Herman Düne recounts his long journey home with new album ‘Odysseús’ • FRANCE 24 English
[Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to France 24’s weekly music show i’m Marjorie Hash and I’m delighted to welcome a Franco Swedish artist who is a citizen of the world and enjoys performing with his wife now I know love is a ruthless king he founded Herman June in the late 90s with his brother making a name for themselves thanks to their delicate folk influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan Leonard Cohen and Elliot Smith to name but a few our guest has since become the sole custodian of the project and moved to the US a decade ago he and June’s new album Adysius takes us on a voyage across Europe to California david Eva thank you so much for coming on Arts 24 hello thank you for having me no it’s an absolute pleasure uh now um the title alone of your new album suggests a tumultuous journey and I read that um a lot of the composition came when you were stranded in Moral during the uh COVID pandemic period and you couldn’t know when you were going to move and that’s when you started writing absolutely i was stuck in Montreal it’s a nice place to be stuck but still I couldn’t go back to my wife um in Los Angeles and um so you know opening uh uh the Odyssey translation by Emily Wilson um that I really liked uh it starts with tell me about a complicated man and uh I knew it was about me somehow and uh so started writing first this song Odysius and then it became an album and um I don’t know trouble times and troubled songs but uh in the end a nice feeling to to have you know got across and did you feel very connected to Homer’s hero Ulyses i do as a complicated man myself someone trying to go home um someone with um the love of their life waiting for them back home and um I also have a few tricks up my sleeve and Odyssey is well known for that I guess yeah the survival instinct never fought a cyclops though no were there any cyclops on your road no luckily well how about we check out the track Adysius i’ve never been this old before i don’t know what I’m supposed to do but stay in bed all day and lock the door what’s a sunset without you my heart beats slow as messy star sometimes it skips a beat or two your stories and miles from where they start what’s the sunset without you edi has taken from Herman Jun’s new uh record it’s a lovely video i take it it’s set in Joshua Tree absolutely there’s only one place with this tree it’s wonderful very uh spiritual place i would say it’s almost electric just to be there yeah did that feed into um your your record even though it was post recording of the record it was really fitting for the song just uh so I was driving through Joshua Tree and just like felt like a calling uh for the song to just stop by the side of the road and and record the video now I read also that when you were stranded in Moral during the initial composing of this record uh you took you got into this habit of visiting Leonard Cohen’s tomb every day which is quite mystical in a way and quite it’s like a pilgrimage yeah yeah was very another spiritual experience of so I was stranded there and I knew this band from um that you may know uh Godspeed you’re a black emperor so they’re from Montreal and they’re very successful in Canada and they have their own hotel which was closed at the time and they so they let me stay there in an empty hotel um kind of like the Shining kind of thing and um so it was maybe an hour walk to the cemetery of morale where uh Leonard not coin rest and um so every morning I would walk there just you know I was waiting for my right to entry into the United States so I was kind of um expecting news every day but I would still walk an hour to the cemetery and um you know um put a stone on his grave or sometimes think about him his songs or sometimes I would even like listen to his songs while I was there and that was really that was kind of crazy to know that uh because I’ve I’m lucky enough to have seen him perform which was incredible and then to know that his voices left uh our environment but um somehow to be in his presence was interesting i love that God PG Black Emperor and uh um Leonard Cohen kind of had impacts on you at that time i think that’s that’s very interesting but um throughout the album there’s lovely romantic imagery um and notably there’s that song about the two pairs of sneakers that are laced together and over um I call it an electric line i think you say a telephone line um can you tell us a little bit where that image comes from it’s one that’s been going around for a few decades and what does it mean for you you can’t really escape it in Los Angeles so Los Angeles is a is a big city but very um spread out so it’s like little houses mainly very residential and so many wires electric wires telephone wires um internet whatever and sort of a I don’t know the posts look so old and it’s like really surprising for such a modern city but so when you look up you look to the wires and it’s like a spiderweb of wires and there are sneakers hanging from them uh which I knew from you know popular imagery but um when you’re there like you can’t help but ask people so what does it mean or whatever and um I’ve heard a few things mhm the two theories that I would maybe share with you one was kind of weird was that um it um it shows where to get a drug deal m okay and then another one was that uh someone hangs their sneakers uh when they lost their virginity oh wow so very extreme right differences it’s a different explanation yeah and for you it’s just more of a the romantic for me it was just like you know when you walk through LA it’s not like your regular city let’s say Glasgow that you know or Paris where it’s very urban and you can’t really look to the sky or when you walk through LA it feels like being in a in the countryside really with trees and little houses and so I don’t know was the image for me mhm and um actually you were saying you moved to um California in 2015 i was wondering what were the opportunities that attracted you uh from living because Europe and Paris is pretty bustling as well yeah sweden is like the third world exporter of music so what what attracted you to the US i’ve been going there for music since 2000 since my first album and uh always love playing there and from 2006 when me and my wife uh started going more and more there maybe 6 months a year for work and also for just because was our pace los Angeles is our pace in um it’s quieter than you think for a big city and the ocean is there which I love and then in 15 was the right time for us to uh say goodbye to Paris and hello to LA mhm some more sun and um different musicians to to collaborate with I imagine well I I’d say all over the US really but uh music scene is pretty vibrant you know well how about we check out some other uh music news and uh we’re going to head over Well actually we’re going to stay in California with three sisters Estee Danielle Alana Heim who rose to fame in 2013 thanks to their debut album Days Are Gone which was packed with folk and R&B bangers uh they’re releasing their fourth album this week which is called I quit he is their very nostalgic track take me back up cuz I was at home daddy took a message waiting out front just to get alone but now I’m laughing take me back to driving smoking with the windows down trying to waste the day away i never get to do that now take me back to street looking in an empty and you can catch him at a number of festivals this summer including Dreamland in the UK and Fuji Rocks in Japan uh now uh Dave David I was wondering like being in the US and in California are there any bands that you’ve um picked up on who you’d recommend i like Him that you just played yeah um there’s a scene of bluegrass that is uh emerging in the US right now that I really love um so youngsters in their 20s who play this incredible uh incredibly technical music bluegrass for those who don’t know is like country music sped maybe 10 times or something and speak country yeah i love that scene it’s like the death metal of country music and very young people play it banjo mandoline and um I don’t know like um All right well how about we go over to London now where hip-hop artist Ly Connor is also back with an indie twist he’s apparently been inspired by bands like Fonten’s DC and Big Thief his new record is out this week and it is called Hopefully here’s the very sensitive track line hoping this light I’m holding who I become something that we don’t see yeah can’t lie yo it’s the not knowing that I can’t take there’s this fear in my belly that I can’t shake trying to remember what my mom say but can’t fill the space on these dark days strange thought they told you I was done with that and trying to roll me up in bubble wrap maybe get lost and ain’t coming back i saw the lightning but I never saw the thunder and Ly Caro will be playing Glastonbury before taking his new album on tour across Europe this autumn which will include a stop in France’s Zenit in Paris on October 24th h now Herman Jun was also going to be taking the the roots and the tours of Europe uh in the autumn and very much looking forward to seeing how Dus comes alive uh on stage thank you thank you very much well thank you so much for coming on the show it’s been a pleasure having you and do check out uh the new record Dissus we’re going to be playing out uh with emo it boy Young Bloodood who is just releasing his new album Idols through which he tackles personal battles and calls for a greater acceptance here’s his video for Zombie which is about feeling ugly and disorientated and you might recognize actress Florence Pew in the video who plays a healthcare worker on the brink i need [Music] but it’s running out is running out without you this world will keep turning you would you even want me would you even want me
Franco-Swedish artist Herman Düne has made a name for himself since the late 1990s thanks to his delicate rock and indie tones. He’s just released “Odysseús”, which he began composing when he was stranded in Montreal during the global Covid lockdown. The record led him to feel a connection to Homer’s hero. He tells Marjorie Hache more about how this long-term layover in Canada impacted his music.
Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/BFjT.y
🔔 Subscribe to France 24 now: https://f24.my/YTen
🔴 LIVE – Watch FRANCE 24 English 24/7 here: https://f24.my/YTliveEN
🌍 Read the latest International News and Top Stories: https://www.france24.com/en/
Like us on Facebook: https://f24.my/FBen
Follow us on X: https://f24.my/Xen
Bluesky: https://f24.my/BSen and Threads: https://f24.my/THen
Browse the news in pictures on Instagram: https://f24.my/IGen
Discover our TikTok videos: https://f24.my/TKen
Get the latest top stories on Telegram: https://f24.my/TGen