Neo-Progressive Rock from Sweden.
Jonathan Greiff – drums, bass, backing vocals
Carl Blomqvist – lead vocals, guitars
with:
Tora Greiff Bergström – cello
The Swedish Stockholm-based duo Under the Psycamore is in every way the definition of a true progressive rock band. 70’s rock, math metal, classical music and gorgeous, rich vocal harmonies characterize the melting pot of their debut album “I” on 7d Media.
Jonathan Greiff and Carl Blomqvist, two friends joined together by their common love for music, began their collaborations in school. “The First time I met Carl we had both just started the music program in Fryshuset High School in Stockholm. He was the strange dude with long black hair that listened to bands like Tool”, says the drummer Jonathan Greiff. “I was more in to lighter and nicer stuff, if you will. He was a bit too cool for me at that time,” Jonathan laughs.
Even though their musical influences were different at first, the two pretty soon acknowledged one another’s musical tastes and talents. “Steven Wilson was the link”, says guitarist Carl Blomqvist. “When we discovered Wilson’s band Porcupine Tree we found the place we could connect. Grungy and dark combined with a progressive approach to beautiful vocals.” The seeds for Under the Psycamore were planted.
For their debut disc “I”, they knew they had something special right from the start. Grieff says “The structure of the album came together in just about two weeks. Even the basic tracks went quickly – the drums only took about 6 days.” But being a concept album, the music became demanding in its own right. “The vocals were the most challenging,” recalls Blomqvist. “To build up all the harmonies and get everything to fit together just right took a lot of work and attention. But the results are clearly fantastic!”
Under The Psycamore came to the attention of Trey Gunn (King Crimson, David Sylvian, Robert Fripp) when researching website designs. Their innovative, award-winning HTML5 site first caught Gunn’s eye, but listening to the tracks totally sold him. He wrote the band immediately and began working with them to bring their recordings to his 7d Media label. Gunn calls the band “Tool meets Motorpsycho meets Radiohead meets Yes.”
The name of the band? Under the Psycamore comes from an obscure David Lynch reference. A song sung in a perfectly, strange, Lynchian scene in the last episode of “Twin Peaks”.