Per Gessle

Per Gessle to release TWO new albums

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Press release about Per’s new solo albums was just sent out. Some months ago it was announced that Per would release an album as well as go on tour in summer. There were then rumours that it would not be one but two albums. And now this has been confirmed.

The first album, En vacker natt, will be out on April 28th. The first single “Småstadsprat“, a duet with Lars Winnerbäck, will be released on March 17th.

The second album, En vacker dag, will be released on September 1st, after the tour.

The albums will be released under Space Station 12 (in cooperation with Sony/BMG), Per’s record label which was founded in 2016.

Awesome isn’t it? Article will be updated with more info in English in short.

En vacker natt – setlist:

01 – Min plats
02 – Första Ppis (duet with Helena Josefsson)
03 – Småstadsprat (duet with Lars Winnerbäck)
04 – Enkel resa
05 – Allt gick så fort
06 – Tittar på dej när du dansar
07 – Några glas rosé
08 – Far Too Close (duet with Savannah Church)

Press release in English:

Two new Swedish solo albums by Per Gessle:
Personal, poetic, unique

With three disparate careers in his back – Gyllene Tider, Roxette, and his solo career – Per Gessle is in himself an entire Universe of music. Besides that, he always has a number of side projects going on. Soon he will release two different albums with new songs in Swedish: “En vacker natt” (“A Beautiful Night”) in the end of April and “En vacker dag” (“A Beautiful Day”) in September. And as if by accident, his summer tour is entitled “En vacker kväll” (“A Beautiful Evening”). The premiere takes place in Helsingborg on the 6th of July.

Last autumn, Per and his longstanding sidekicks Christoffer Lundquist, Clarence Öfwerman, Anders Herrlin and Helena Josefsson went to Nashville to record brand new music in Swedish.

“It crossed my mind that over the last ten years, I had spent more than 400 days in Christoffer’s studio down in Skåne,” laughs Per. “So I figured it was time to record somewhere else.”

They considered studios in England and France but were recommended the Blackbird Studios in Nashville. The mythic country capital of Tennessee felt like a challenging choice.

“We went there with no real expectations. I was curious about letting my songwriting meet the peculiar music scene of Nashville that I’ve always been very fond of. I didn’t want to shape the material too much before we went there; I just recorded some very simple acoustic demos. Then we allowed local musicians to influence the arrangements and the productions. The result became amazing,” says Per. “We had the honour to collaborate with some of the most talented Nashville musicians. People who usually play with Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt.”

The albums include a total of six duets; three on each. “Smådstadsprat” with Lars Winnerbäck, the first single from “En vacker natt”, is released on March 17th.

“I always find it inspiring to make duets, it provides you with a new angle to write lyrics and it opens up for thrilling arrangements. On the second album, Linnea Henriksson and John Holm join on vocals. And despite being ‘Swedish’ albums, both end with English duets with country singers Savannah Church and Jessica S. That became my homage to Nashville.”

Most of the songs were written after Roxette retired from touring in the spring of 2016.

“All of a sudden my schedule was open, so I started sketching some material of my own again. The records in Swedish are holy to me. The lyrics are really very important, not to say central. They’re about things that we all go through: the transience of life; our hopes, dreams and disappointments; how your era and generation shape the person you become. Each song tells a story of its own. The music is of course equally important. It’s the magical fusion between words and music that makes sure that a song gets stuck in the head and the heart of the listener.”

On the new albums Per Gessle continues to portray the meeting of people – the infatuation, the passion, the glow and the playfulness.  For instance, in “Tittar på dej när du dansar” from the spring album “En vacker natt”. In the song “Allt gick så fort” the ego looks back at different times in his youth; as an eight-years old, as an eighteen-years old, and notes that ‘the avant-garde became mainstream in the end.” It’s personal, poetic and unique.

“En vacker natt” and “En vacker dag” are released via Per Gessle’s new founded record label Space Station 12. Released: April 28 and September 1.

Per Gessle surprises two Polish fans at Gay Gala

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The yearly Gay Gala (organised by QX) took place yesterday evening. In this gala various LGBT-awards are presented to winners who have been selected by popular (readers) vote.

This year, David and Jakub from Poland were invited to present one of the awards. They both became famous when they recorded a video for “Some Other Summer” – which at the same time meant their come out to the whole world. It was not always easy for them (specially in very conservative Poland), but the positive response was much bigger than the negative one. The couple plans to get married this year.

When they were on stage, Per Gessle (who has been sharing and praising the video on Facebook since the couple shared it), came on stage and surprised the two fans.

 We love the video and we wish them all the best for their wedding – said Per on stage.

So far we haven’t found few pictures (search “Gessle”) and no video of the special moment. The Gay Gala 2017 will be broadcast on Swedish TV4 on Saturday 11th at 21:30 CET. Let’s hope this part makes it in the final cut!

 

2 Per Gessle concerts in Finland are added

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2 more dates are added to Per Gessle’s summer tour. Both dates are in Finland, at the end of August. This means the tour won’t end in Eskilstuna on 19th August and there will be a total of 21 concerts in the end. At least known at this point.

The 2 extra dates are Vasa 25th August (capacity of the stadium is 4000) and Borgå (Popkalaset festival) 26th August.

Tickets for Vasa go on sale on 9th February.

 

 

En vacker kväll poll #3 – The World According to Gessle

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Time for poll #3. In this case it’s the turn for Per’s English album “The World According To Gessle”. We took the version with the extra track Love Doesn’t Live Here for this poll. The other demos & extras will be included in another poll later on.

Hard to believe that this album turns 20 this year! The album is for me timeless (like many of Per’s penned songs) and always amazing to listen to.

I’ve been thinking of Per’s question regarding what we would love to hear or not. I didn’t really make a list of songs but here some ideas of what would be a super beautiful evening:

  • What about a small “TWATG-20th-Anniversary-Party” during the tour. What would be cool is something like what Bruce Springsteen did during his The River Tour: he played the whole album “The River” (released in 1980) in all shows. In our case it could be with TWATG?
  • Or similar to above but with the other solo albums too. For example “The PG-evening” or the “Mazarin-Evening”. It would be a bit more tricky for us to be able to catch all shows with “special evenings” but hey, a tour should be fun or?
  • Reserve a 1-2 song window during the show to take “live requests” from the audience. That would mean a lot of flexibility from the band and improvising though… Could you imagine this happening?
  • A very long show, at least longer than the shows we have seen so far which were approx. 2 hours long. I would love a 3-hour show for instance. I know that playing full albums in between would mean even a 4-hour-long-Per-concert. But would you mind? That would be something huh?  In any case, the expected 2-hour show is definetely too short!

[yop_poll id=”23″]

Musical with Per Gessle’s songs

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Teater Halland got green light from Per Gessle to use his music in their upcoming musical “Halland Love Stories”. The approximately 2-hour-long (plus break) musical’s premiere is set to 2nd March 2018 on the Main Stage of Teater Halland in Varberg and then they will tour with it in other theaters of Halland and neighbouring regions in Sweden. There will be 4 actors in the musical.

The theater plans to ask the audience, those living in Halland to tell them their own love stories and from this collection, to Mr. G’s songs they will create a musical which will be a celebration of love.

According to the theater’s director, Anna Sjövall, Per thought it sounded like a very funny and nice idea. The musical will consist of Per’s Swedish songs and it will be a bit like Mamma Mia!

 

SVT talked to Per about the project and he said many of his songs are somehow rooted in Halmstad and the west coast so it felt nice that the theater thought of him. To the question which of his solo songs Per could relate spontaneously to the theme “Halland Love Stories” he replied:

“På promenad genom stan” or “För bra för att vara sant” are very much home for me. There are several songs on my new album (out in April), which also belong to Halmstad. Small town genes never disappear.

Per says he quite often receives international inquiries on various musical projects and ideas. It will certainly happen “down the road” when everything feels right. To the question if he has ever thought about writing a musical Mr. G replied:

No, but I’m still young.

SVT asked Per what songs he listened to more than once this year so far. Per says Linnea Henriksson’s new song “Säga mig” is very good. Bon Iver’s latest album is wonderfully weird. Mr. G says that after his trip to Nashville he ended up in an old-fashioned country-coma. Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson and such. Adorable. Alex Shields’ “New York City Ways” has been hot in the kitchen since Christmas, but he is biased there, as he was involved in writing it.