Per Gessle about Mono Mind on Musikplats Stockholm

After Per Gessle got back from the US to Sweden this week, Fredrik Eliasson from Swedish Radio P4 Stockholm immediately did an interview with him to be broadcast yesterday on Musikplats Stockholm. Listen to it HERE!

The interview was about Mono Mind and before it was on air, they played I Found My Soul At Marvingate. Cool to hear it on the radio!

Fredrik introduced Mono Mind as Mr. G’s secret project that got out of the closet recently. Then he welcomed Per as Dr. Robot and Per said in a slightly changed voice that ”yes, I’m here” (trying to imitate Dr. Robot’s voice, but it didn’t work well without the computer distortion, haha). Fredrik wished a belated happy birthday to Per and asked how it was to celebrate his 60th. Per said it was quite intense for 2 days with a very few people. He said his wife is very social and he is the opposite, so he just sat in a dark corner and it went fine. Haha.

The guys talked about Mono Mind’s debut album that it was released on Per’s birthday. Mr. G shared the info that he started releasing singles in 2017 and the first single was Save Me A Place. He said no one knew he was behind the project and the song suddenly became No. 1 on the dance charts in the US and kept the position for 6 weeks. It was much fun to achieve this at his age and with an anonymous project.

Per talked about the characters and that he wanted to change his voice and how it worked in the studio when he was sitting there with Christoffer Lundquist for weeks. It’s not vocoder or any other gadget you can hear, but they created the new voice on the computer themselves. Each song took appr. 2.5 days to create. It was very exciting.

Per said the idea was to create some kind of modern pop music and pop music nowadays is made on laptops. So he wanted to try to mix it with his classic songwriting and it has become a new chapter in his career. Fredrik asked Per about Nashville where he went rather acoustic and Per said Mono Mind started already before Nashville.

Before they played Down by the Riverside, Per said it’s one of his favourite songs. He thinks Dr. Robot’s voice is the best on this one.

The guys then talked about Helena Josefsson. Per said she has a fantastic voice and it fits Dr. Robot’s voice very well and it brightens up all songs.

Per said Mono Mind is still like a playhouse for him. The album was released on 12th January and on 11th he was thinking shit, if it was really a good idea to reveal this project. What if people don’t like it? He would be a bit sad. And what if people like it? How to go on with it? And then there were questions if he goes on tour with Mono Mind. But how to do it? It can be something similar to how Daft Punk or Pet Shop Boys tour, but who knows. The only sure thing is that Per wants to continue working with Mono Mind and develop the whole project, the characters and their stories. One can do anything with such characters.

Per talked about the market for this type of music. He said there are a lot of competitors out there and you need much luck to succeed. He can’t see the same journey with Mono Mind as they had with Roxette, but it’s much fun to record and talk about it anyway. Fredrik jokes with ”are there any exchange students around?”. Haha.

As a last question, Fredrik asked Per which song he is the most satisfied with on Mind Control. Mr. G was thinking for a while, then he said In Control. They had some magical hours when they recorded that song. He likes its construction, the changes in it that don’t usually happen in dance music. There is a kind of progressive rock 1972 in it, Barclay James Harvest style. He thinks it’s magnificent music coming from him and laughs. After the interview they played In Control.

 

Mono Mind shows a real face

The first – and so far the last – time I myself wrote or posted about Mono Mind was almost a year ago. I remember when I saw the lyric video to Save Me A Place (Bridge & Mountain Remix) on SiriusXM’s YouTube channel in September 2017 and couldn’t believe my eyes it was already uploaded a month before. Then I started searching for more info and was amazed by finding out that this song had something to do with David Guetta (at least according to BMI). We’d been wondering since 2014 what kind of project it could have been, what Per worked on with Guetta. Then some more research and found out Mono Mind had existed even longer, since 2016 when they released a song called Sugar Rush, however, it was withdrawn later and Save Me A Place became the gang’s debut single.

I couldn’t imagine how come we (Gessle fans) didn’t know anything about this project until September 2017. Then I remembered some kind of interview in which Per said it’s not important for him anymore to let us hear what he records. He is doing it for fun. That’s something hard to accept for a fan. Not the fun part, but that you might not get to hear ”everything” what your idol records.

Then there were these Mono Mind characters. No real names mentioned, just fantasy names for each of them (we all know PG loves aliases), and how they looked as Per on some of the Party Crasher booklet pics or as the characters on The Per Gessle Selection’s champagne labels.

A playlist including some of Mono Mind’s favorite tunes and musical inspirations across the decades provided one more clue who could be behind MM.

Besides these, there was the voice of Per (that you can recognize no matter how distorted it is) and Helena Josefsson singing, so all the obvious clues who Mono Mind are. Still… I felt kind of guilty writing about them, revealing the connection to PG & Co. Even Billboard kept the whole Mono Mind project a mystery. When the gang entered the Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts at No. 39, Billboard still wrote it was a mysterious act. Then bang, in October Save Me A Place (Bridge & Mountain Remix) became the No. 1 dance song on the US radio charts and the No. 1 electronic song on iTunes and Amazon in the US. On the Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts SMAP climbed up to No. 2! History repeated itself. Reaching such success in the US without using Per’s fame, just by the music itself. I can imagine it was a fantastic feeling for Mr. G.

And I think then I understood the whole mystery act thing. To get to see how far they can get without revealing who is behind. A bit like Daft Punk (however, it’s a different story) don’t really show their faces and wanted to succeed with their music instead of making too much fuss about who they are. Or The Fireman, the experimental music duo of Paul McCartney and Youth. Even if the band members’ names had been known to the public since soon after their first album release, they remained officially anonymous for 15 years, until their 3rd album release. Blame it on the 21st century and social media, these days it’s even harder to keep such secrets and mysteries.

Fortunately, with every Mono Mind release there are more and more details revealed. Some on purpose, some ”by accident”(?) – a collaborator posts about a common project with his childhood idol here, a digital platform shares Per’s name as the songwriter there. By the latest reveal, namely Helena appearing in the LaLaLove official video shared on several MTV websites I start feeling relieved. That sooner or later all members in Mono Mind show their real faces. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mr. G, pardon me, Dr Robot in the videos as well.

As per PG, there is nothing left to prove for him, but he proves to be an Artist who can constantly renew and challenge himself, while still keeping his trademark in songwriting. I admire him for being able to do so. He is so incredibly talented!

I can’t say I’m a fan of remixes or better said, I don’t find it interesting enough for me to hear a song in different types of remixes, because I’m mostly interested in the original artist’s thoughts on the arrangement and less in what other musicians think what they could do with a song. There are of course cool remixes. If I have to mention one related to Roxette, then it’s definitely Bassflow. At the same time, I must admit some remixes in general sound better than the original song.

From the 3 Mono Mind releases so far I have 1-1 favourite version. Save Me A Place was released in 5 remix versions and the Bridge & Mountain Remix is the one I consider being the ”original” and that’s what I like the most. I would love to hear an original original of this one though. I Found My Soul At Marvingate sounds the best to me in the Sofa Tunes Remix version, better than the original (being too slow). LaLaLove sounds better in its original version than in the Hugel Remix.

A dream would be to hear the demos one day, without any distorted PG voice. However, I must say Per’s voice sounds attractive to me in any version. 😉

What do we know so far?

So, what we know about Mono Mind so far is that ”is meant to be a musical laboratory where everything is possible. Mono Mind’s home turf is Sweden but the collaborators are plentiful and can be from anywhere. Mixing the inspiration from the current music scene with an insatiable appetite for vintage pop, electronica and ambient music Mono Mind strives for electrifying beauty and something quite different. The journey begins here.”

Members: Dr Robot (Per Gessle), Cooky Carter (Helena Josefsson), Rain Davis (Clarence Öfwerman) and Bright Jones (Christoffer Lundquist).

They started introducing the band members in short videos on their Facebook page, but stopped after 3 Rain Davis, 2 Cooky Carter and 1 Dr Robot videos. Where is a video with Bright Jones?

There was an Ask Anything Chat with the guys and girl last October. It contained more fun & fantasy than reality: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3. Very creative with tiny references only hardcore fans can connect to the real people behind.

Songs released so far (credit info from Mono Mind’s website):

  1. Save Me A Place Words by Mono Mind; Music by Mono Mind / Jack Hisbach / Giorgio Tuinfort / Michael Einziger (however, BMI also mentions David Guetta among the composers, so could Jack Hisbach be an alias of DG?)
  2. I Found My Soul At Marvingate Words & Music by Mono Mind
  3. LaLaLove Words by Mono Mind; Music by Mono Mind / Alex Shield

   

NRJ DJ Awards 2018 – Vote!

Why I also decided to write about Mono Mind now is that there is a voting taking place in France. MM is nominated at the French NRJ DJ Awards 2018 in the following two categories – ”Group Of The Year” and ”Club Hit Of The Year” (Save Me A Place – Hugel Remix). They are now in the same league as David Guetta or Tiesto or Armin Van Buuren. It’s already very cool, but imagine if they won! You can all vote until August 26, but the results will be announced at a ceremony only on November 7. Click HERE to vote for the ”Group Of The Year” and HERE to vote for the ”Club Hit Of The Year”. Don’t get scared by the French website. Once you are on the voting site, click Mono Mind. A sign in window will pop up. You can sign in with your Facebook account (that would be the easiest to get through). If you’re signed in for the first time, you will have to validate your e-mail address and click the confirmation link in the e-mail you get. Then you’ll have to go back to the voting site (click the links I mentioned above) and click on Mono Mind again. To be sure that you have really voted, you can see a tick at the category you’ve already voted for. Until you can’t see the tick next to the category, your vote doesn’t count.

Follow Mono Mind!

Some Roxette fans who are not much into jazz or country can identify with Mono Mind’s music more than with any other PG or MF solo project these days and that is also why I think their tunes have to reach more people worldwide.

Follow Mono Mind on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, check their videos on YouTube and most importantly, listen to them on the usual digital platforms (Spotify, Deezer, iTunes, etc.) and sing along. Enjoy!