Hello, old friend. It has been far too long. Has the world been treating you well? I most certainly hope it has. Every time I see you, I always realize just how much I have missed you.
That’s the feeling that returns each time I put on a record from the Swedish duo Old Amica—a quiet reunion, unhurried and full of gentle memories.
It’s the same response I had the first time I came across this project’s ethereal work nearly a decade ago. That moment occurred while searching for new material to share on my university radio show.
Johan Kisro and Linus Johansson have long been crafting music that blends ambient and atmospheric textures with elements of pop, creating a sound that expresses an intimate distance. It is a project that reflects its own creation in that it embodies the more than 1,000 kilometers between the two creators. One lives in Stockholm, Sweden, while the other resides in Genève, Switzerland.
“A two-man band from Sweden using the great powers of the internet to create,” the project’s Facebook page has read for many years.
To absorb a piece of music from Old Amica is less an act of hearing than wandering. It’s a mental stroll. The German language offers a more precise word: Spaziergang— an unhurried walk for the sake of pleasure, usually without a clear destination.
Upon making this realization a few days earlier, I took Old Amica — meine guten Freunde—on my very own Spaziergang. Instead of returning to previous recordings from the group, I selected their 2024 release, För alltid, a work I had not yet heard.
My notes from the afternoon outing:
As my legs carry a wandering mind along a cool spring breeze, the soundscape of För alltid’s opening piece, “Vågorna på Arcus,” leads my thoughts to childhood. Then, I hear it. Deep within the music lie whispers of young voices. I think of the children in my neighborhood, the moments that bring them joy, and the anxieties that might be slowly growing within them.
The atmospheric opening pair of tracks gives way to the more grounded and slightly more traditional performance “Mot Natten,” and images of a crib below a slowly spinning mobile occupy my thoughts.
The image forms just as a cool rain begins to fall.
Steps later, I witness two redheaded boys, no older than 10, rushing home in anticipation of a coming storm. The older of the two bounces a basketball on the front porch of their home, while the younger is deeply interested in the rather large stick. He lifts the object into the sky. I wonder where he found such a large piece of wood in the meticulously manicured housing development. Their father, sporting a neat baseball cap, sits on an Adirondack chair, looking down at his phone.
It is an appropriate sight to accompany the gentle music.
As “Tinden Far” closes, I pass a man watering a plant in his front yard. He is joined by his dog, a Great Pyrenees. Supported by the melancholy introduction of “Gammalt ljus,” I cannot help but wonder how much time the two still have together.
The raindrops cease.
Farther along, I see another man with his dog—this one, a golden-brown mutt of some kind, leads with excitement, pulling his companion along as they make their way down a street that slips past a soccer field. They pass the green paddock, waiting empty for the arrival of evening’s sports clubs. Later, it will likely host a girls’ football club—or soccer, as we like to call it.
As the summer heat takes hold, the girls play later and later into the night. Sweeping through the dusk, the strong voice of their Scottish coach travels a substantial distance.
The song comes to an end. My eyes find focus on the neighborhood’s young oak trees dancing in the cool wind of the cloud-covered afternoon.
“Sommaren 96” begins as I watch the unseen wind made visible by waves of movement through each tree’s coat of leaves along the mathematically flawless streets of this planned community.
The dance offers a path that I gladly follow.
Listening to a woman’s voice dictate coordinates through a haze of static, my thoughts shift again, this time, to the many planes above, making their approach to my city’s airport. But today, there are none to find.
The record then transitions to “Neckar” in the middle of my search, the cool breeze meeting my back as I sit, hunched, on a bench.
I feel thankful to live in this place.
As the guitar and voices enter, I realize that I soon might be somewhere.
A ray of warm sunlight graces my face just as its final movement begins—“Till dig.” A cosmic coincidence accompanied by birds singing with relief that the threat of a storm is lifted. I am met with a feminine voice. The words arrive through a haze of radio static, evoking a time well before my own birth. Although I can understand little, if any, I reflect on how wonderfully clear and exceptional this person’s pronunciation must have been.
I feel thankful that we don’t all speak the same language.
The clouds return with the bold hum of an old, heavily modified BMW carrying a neighbor away.
Two final words come to mind: So long.
