H. Self - Skälva (Red Vinyl LP)

Facts Skälva - Now on red vinyl!

Henric Hammarbäck has always been country. Rooted in the American songwriting tradition, often with Dallas Frazier as a partial guiding star, Hammarbäck has turned his home in Telefonplan into Stockholm's southern suburbs' Music Row. The debut album Broken Live On showed deep qualities in craftsmanship and musical confidence, and was praised by both Jan Gradvall in Dagens Industri and Kyle "Trigger" Coroneos in the respected publication Saving Country Music. The latter went so far as to mention country music's perhaps most sacred figure, Hank Williams, in the same breath as H. Self. In 2023 the follow-up was released: Country Songs. An album praised by both the press and a devoted listening crowd. Country Songs reflects the life behind the lines in a distinctive way, where the stories are allowed to be told as they are, without embellishment. The musical backing carries elements of traditional country, but without letting itself be fully bound by the genre's frame. The album was recorded at Kassmyra Country and produced by Jonas Öhlund.

After Hammarbäck switched to the Swedish language and anchored it in gray-toned Swedish everyday life, the success has been a fact. It is blunt, straightforward and self-revealing. Like Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, when he plugged in his electric guitar, H. Self now heads in a completely unexpected direction. In Swedish he embraces an entirely new style, a different sound landscape. In Swedish, honesty is utterly naked. There is new pioneering ground to discover. There is a need, an opportunity, for a movement forward, and this movement is called H. Self. The album "Skälva," released in 2024, can be seen as nothing other than a success.

In H. Self's world, people take care of one another. There is a warm solidarity in that world.

"Even as a child at home in Sala, I was fascinated by people on the outside. I always found them the most exciting. What I write is always grounded in a self-experienced truth. That's important. Then it can be another person's story, and of course you embellish and build on it, but at its core everything is authentic, everything is very close to me."

Hammarbäck has found his own furrow to dig his songs out of. The closest you can come to a contemporary Cornelis Vreeswijk, where the understanding of life on the margins shines strongly. Genre-wise it is all the harder to place. Is it visa, rock, country, soul, folk, progg? Perhaps a bit of everything. Either way, this is something that does not go unnoticed. The lyrics are stronger than chili, and the reviews speak a clear language. Acclaimed live performances, from acoustic duo to an electric eight-piece band, make him extremely worth seeing.

In addition to his own productions, Hammarbäck also works as a producer and songwriter for several acts, often together with Jonas Öhlund from Kassmyra Country studio. Among others Daniel Hollow, Johan Airjoki and Sabina Ddumba. He has also worked as music curator for the unanimously acclaimed musical about Dolly Parton, "9-5 Musikalen," which played to sold-out houses at Uppsala stadsteater.