Det enda bl.a.

Biography

Det enda bl.a. plays restfully cumbersome instrumental music that sounds a bit like jazz, but without so many long solos.

“How a melody relates to harmony is part of the good things in life.”
– John Bjerkert – Det enda bl.a.

With one foot in indie pop and the Scanian prog soil and the other in jazz, as well as some inherited unconscious Swedish folk music, Det enda bl.a. creates a completely unique intersection of something you think you recognize but then forget. After a couple of EPs, it’s now time for a debut album. The album has been titled “Som att börja gå nedför i en stillastående rulltrappa” and will be released on October 24.

Behind the project Det enda bl.a. is John Bjerkert. In the band, songwriter John Bjerkert plays drums and piano, Conny Fridh bass, Isak Ringnér guitar and Andreas Sjögren saxophones, keyboards and percussion.

Det enda bl.a. is a pure solo project completely dependent on the participation of others.

“Det enda bl.a. is a very private project that was created by me going down to the basement and staying there for a while. It’s formalized whims and the same song in different versions. Writing music, or for that matter creating in general, I think is about staying in the flying thoughts, joining them together and then backing off. Complete focus on details becomes a nice unthought-out whole.”

Who are your main influences?
For me, music has always been more something that is close rather than far away. Of course, I have listened to and played a lot of stuff here and there, but what has inspired me and influenced me the most are the people I have played with. Their thoughts about music and their joy and seriousness in their interest. People like Pontus Wickman, David Fridlund, Emil Jensen and Richard Schicke.

And more concretely, I am strongly influenced by a memory of Allan Holdsworth‘s music. Not that I particularly like it, but more of how I felt when I first heard his music.

Then I like Panda da Panda a lot and listened to him constantly during the period I was writing these songs.

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It was always the same thought on the way down to the basement:
-Why do I want to change everything, when I have time to think at all?

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A small Swedish phrasebook:

Det enda bl.a. = The only i.a
Som att börja gå nedför i en stillastående rulltrappa = Like starting to go down a stationary escalator
Med ett liv i behåll? = With one life preserved?
Sen skulle jag följt hennes egna råd = Then I should have followed her own advice