Q&A: shinyhunt on nostalgia, friendship, and PokÉmon
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY LENA FINE ☆
Credit: Jonas Villadsen
BACK WITH A FRESH SURGE OF TENDERNESS AND WHIMSY— Copenhagen-based band shinyhunt is releasing their sophomore record on November 22. The indie rock band – made up of couple Frederik and Signe – first started releasing music in 2022 with a trail of singles that ultimately led to the release of their first record, joyland grow in me, in 2023. Their new album, sea-salt ice cream, delivers on all that came before. shinyhunt has a fully realized sound, as is evident on sea-salt ice cream.
sea-salt ice cream paints a warm and moving portrait of love and friendship, and how both are subject to change over time. Written and produced by the couple in their home, Frederik and Signe have honed the skill of building a world worth living in and articulating it through their specific, elevated yet whimsical sound. shinyhunt is a project that embraces fun and chases what feels good – elements that are more than apparent in their new record.
We sat down with shinyhunt to discuss the record – discovering what exactly sea-salt ice cream looks, feels, and tastes like along the way.
LUNA: The album has a very warm and sunny sound to it; it has a way of hugging your ears. Can you talk about what inspired that sound?
SIGNE: We talked a bit about this, and I didn’t even think about it as warm and sunny, but I totally get what you mean. Maybe it’s because we live in this apartment and we record everything here in this room. So everything is really lo-fi and maybe that’s what gives it this warm sound.
FREDERIK: Yeah, you said it nicely…it’s a bit circumstantial. That the room we write and create in is our home so it’s kind of like, natural in that sense. And then, also, how we mix and produce here. With this album we wanted to play a lot more with fuzzy guitar because I feel like it suits Signe’s vocals very nicely, like a warm blanket around her. It has a nice foundation, in that sense, to make Signe’s vocals float over the guitar.
SIGNE: The context of where we are recording and producing the music plays a big role for us. I mean, it’s a part of the storytelling.
LUNA: That makes sense, it’s also really interesting – you write, record, and produce all basically in your home, in that room. Is that how it’s always been? This is your second record, so have you fine-tuned that process?
FREDERIK: We have actually always done it here. And to say in terms of how it’s evolved, we’ve moved from that corner over there to this corner now. And it works much better in this corner! But, yeah, I would say that we haven’t really played or written music before we started doing it together. So I feel like, as we’ve done it and recorded and kept on doing it because it’s fun, we also learned a lot about how we want to sound and how we collaborate. So I think we have really evolved doing the move from that corner to this corner and also from the first album to this one.
SIGNE: I would agree. I also feel like the acoustics in this room are just specifically good for vocal recording. We tried in my parents’ summer cottage but it only really works in this room, actually.
FREDERIK: So we take in the everyday life that we have here, and it kind of lives on the acoustics on our voices and on the record. I also think it’s nice to have the room we’re in as a part of the record.
LUNA: The second question I was going to ask – because it does feel like you’re building this world – it’s interesting to hear that it’s actually quite focused in one small location. But, I feel like there are a lot of elements of whimsy and it has a very ethereal tone to it. Is there a world you’re trying to build? How does it get from that point of “ok, it’s all coming from one room with two people,” to become this dreamier, more expansive kind of thing?
SIGNE: When I was much younger, I was in a bunch of different choirs, so it always feels very natural to me to build vocals on top of each other like a choir. I always end up there. Some days, I think, “ok, this song is only going to be one vocal,” but, to me, the fun thing about building up vocals is it makes a universe in that way. So, maybe that’s a part of it, that it’s getting a bit bigger because there are so many layers of vocals. I also feel like, on this specific album, there are many songs that are about friendship and togetherness and connectedness with our generation, so, to me, it feels a bit better when many voices are speaking together.
FREDERIK: A lot of the world building and ethereal elements of the record is how we have a conversation about the music and the world when we write. It’s kind of funny because we never really talk about the world-building aspect. They almost kind of happen through…if I have an idea and present it to Signe, then she takes it and builds upon it in a way that’s so exciting. So, how we work together is building upon something, but we never actually really talk about it. It’s more something that’s actually happening and then going with like, “oh that was really nice. I never thought of it that way!” Signe will put some voices together and I’m going, “Whoa!” Then I do something to it and bring it back to her. I feel like what we do is usually just to go with what is resonating in what the other person is saying.
LUNA: It sounds like when you’re actually making the music, it does kind of become a conversation because it is this very natural offer, and then this magic comes out of it, which is hard to get organically. So, the record is called sea-salt ice cream. What does that mean?
FREDERIK: It ties into our name, shinyhunt, which is connected to Pokemon, actually. It’s something you can do in the games. It’s not a direct connection, it’s more like the feeling of - I played a lot of Pokemon when I was little and it’s a nice feeling. The same thing goes with this name, sea-salt ice cream, it’s an ice cream in a video game that has a lot of emotions tied to it in that universe. So [the record is] drawing on the emotions that the name brings.
SIGNE: It’s this nostalgic feeling. Thinking about specific scenes with the sea-salt ice cream, it's very specific.
FREDERIK: It’s kind of drawing on this era. It’s from 2008, or something like that. That era also has a very distinctive style and has really warm, but also kind of sad emotions tied to it in terms of friendship. It’s very much tied to friendship and symbolizes loss and evolution of friendship in ways you didn’t expect. So, in that way, it ties into the themes of the record.
SIGNE: And then, the color of this ice cream is this light blue color that we also use in the visuals.
FREDERIK: This is the first time I’ve actually put words to the thoughts, but just going with this. I don’t even think you knew about the video game, at first –
SIGNE: No.
FREDERIK: But you just went with what you thought about it.
SIGNE: Yeah! But I also felt like, when we talked about it, I could just completely recognize the feelings that were tied to it through the music. Also this nostalgic vibe of thinking of something very specific that you were focused on as a child. I feel like it resonated a lot with those feelings I had writing a lot of the songs. To me, our teamwork is very liberating, that we don’t have to have the exact same thoughts about what a song is about, even, because we always put our own interpretation into it.
Credit: Jonas Villadsen
LUNA: You said that a lot of the album has to do with friendship, and even just the way you guys seem to write feels like something to share, not something to keep for yourself. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about these dynamics of friendship that drove the writing of the record? Is it a product of a lot of people being involved and actually making it, or was it more that you found yourselves in a moment of looking around at the people you love and cherishing being there?
FREDERIK: It’s actually only me and Signe that have done everything on the album. From doing the artwork to playing and arranging and mixing. But, I feel like we’re at a stage in our lives where we’ve talked a lot about and thought a lot about friendships. Going back on memories through this nostalgic lens. Thinking about how friendships used to be when we were kids or how we dealt with those feelings of belonging, and how, when we are at the edge of youth, in some way, how some of those friendships have completely transformed into something new – both in something that gives you a nice feeling but also something that you miss.
SIGNE: To me, this album is also a little travel back in time. Saying something in different situations with another language for what happened. So, it’s like a little time traveling album for me.
LUNA: Friendship is such a vast thing to explore, so it makes perfect sense that it’s coming from two people in this one room and how you’re thinking about your life as individuals and together, it makes sense that all of these thoughts and different aspects of friendship are coming up. Of course, it makes sense with everything you were saying about the name of the album. There’s this nostalgia.
LUNA: You talked a little bit about the visuals for the project. They are very dreamy and specific, what went into all that?
SIGNE: Actually, the 3 singles that we put out, it was one day that we were sitting here – again, in this room – painting with watercolors. The water we were cleaning our brushes with turned out to be very sea salt ice cream blue. It was in a glass and, if you looked through it, it gave really funny movements. And then we just took our digital camera out.
LUNA: So it was literally through the glass?
SIGNE: Yeah, we were just playing with it! It was actually like being a child and just finding something and just going with it. So, that’s how most of our visuals are created. Also, we’ve tried making the ice cream ourselves in popsicle form with PowerAde energy drink because we wanted to find a drink that had that bright blue color. All the visuals are like playing a game.
FREDERIK: Like Signe’s saying, I think it’s kind of like the same as how we make the music. It’s not something that we plan out, it’s something that just comes from having fun in the moment and then noticing. You noticed the color in the cup and were like, “oh, that’s cool!” And then going with what’s fun, following what the other sees.
SIGNE: I also feel like the number 1 most important thing is doing something that makes you forget about the time. In that way, I feel like that’s what music and everything around it does.
FREDERIK: Yeah, both forgetting about the time, but also forgetting about yourself for a moment. Just being in the fun of creating. When that hits, and you don’t even know it, it’s so amazing. It makes it easier, also, to not think “oh is this the right thing? Does this look cool?”
SIGNE: It makes it all feel even cooler.
LUNA: you said that you met and then you started making music together, you weren’t individually musicians. How did all that start?
SIGNE: We were actually dating. And now, we’re actually getting married!
LUNA: Congratulations!
SIGNE: Thank you! We started out dating each other.
FREDERIK: I was starting out making some music on my own. And then, naturally, I showed some of my stuff to Signe, and I think you always had a musician in your stomach and wanted to do something about writing and making music.
SIGNE: Yeah, I’d always wanted to make music, but I’d never really had the tools before. I don’t play an instrument. So he helped me buy my first synthesizer and then as a Christmas present, we gave each other Ableton! I had this thing that I wanted to make, more like bedroom pop, kind of.
FREDERIK: And then we just started talking a lot about working together and then, all of a sudden, it was like the most fun thing. It just happened really naturally. Signe put some vocals on a little acoustic song and we were like, “whoa, that was really fun.” It happened organically. We just found out that we were dating the perfect partner musically.
LUNA: Did you have a moment of having this beautiful work come from it and then wondering, “how will this affect the relationship?” Now there’s these two things of love and music, was that ever a difficult thing or did it just all fall into place?
SIGNE: I feel like we work on the music project in very different ways. So it’s a bit about balancing it. Like, he can work on the music 24/7. He can play the guitar while he’s cooking and watching the news. It seems like it’s always present in your mind. I work a bit differently. I feel like I can leave it for 2 months and not really dig into it and then I can have one day where I sit for 12 hours and can’t focus on anything else and forget to eat. So, we work in very different ways. To me, it’s also been about accepting that the process is like that and not something that’s the “right way.”
FREDERIK: I feel like, the first time we experienced this, “wow, we have something in front of us that we made,” was going to my parents’ summer house, and you were adding some vocals to one of our old songs. You came out and we listened to it and were like, “whoa, we actually made something together that’s really good and really cool.” When we go away from here, it’s a trip we do as a couple to spend time together but also as music partners. On those trips, you notice how you need to balance that.
SIGNE: If we’re talking about the project or something more practical, it’s also nice saving that for a meeting. Otherwise, we can talk about those things all the time.
FREDERIK: We found out with this record that it’s actually a good idea to have meetings together.
LUNA: That makes sense, it’s a completely different dynamic, in a way. So, it makes sense to have those times of separation. I have one more question, and it’s about a specific song. On “blood moon wash away my sadness,” there’s such a big build up. When I listened to it the first time, I got halfway through the song and was expecting this bigger drop and this heavier situation. It was really powerful that you kind of stripped away a lot of things and then added a lot more vocal layers. What was the thought process behind that?
FREDERIK: First of all, we were so happy that you picked this song. It’s really a weird song, actually. I would probably say it’s the song on the record that means the most to me. Again, we haven’t actually talked about what we think the song’s about before you asked us the question. You were saying that you feel like the song is about forgiveness.
SIGNE: Yeah, to me the song is about forgiveness. It starts out in this very dark place. And then the shift in the vibe, just feels like forgiveness. When you’re able to say sorry, you can be forgiven, and it lightens. And to me, also, the whole blood moon phenomenon and how the Earth’s shadow is covering the moon and the sun’s light coming from behind will still lighten it up and make it red. I feel like, to me, it just reminded me of the feeling of forgiveness. That the light will always shine through in some way if you’re able to say sorry and be forgiven.
FREDERIK: That kind of ties into what you were saying in the build up of the first half of the song. That’s kind of tensing up and then just releasing it and having it fall down and landing nicely in the forgiveness. It doesn’t always have to go overboard and then explode. You can also always just have a moment and stop and float slowly into forgiveness.
LUNA: I can definitely hear that. It’s a different kind of satisfaction, and then when you do think about it in terms of forgiveness, that is how it feels to be forgiven or to forgive someone. It is this moment of, “it’s fine.” It’s a more delicate and peaceful thing.
SIGNE: Exactly.
LUNA: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to talk with us. It’s really good music and I’m excited for everyone to hear it!
