On the Rise
Marko Nyberg

Marko Nyberg is currently piecing the fragments of his life together. The Finnish composer and songwriter’s debut solo EP Ingrid is a powerfully compact reflection of his recent state of mind, the beginnings of which started when he was granted permission to build his idyllic studio — where he’s Zooming in from today. Soon after receiving the go-ahead for his new endeavour, his father passed away.

Before reaching these two formative moments, Nyberg’s start came in the early ‘00s when he founded Husky Rescue. After four albums in over ten years — plus shows all over the world — it came time for them to part. Finding himself soundtracking various films, tv shows, and commercial ventures with his own sound design company, life for Nyberg had settled into a concurrent rhythm.

Upon the passing of his father, those fragments which were free-floating around him began to reveal themselves. Ingrid is five tracks of staggeringly sparse but impactful ambience - quiet grace entwining with abrasive bursts. Though in a recent listen back during a Sunday brunch routine with his wife (where they listen to a reggae album he once heard in New York, at a coffee shop owned by Heath Ledger”) the meaning became clearer. Deciding to then chuck on some Nils Frahm, following these two differing sounds with Nyberg’s own mixes revealed more than he bargained for. “She said have you been living in a really grey world? Have you been in a depression?” Nyberg remembers his wife asking him. While there’s certainly that atmosphere encompassing Ingrid, it’s more than one solitary shade of life.

Nyberg likens the EP to a crystal — elegantly sharp edges and faces reflecting facets of life, an external fragility that seems endless when peering through, but stoic and solid when push comes to shove. The personal, internal expansiveness is apparent.

Space is also a key part of Nyberg’s story and the studio he’s currently in - located in the Finnish suburbs and shared with his wife who has her craft space downstairs - is his new musical home. He takes me on a virtual tour; I’m greeted with a glimpse outside to the serene, picturesque green firs and snow-laden ground. It’s easy to see why such a place can aid in developing compositions that house their composers most personal subconscious. Mentioning his company’s studio in the centre of Helsinki, he tells me, “It's in a basement. You don't get to see the sun there."

"I used to spend so many years there inside," he adds through softly broken English. “When I relocated here it was actually slightly scary when there was light all day. I was kind of surrounded by light. It was a different mindset…It's not like this super unique lakeside studio but I think it makes it quite unique that it is in the suburbs.”

There’s also the musicality being pieced together from years of a musical diary for lack of a better term, “It was like I kind of collected some sort of DNA for those tracks from those days…almost like loads of notes of my diary.” Finding their home on Ingrid, it all feels circumstantial and meant to be. “I feel nowadays that the creativity is hidden in sort of like really tiny fragments, you get to pick. It's almost like picking some berries. That's how you kind of paint the invisible to be visible, collecting the sort of particles…of course it is like fragments.”

At various points throughout our chat, Nyberg references fragments. This could most likely be due to the thought lingering after its first usage at the start. Or, it could very well be that it’s just what life is — a series of fragmented vignettes that piece together into a larger motion picture as we age. These are all moments that we don’t know how to deal with until they reappear contextualised.

A key one for Nyberg was of course his father’s death. Acting like a signal fire for something Nyberg always knew he’d have to deal with as he got older, “I knew that it will happen at some point, that's eventually something that will happen,” he tells me.

Going through these landmark moments, Nyberg explains it was a case of, “and here's another part and put this together and then I needed a little bit of time to organise everything. But I can now hear it more properly done than some previous work I've done…this sort of organism of these fragments.”

There’s a spiritual essence that flows through Nyberg. That’s not to say he’s a total believer or has a stringent abiding, but there was a time a year or so before his fathers passing when Nyberg was in Reykjavík [a place he cites as being inspirational] that it made sense: “I remember one conversation I had about this recurring dream about my father,” he recalls.“I was [talking] about this dream to someone I just got to know. And it was kind of crazy for me that being such an introvert or this sort of shy person, I felt so safe. He answered that when life sends you signs you have to follow and maybe it's all tied into this. It is actually really exciting that these sort of fragments do exist.”

Visuals are another unspoken element of Nyberg’s music. Interpreting his output is one thing, but during the actual process, what gets summoned mentally is a bit more complex. In its simplest form, he describes what happens as, “a feeling”. His attempts at a long answer wind their way through the physical and metaphysical (“sort of like organic matrix”), before revealing “a few years ago I was really interested in synesthesia.” Seemingly, it’s the abstract which attracts him.

However, reflection is one of those puzzle pieces that Nyberg doesn’t allow to fit into the bigger picture. When I ask about glancing back upon himself as a composer when compared to his brighter, earlier days in Husky Rescue there’s a more direct version of him who appears. “I totally hate being nostalgic. It's killing all creativity,” he says with a polite smile.

It doesn’t take long for him to find another fragment appearing, however. Recalling a moment it was brought to his attention that an anniversary was approaching — and the potential for gigs — while it's not something on the books, it did instead give Nyberg the chance to appreciate just what the symbolism was on a personal level.

“I felt like for the sake of friends, this warmness in my heart that this is a nice thing for the friendship — [but] looking back and seeing the good things, intuitively, I saw only the good things. Afterwards when I was thinking about it, [it] wasn't only a bed of roses. Like, [not] only good coffee. It was also a really bad coffee!”

But that’s what all those facets of life are when shaped into that inimitable crystal. The light hits, and sparked back is a rainbow spectrum, where colour expands showing the positives of life, and behind this sits the shadows. All need to exist. This is what Nyberg takes from the experience of Ingrid and all the moments it encompasses.

The overidding focus of Nyberg's EP is to present the complex in the digestible: a twenty-minute offering of his life, experiences, and understanding in a predominantly predetermined way. A dark, blue and grey coast with the waves ebbing and flowing with the tide, occasionally crashing into the indomitable land. Much like life and its unavoidable circumstances. “Basically, it’s almost like something you can see but it's not,” Nyberg summarises, leaving things as succinct yet open-ended as Ingrid.