Track By Track: Fallulah on Perfect Tense

Perfect Tense is the first album from Fallulah to be released outside of Scandinavia and it's about time the rest of Europe - and the world - got to experience her mastery of a pop song. Having already given us the sweet bubblegum-smack of "Social Club" (a former Best Fit Song of the Day), the sexy and sensual "Ghostfriend" and the euphoric, seize-the-day attitude of "Perfect Tense" the rest of the album follows this eclectic pattern, even delving into folk-rock and ragged grunge. Perfect Tense is shaping up to be one of the best pop albums of 2016.

You can watch the video for "Social Club" below, followed by Fallulah's personal track-by-track account of the album...which you can read while listening to our stream of Perfect Tense.

Perfect Tense

This is the album's title track witch I wanted to serve as an encouraging anthem, tailor-made to make you want to go out and get yours. I sing the lyrics "Let's go out and meet the world" which is a quite precise description of my attitude towards life. I spent so many years when I was younger being so focused on my insecurities and anxieties, and it's not for good for anything. It just holds you back and we have to remember that we are all so concerned about out own issues that other people don't pay that much attention to us if we do something embarrassing. I also hope we as humans will keep an open mind about the world and places and people that are different than us. There's a real anxiety going on at the moment, where we seem to collectively be going in the wrong direction when it comes to trust and love for each other.

I.L.W.A.D

An abbreviation for "In Love With A Dream". I'm a person who's very much living inside my head. I've always had a rich inner life where I'd often prefer to be, instead of socializing with other people and going to parties etc. . In your thoughts you can imagine something in a split second, you can see designs, write stories, hear music, draw paintings, be whoever. The challenge is taking those ideas and ambitions and translating them into something real.
I sometimes find myself overflowing with these inspirations and I get frustrated if I feel like they are stuck inside of me for too long. But there's also the fear that you realize your dreams and become a failure. So somehow it's safer to keep them inside. Without dreams I'm not sure who we are, I think they are necessary and that's why I have dedicated a whole song to them. It's a complex thing. Are we meant to live out all our dreams or are some meant to be kept inside like and make us feel excited by just the idea of them?

Social Club

A bit of a tounge in cheek song about our social media obsessed culture. I'm so thankful Instagram and Facebook wasn't around when I was a kid. I remember feeling plenty of pressure from the magazines and music videos where we were bombarded with these impossible ideals of beauty. At 15 I had a poster up of Gisele Bündchen in a tiny pink H&M bikini and I would look at it and feel so inferior. The younger generations growing up with it has to develop thick skin and a critical mind, because otherwise everyone will be miserable. I'm not invincible either to the effect social media has on us, there's this constant search of approval. If our posts and pictures don't get x numbers of likes we feel slightly like a failure. I'm curious to see where we'll be at in just 5 or 10 years. I wonder if there's going to be a big counter movement.

Sorrow Is A Shadow

Writing has been a coping mechanism for me since I knew how to spell. One of the themes I seem to go back to is dealing with grief, and this song is about that. When my father passed away when I was a child I often saw him in my dreams for years after. I was confused when I woke up because I thought he had come back. That it was somehow all just a bad dream, and he had never really been gone. I try to view sorrow now as something beautiful, because it's also a reminder of someone you loved. With time it becomes a natural part of you. I wanted to put that feeling into words and describing sorrow as my own shadow seemed fitting as it's something that will always be there. And that's ok.

Ghostfriend

A Ghostfriend is someone in your life who you can't get through to. It's like there's a see through wall between you. No matter how much noise you make or jump around and wave your arms at them they never really see you. I've had people like that in my life where communication is just an up hill battle, and you have to eventually consider if it's worth fighting for that relation or if it just ends up driving you mad.

Vandalain

There's plenty of love songs in the world about the romance between two people, sometimes they end well, more often they don't. But I felt like there's other kinds of loves in our lives that can be just as intricate and complicated. Friendships can be so challenging. You often share a long history and it's ver dramatic to break up with friends who are no longer good for you. There's not the same sort of closure as in a traditional love relation.
I've personally sometimes ended up being stuck in a bad pattern with close friends. I'm often the mom type of friend where I listen and offer advice, I worry too much on others behalf and end up getting so involved with people who can'¨t be good friends back because they always have so much drama going on. As you grow up you realize you deserve friendships who also nurture you, and you sometimes have to make tough choices or just accept that it's how it works and lower your expectations. "Vandalain" is a bitter sweet song about that.

Bob Dylan

I find myself so confused about what it is we want and need and what we think we want and need because we are told so. We can't tell the difference between a genuine recommendation or a sponsored post because now it comes from seemingly ordinary people. Everyone is a potential brand, we are sort of brain washed by people trying to sell us shit. I was watching Bob Dylan some years ago in a Super Bowl commercial for a car and that was sort of the last innonce lost. He was just someone I didn't expect to see in that situation since he's everyone's safe reference for good taste. Of course we are all for sale, even him. It just raised a bunch of question to me, and I honestly don't know where I stand in all of it. It's a new world that we are trying to navigate. Suddenly every semi-celeb on Instagram is promoting diet tea and waist trainers. It's a weird world, man. But we are all part of it.

Slow Love

I wrote a good old fashioned love song. And a happy one actually. There's not that many songs around about long term love, it all seems to be about the uncertainty and excitement you feel when you meet someone new. But when you know someone really well, it takes it to a whole different level. I've been together with my boyfriend for over 7 years now and he's such a constant in my life. He's been there though good times and hard times and I wanted to write a song in his honour. Men get kind of a bad rep when it comes to love, so we have to celebrate the good ones.

Swimming Pool

I wrote "Swimming Pool" when I was in Los Angeles. I was working with Jeppe Laursen (Junior Senior, Lady Gaga) in his wonderful house high up on a hill. He had this great swimming pool right outside of the studio and all I could think of was how much I wanted to dive in. I was feeling hot and sticky from the scorching LA sun. I started getting images in my head of those baptisms performed in the ocean and how they represent a new beginning to the people getting them. They often seem to come from a past of abuse and hardships. I am drawn to water, I think there's something slightly magical about it.

Lost

The title is pretty telling, haha. I wrote this grungy tune with my good pal Kaspar Kaae back in Copenhagen. It was one of those songs that came about very spontaneously, I was about to leave for the day and then suddenly got hit by an idea. It's like a concoction of nervous restless energy about feeling lost in various ways. I wanted it to be a bit ugly sounding so that it wasn't all smoothed out in our production, to match the attitude of the words.

We All Need Water

It's a song about finding yourself. We are shaped by our experiences through life, and sometimes it can be hard to know what is truly our own core selves and what qualities we gain as forms of self defense. I think it's important to not just accept things about ourselves that drag us down, but try and find the source and then do something to change. Changing is so incredibly hard and scary, but once you take the step and do it you'll be so glad you did. If we can't find a way to be happy, there's not much else to life. So it's our biggest job, I believe. Again, water becomes a symbol of something important. No matter who we are we all need it to survive. Just like love.

Perfect Tense is out now via Instant Records.