Anna Ternheim — You Belong With Me

Anna Ternheim:

 This is one of my own favorite songs on the record, I like the atmosphere and the grove, you can almost dance to it. The lyrics are like a scene out of a movie, you only get a brief glimpse of the actual story.

Anna Ternheim had reached a point in her life when everything needed to change. The Swedish songwriter’s long-time major label deal expired, and she used this independence to plot her seventh album, ensuring it would be something different, something distinct, and something worth cherishing.

The results have certainly fulfilled her hopes. A Space For Lost Time is a wonderful experience, a poised, open, highly personal affair, one that cuts through to the reason she makes music in the first place. “I’ve always been pretty independent!” she laughs. “This time it’s even more freedom, and more control, I would say, over the whole process. I’m excited about it.”

“Making music isn’t about being in a competition,” Anna insists. “When I started, it was this pure thing that I did only for me. With every record I have to get back to that point, where I think: I’m doing this because I love it.”

Now firmly based in New York, freewheeling album sessions took Anna Ternheim back to her native Sweden, before jetting over to Los Angeles, basing herself in the creative community that surrounds Echo Park. She wanted to shake herself free of preconceptions, to embrace new methods, and new collaborators. “Comfort slows you down,” she remarks. “It’s all about injecting what you need as an artist to make new music, and I find that throwing things in the air always works.”

A Space For Lost Time is a highly personal experience, but it was never a solitary one. Bjorn Yttling – of Peter, Bjorn & John – appears prominently on the album, a voice of candid support. “He’s very, very honest. Straight forward,” she enthuses. “Which I think is great, in a very un-dramatic way. He brings something that I don’t have, and it’s the other way round, too”.

Refreshing elements of Americana lingering with potent pop, A Space For Lost Time is a tantalising experience. The first single to be released from the record, ‘This Is The One’, has a carefree vibe, while ‘Oh Mary’ – “an evil little song” – is worthy of Cat Power’s catalogue. “That’s what it’s all about for me, communicating a feeling, and connecting with people,” she explains. “That’s how I envisioned the whole record – it points towards pop but it’s still very sparse. It’s a world I feel at home in.”

Another album track ‘You Belong With Me’ has a kind of folk-pop Carole King vibe, while ‘Remember This’ has a plaintive feeling, like a Nordic Laura Marling. “I think it all needs to start with the songs,” she observes. “You have to let the songs lead the way. Most of the album was recorded in LA but I still think it sounds very Swedish! It’s this weird hybrid.”

An album about being a woman in the spotlight, a record that tackles love, regret, and aging, A Space For Lost Time is breathlessly ambitious. “It’s just being human,” she comments. “It’s how I see the world and I filter it through my songs.”

Humble and humane, Anna Ternheim has come full circle, claiming her independence, and creating her most magical work.