollywood and the musique concrète of Pierre Boulez and John Cage. Tours of Scandinavia, Holland, Germany and Japan followed the release of the debut album when Virna Lindt became one of the first of the New Wavers to be proclaimed genuinely Big in Japan. A second album, PLAY/RECORD, displayed a stylistic shift towards a more rhapsodic 'orchestra with beats' approach. While the hypnotic hit UNDERWATER BOY, about the sightings of Soviet u-boats in the Swedish archipelago, surfaced well ahead of its time. Seemingly timeproof, it is continually multi-streamed today. After a suitably mysterious hiatus, ONCE, a brand new single has just been released. Listen to the music and you will hear the images.