Track By Track: Heyerdahl on A Su Can Panther

Alongside regular members Kenneth Ishak, Tore Løchstøer Hauge, Knut Frøysnes and Snasen, the album features contributions from Ryan McPhun of The Ruby Suns and Phosphorescent's Dave Torch.

While debut album Øen was a darker take on synth pop, A Su Can Panther brightens things up a little. While the contribution of producer Snasen keeps Heyerdahl on the gloomier side of euphoric, there's more of a dream pop shimmer and a psychedelic, disco charm to many of the tracks.

Below, you can listen to the album in full while reading band members Ishak and Hauge's track by track guide.

Ashes

Kenneth Ishak: "Ashes" was one of the main songs on the record that in some ways inspired us to make the whole thing. It had a ton of horns on it, very Quincy Jones type horns, but they were just in the way of the song- so we ended up cutting them out. Anyway - our whole thing, the basis of the band or collective - what have you, is based upon these characters we found…Or they found us rather when we recorded our first album Øen in a windswept lighthouse at the most western point off the Norwegian coast. On the first album they set out to flee their lives, or their minds even- to go someplace else physically but also spiritually. On A Su Can Panther we find them having settled into new lives. These songs are journals, both from the characters point of view and from the outside. Ashes' character is someone who has chosen to live in a time that is in the past. His day to day life is filled with a great connection with nature. His closest friend, lover and partner has passed away, and being in solitude and living a completely different life than before the loss gives him a clarity of mind that in many ways enables him to still be with that person.

Desert Boy

Ishak: This song was an accident. I had just bought a mint Roland Space Echo 301 online and had it delivered to my house, so I fooled around with it at home to see if it worked and I was recording for some reason. That became the main guitar riff for this song. My friend Ryan (McPhun of The Ruby Suns) heard it and said I should turn it into a song- so I did. Jay Thornton of Brighton’s Man Ray Sky wrote some of the words with me and sang a lot at the end. Lyrically it’s about one of the characters day to day life and how he looks at loneliness to be a dream- just pure bliss.

Acid Rain

Ishak: One of our favourites and actually the most straightforward song on the album.The recording was pretty sparse - did a lot of stuff, but once I put all the drums through an overdriven fender super reverb it didn’t really need much but the drums, vocals and some piano. This song continues the story from "Enkebukten"(from the first album) where we meet a boy who has lost his father to the sea. In "Acid Rain" this boy has become an adult, we get a good glimpse into his life- and his longing for his father whom he dreams is living somewhere not to be found.

Colossus

Tore Løchstøer Hauge: I think this track bridges the gap between our two albums. I took my mess of a song to Kenneth who wrote the part with him answering. He has an extreme ability to adapt to and understand my music. To me this is the song that’s closest to what we did on our first album Øen, an album that was more fueled with my songwriting, in contrary to this one, which is Kenneth’s beautiful vision. The lyrics revolves around me moving around a lot when I was a kid. I recently went back to the old house where I lived in Brussels. It made me think a a lot about what my life could have been like had I grown up in that street. I believe the longing for different possibilities and the sadness of not being able to go back is relatable to the the world we created on our records, and to which all the tracks are tied into somehow.

What It Was

Ishak: This was in many different shapes before we setteled on this recording. At one point it was just piano and a really really fast korg drum machine with a mic in a room. I liked it but wanted to make something similar that would be just as direct and simple. Faye sings on this one too - she came up with the catchy chorusy "for what is was, for what it was". It was such a pleasure to be in the same room as her while she was singing. Lyrically its kinda cryptic but i think it is a state of mind of one of our characters. "There used to be a rain of white noise falling infront of my eyes" is one of the lines suggesting that that noise is gone now- in the new life. I guess this one has the same character as Ashes.

Kin

Hauge: Tim Wheeler made a solo record as a tribute to his father dying of alzheimer. I got really into that album. Obsessing over a track called "Vigil". It’s basically about family. Kin is a powerful word, and to me it’s a center for our lyrical universe. For what the music goes - it’s just a simpel pop song. I like that.

Wild life

Ishak: This was just a pretty crazy demo on my Korg ms 20 iPad ap. It sounded like Joy Division but with cheesy synth sounds. For fun I added the erretic drums in my studio - playing loud and inspired by Talking Heads. I liked it, even if it felt almost shameful. So I added the semi jazzy piano and it kept getting crazier. The end when the drums keep going, was there from the beginning, hoping we'd find more stuff for the end or make a transition into a new song. I made up the lyrics wile singing along to the song. There is one sentence in the second verse i cannot make out because I am singing two things at the same time. Anyways, seems to be about a person who has started killing to survive in his/her new life. Pretty grotesqe!

Skjærgården

Ishak: I had the riff for a long time - and wanted it to be a mix of very traditional scandinavian nylon strung coastal music mixed with early '80s Jacko. We recorded alot of this album outside by the ocean in a canyon outside of Oslo. We would blast beats, instruments and record the ambience or reverberation. There is alot of that on this song. "Blood sister future" is the lyric in the chorus and I think it explains what the title - A Su Can Panther - is. It is a hope, in a being, a creature that is panther-like, on and of the island of Su Can. All the crazy characters live on the island where they worship the blood sister in the dreamed shape of a panther.

A Su Can Panther is out tomorrow via Sellout! Music