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Track by Track:
Sweet Whirl - How Much Works
Sweet Whirl - How Much Works
Led by an unparalleled intimacy, the latest album from seasoned minstrel Sweet Whirl distils experience of the love-addled into universal and incredibly resonant poetry. Walking us through the album track by track, Esther Edquist gave her insights on the wider themes surrounding How Much Works - out now via Chapter Music.
It’s been almost four years since Esther Edquist unravelled the evocative mood of 2016’s O.K. Permanent Wave - her first record under the moniker Sweet Whirl that has come to define her raw and unmatched live performance. Alone with an electric bass, O.K. Permanent Wave leans into the solo prowess of Esther, her voice carrying each song atop waves of languid bass grooves. Undeniably striking, Sweet Whirl’s sound has continued to adapt with each new release - favouring country-tinged melancholy on 2019’s Love Songs & Poetry EP, each track muses in lush guitar work, love-addled and beautifully composed. Far and away from O.K. Permanent Wave’s skeletal intimacy, Love Songs reflects Sweet Whirl in a full band setting, exploring Esther’s sardonic, and often bleak lyricism through heart wrenching performance. Continuing her reinvention, How Much Works, Sweet Whirl’s first full length release through Chapter Music, finds Esther at her most compositionally rich and emotionally potent.
Played almost entirely by Esther herself, How Much Works explores folk ballads, pop and blues infused love songs through an eclectic display of instrumentation. Marrying the organic and raw qualities of Sweet Whirl’s early music, this release introduces listeners to broader instrumental layering - notable on album opener ‘Sweetness’, the song leads with programmed drumming and warm synth lines. Layering her vocals across the track in calculated bursts, ‘Sweetness’ reflects the sonic medley at play throughout How Much Works - an album grounded by Esther’s engaging melody and thoughtful lyricism.
Engineered by Casey Hartnett (Sui Zhen, Sleep Decade) with additional drumming from Monty Hartnett (Dreamin’ Wild), How Much Works finds Esther navigating specific instruments across different tracks, emphasising pianos on ‘Patterns of Nature’ and ‘Something I Do’ while conveying a familiar bass focus on tracks ‘Weirdo’ and ‘How to Count’. Taking her arrangements into unmarked territories, How Much Works finds Sweet Whirl in a newly lush avenue. Above anything, an unparalleled intimacy carries throughout each of the ten tracks, with Esther’s reflexive and personal narrations finding the forefront every time. With a certain poignance in her introspection, album standout ‘Tail Light’ likens one’s own battle with love to the inanimate - a broken tail light you've yet to fix on your station wagon. “Stay home at night, fix my tail light and make-believe that I’m happy by myself,” Esther sings, making signs but never getting through.
Delving further into the themes surrounding How Much Works, Esther has given us her insights on each of the album’s tracks below.
Played almost entirely by Esther herself, How Much Works explores folk ballads, pop and blues infused love songs through an eclectic display of instrumentation. Marrying the organic and raw qualities of Sweet Whirl’s early music, this release introduces listeners to broader instrumental layering - notable on album opener ‘Sweetness’, the song leads with programmed drumming and warm synth lines. Layering her vocals across the track in calculated bursts, ‘Sweetness’ reflects the sonic medley at play throughout How Much Works - an album grounded by Esther’s engaging melody and thoughtful lyricism.
Engineered by Casey Hartnett (Sui Zhen, Sleep Decade) with additional drumming from Monty Hartnett (Dreamin’ Wild), How Much Works finds Esther navigating specific instruments across different tracks, emphasising pianos on ‘Patterns of Nature’ and ‘Something I Do’ while conveying a familiar bass focus on tracks ‘Weirdo’ and ‘How to Count’. Taking her arrangements into unmarked territories, How Much Works finds Sweet Whirl in a newly lush avenue. Above anything, an unparalleled intimacy carries throughout each of the ten tracks, with Esther’s reflexive and personal narrations finding the forefront every time. With a certain poignance in her introspection, album standout ‘Tail Light’ likens one’s own battle with love to the inanimate - a broken tail light you've yet to fix on your station wagon. “Stay home at night, fix my tail light and make-believe that I’m happy by myself,” Esther sings, making signs but never getting through.
Delving further into the themes surrounding How Much Works, Esther has given us her insights on each of the album’s tracks below.
Sweetness
This song is about doomed lovers, sure, but it could also be about a large nation state hearing the protests of a young generation and the concerns of neighbouring smaller island nations, and being fully aware that the current path to profit via the mining and promotion of fossil fuels is a direct threat to the futures of these people and the nations they’re supposed to care about. It’s sung from the large nation state’s perspective, and the taste of sweetness is immediate profit at tomorrow’s expense. But also, it’s about doomed love.
Weirdo
Some days you suddenly realise you’re a freak - like you forgot for a while, and it starts to get you down. But then you’re like, “well fuck it, I’ve made it this far and no one’s locked me up or thrown me out so I’m pretty lucky”, and I might as well continue.
Patterns of Nature
This song, and the whole album really, is about that conflict between trying to find a natural order to your life, to fool yourself about the inevitability of things, and then being confronted with that very human drive to overcome what we think of as ‘nature’ and what’s ‘natural’, for better or worse, and push towards the unknown.
Something I Do
When you love someone so much that you’re uncharacteristically nice to their friends. Also a bit of a lol because this song is about your love for someone becoming an abstract part of your routine which actually hasn’t changed at all.
This song is about doomed lovers, sure, but it could also be about a large nation state hearing the protests of a young generation and the concerns of neighbouring smaller island nations, and being fully aware that the current path to profit via the mining and promotion of fossil fuels is a direct threat to the futures of these people and the nations they’re supposed to care about. It’s sung from the large nation state’s perspective, and the taste of sweetness is immediate profit at tomorrow’s expense. But also, it’s about doomed love.
Weirdo
Some days you suddenly realise you’re a freak - like you forgot for a while, and it starts to get you down. But then you’re like, “well fuck it, I’ve made it this far and no one’s locked me up or thrown me out so I’m pretty lucky”, and I might as well continue.
Patterns of Nature
This song, and the whole album really, is about that conflict between trying to find a natural order to your life, to fool yourself about the inevitability of things, and then being confronted with that very human drive to overcome what we think of as ‘nature’ and what’s ‘natural’, for better or worse, and push towards the unknown.
Something I Do
When you love someone so much that you’re uncharacteristically nice to their friends. Also a bit of a lol because this song is about your love for someone becoming an abstract part of your routine which actually hasn’t changed at all.
Conga Line
Another song about the poisonous aspects of being infatuated with a depressive.
Tail Light
One of the tail lights on my station wagon was broken, and I thought about how often I think I’m making signs and indicating but nothing’s getting through, and how I should really fix that, both mechanically and emotionally.
How To Count
At times, life is a numbers game. You have to count the days before you call, or make a call, and give emotions time to settle, etc. But also, the love for others, not just a single person, but love as a human quality is probably the only thing worth living for.
Make That Up For Me
I like the imagery of this song. As if you’re in a car at the top of a lookout, a hill that looks out over a small city. And that city is actually a collection of all the wild nights and times you’ve had with someone. And you’re both looking back at it, and saying, “look, I know it was a wild ride, but that’s the only way I know how.”
Closing Time
Another image-heavy song, it’s about running out of emotional generosity with people and figuratively closing up shop and letting them find somewhere else to go.
Love On Ice
This one starts like a German cabaret, a Brecht number; the lights are up at the end of the night and jaded party girl (me) is saying, “look, forget this crush, this fling, go back to your partner or whoever, and don’t even think about torturing her with news of me, don’t make it a big deal, I’m just a singer, in a bar, I do this for a living, I do this like breathing, don’t make her suffer, leave that to me, it’s all a song, leave that to me.”
Another song about the poisonous aspects of being infatuated with a depressive.
Tail Light
One of the tail lights on my station wagon was broken, and I thought about how often I think I’m making signs and indicating but nothing’s getting through, and how I should really fix that, both mechanically and emotionally.
How To Count
At times, life is a numbers game. You have to count the days before you call, or make a call, and give emotions time to settle, etc. But also, the love for others, not just a single person, but love as a human quality is probably the only thing worth living for.
Make That Up For Me
I like the imagery of this song. As if you’re in a car at the top of a lookout, a hill that looks out over a small city. And that city is actually a collection of all the wild nights and times you’ve had with someone. And you’re both looking back at it, and saying, “look, I know it was a wild ride, but that’s the only way I know how.”
Closing Time
Another image-heavy song, it’s about running out of emotional generosity with people and figuratively closing up shop and letting them find somewhere else to go.
Love On Ice
This one starts like a German cabaret, a Brecht number; the lights are up at the end of the night and jaded party girl (me) is saying, “look, forget this crush, this fling, go back to your partner or whoever, and don’t even think about torturing her with news of me, don’t make it a big deal, I’m just a singer, in a bar, I do this for a living, I do this like breathing, don’t make her suffer, leave that to me, it’s all a song, leave that to me.”
How Much Works is out now via Chapter Music - head to Bandcamp to purchase the album on 12" vinyl.
