Here Is Your Summer Mood Booster

We are back from our summer break, which we spent at home. Did it work as a real vacation? Mostly. We did not entirely succeed in keeping all nine days free from day-to-day work, but we kept the laptops closed for most of the time and did many things we normally would not have time for, like a 20 minutes mediation, courtesy of little luna.

We also had a few musical encounters: The Seaport organized a four-day “Beach Fest” with live music, albeit primarily by DJs. But we finally saw Psymon Spine with a full band show. Empress Of – whose show we looked very much forward to – unfortunately just co-DJ’d Latin Dance music.

Instead, we retreated to the end of Pier 17 (the boardwalk, not the venue) and listened to a live jazz duo on the tall ship City Clipper, which had just returned from a sunset cruise. That was a beautiful experience: the soft music, the illuminated Brooklyn Bridge, and the glittering Williamsburg skyline presented us with a live-is-good, absolutely free experience.

In the end, we did not develop a new summer playlist. Maybe that was part of trying to avoid all kinds of “work.” But if we had, it would undoubtedly contain a Yndling song. The Norwegian singer/songwriter has released four songs from her debut album Mood Boster (out on August 2 via Spirit Goth), and any of them qualifies as a dreamy soundtrack for the season.

However, as she explained in our Q&A, her songs go deeper than that. That is a hallmark of good music: multi-dimensional songs that can instill different emotions in different listeners.

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Q&A With Norwegian Dream Pop Singer/Songwriter Yndling

Tell us a bit about how you started writing music. Do you remember when you thought “I wanna do this!?”***

oh that’s such a good question. I played piano as a child, and used to like make small instrumental things and stuff, but I didn’t start with writing proper songs until later on when I picked up the guitar and started dabbeling in GarageBand. It kind of just accumulated into a point where I realized it wasn’t enough to keep as a hobby and I wanted to release music and try properly as an artist.

How do you write and produce your songs? At what point does your frequent collaborator Adrian Sandberg of MARBLES come in?

It really depends, sometimes I’ve written full songs just on the guitar and then make a demo, or i make a song as I go in Logic. I like to write by myself, and then I’ll bring in a producer later on when the lyrics and melody and stuff is all there. Until now, I’ve solely worked with Adrian as you mention, I first contacted him after seeing his band MARBLES live and thinking that whoever produced their music was someone I’d like to work with too and that turned out to be him hehe. He’s worked with me since then and I’m so grateful for his contribution to my sound, our influences are a bit different, which I think have been a very important part in bringing in something unique in Yndling’s overall sound.

Your new album is called Mood Booster (out on August 2 via Spirit Goth). Sometimes, it feels like we all could use a good mood booster. Is that maybe a goal for your music, to leave people in a better mood?

Hehe I absolutely agree that we all could use a good mood booster these days. However my music isn’t quite in the happiness category to be honest. the title track Mood Booster is actually about the state of being too emotionally dependent in a relationship, platonic or romantic, to the point were you suppress your needs to please others. It’s a thin line to walk, balancing your needs and others, and I’m sure most people have experienced being on both sides of an interaction like that - both demanding too much and giving to much. It can also be a defence strategy and is a tendency I have myself, when it’s too much to deal with my own issues I submerge myself in other people's problems to feel better even when it’s too much to handle - I try to be everybodys “mood booster” if that makes sense.

I hope, one day, we can visit Oslo. Do you have recommendations on how we could connect with the amazing music scene there?

Ohh that would be so cool if you did! I think Oslo is a great place to visit during festival season, and to take in music at festivals such as Øya, or even more underground with emerging artists like Bylarm, I think you’d really love that!

We saw you playing live in New York City with two bandmates, which was fantastic! For an upcoming, bigger tour, what would be your ideal setup?

Thank you, and thanks a lot for coming to our show! I really really appreciated that. I think the ideal setup for me is a full band, at the moment that means 4 people - drummer, bassist, then I play guitar/synth/vocals which I kinda switch up with the forth member also on guitar/synth/samples. I think for a complete setup I’d love one on just synth so that we’d always have two guitarists hehe, so a five piece band would be idea. I also have so much more fun things we could do with visuals and the scene show if I had a bit more of a budget, so I hope that lays somewhere in the future!

After the album release, what comes next for Yndling?

I’m always working on new music, so that’ll be coming for sure! Other than that I’m working hard to play more live, and my biggest project/dream for the next year or so is to try to plan a bigger international tour. So if anyone wants to work with me with regards to booking or just helping me and my project grow, please get in touch!

Nine Photos

Maybe you remember the plan we talked about? It was fun to use this as our guide. Here’s a snapshot of what we did and saw the first three days.

(1) Would eating a pretzel bun sandwich help the German team to win? It did. Germany advanced 2:1 in the game against Denmark.
(2) Who else is watching The Bear? It’s one of the best shows on streaming television, hands down, and we don’t binge-watch but savor each episode. Besides, aren’t they super intense?
(3) The Queen Mary was in town, always a beautiful sight.
(4) Super strong winds made us take some of our plants inside. Now, thanks to our little time off, we also fortified them a bit more.
(6) After the wind and the rain...
(7) Building an IKEA bookshelf: the classic Billy!
(8) A sliver of sun(set) on John street.
(9) Lovely (carb-rich) dinner at home.