Johan Kisro & Linus Johansson originally formed their two-man band Old Amica after meeting in high school in Sweden. Now geographically separated with one living in Stockholm and the other in Genève, Switzerland, they have kept the project going strong by exchanging ideas and collaborating online. Their latest album, which is also their third for the Whitelabrecs imprint, is a sterling example of the kind of beauty that blooms under their tender cultivation of this creative partnership.
Bländverk actually began as a single piece written for Piano Day with the duo agreeing naturally on a self-imposed limitation of using only piano-derived sounds, but as often happens with musicians such constraints can unlock new ideas and that is exactly what happened here as it grew into enough material to fill an album. And while the piano, which the band describes as “carefully recorded with a dying microphone in the early hours”, remains the central instrument, there is a welcome infusion of Old Amica magic here adding tenderness and warmth in the form of gauzy tape loops, subtle field recordings, and harmonium. This is music that was conceived in fragility and quietude, and it proves an ideal companion for listeners sitting in such moments themselves.
The music draws inspiration from fleeting yet deeply personal images: playing piano in the stillness while children sleep, places once lived that now only exist in recollection, the emotional residue of films and first heartbreaks, and the way memory itself reshapes the past into something “gentler, fuzzier, more glowing”. There is a strong sense of contrast throughout the record, where calmness and unease, stillness and movement, comfort and uncertainty coexist within the same fragile spaces.
Whitelabrecs
Links: Bandcamp (CD/digital)
Bländverk was released April 18, 2026, on limited-edition vinyl effect CD and digital by Whitelabrecs. The album was mastered by James Edward Armstrong and features a painting by Isak Falk Eliasson as cover art.
