You write much of your material yourself, don’t you?

Yes, that’s right.

And you’re also a painter, a visual artist.

Yes. The influences from these different artistic directions merge in my art. Like I said, I’m not formally educated as a painter, but when I lived in Spain I learned a few things from a woman there, concerning shadings etcetera. I didn’t pick up all that much from her, but I suppose the painting in some way has always been close to me.
I mostly paint in acrylic paint and sometimes in oil too. I also like coal. Mostly I work with acrylic paint though, on wood plates, nothing fancy at all.

How have you found this very expressive gesture, this fat and forceful way of painting your figures?

The figures? People fascinate me. Women, for example, I paint a lot of women. I’m fascinated by the aggressiveness of women. This is valid also for many of my texts, where the aggressiveness tends to tilt more over into parody. I suppose I am a bit angry too! Angry, for example, at men in the music industry. Damn, it’s not so easy, really, to deal with their sexual jokes rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal, never taking anything seriously. They sit there and kind of half-involve themselves. However, I don’t want to be some kind of feminist bitch either, you know, but I write song texts about it and use the power of parody; play with it – and I also want it to be beautiful. It’s a daily inter-action, you know, with the sensual, and… it’s fine, sort of. I don’t won’t to remove the aesthetical aspect. Still, I want to make a parody of it, because I think it’s important, because I think it is a problem, which pisses me off, kind of. I guess this angered feeling has always brewed beneath the surface… so I… hahaha! …paint women and men – mostly women, really – with a certain tension, a certain power at their disposal.

So your threefold artistry, i.e. singing, composing and painting, all connects, doesn’t it?

Yes. Singing is the simplest. Composing is perhaps the hardest, but I’ve tampered with it back and forth to find my right… energy, which I want to emit and express; the right kind of composition. It has taken a longer time, partly because people sometimes have a hard time playing the compositions, or they don’t sound right, or… they don’t fall into place, and of course I’ve always had the option to just sing standards and covers; something already written, but… composing a song is like painting; you have to stubbornly put the right elements together. I don’t know if it’s some kind of ego trip? It almost sounds that way, that I… no, it’s not ego, but it’s a kind of need to be true to yourself, not to let yourself down. I want to find something new, I want to deliver a new message in new way. Why shouldn’t I do that, just because it’s hard work? This is a force within me, which I want to create in this manner that I do create. I have noticed that this works too. I believe in creating for myself and for others. I believe in this balancing act.

You’ve already recorded some albums?

Yes, I laid down the first one at school, Berklee College of Music in Boston, in 1994, with contemporary jazz that I wrote myself, for the most part. The CD is called Orange. Berklee paid for the recording and also sponsored a tour to Japan with the Sophie Dunér Orchestra, which my band was called.
Then I participated on several other CDs, for example with big bands. An Argentinean guy in Boston had a big band. That group was called The Big Van. I sang one or two songs on his CD. We also played concerts in New York and so forth.
Then I also participated on another Argentinean CD, which mixed fusion and tango. I sang one song there. It involved quite a bit of improvisation too. His name was Fernando Tarrés. I also played on a CD with Juerg Wickihalder’s Interplay Collective; a big band. I was also working as a composer on that CD, which Juerg Wickihalder also did. The CD was called Dance With Me. It was a mixture of chanson, tango and some theatre music. The music was very tediously arranged, though. That was in Switzerland. What else did I do…? Yeah, that Argentinean guy, his next CD, in the same vein as the first.
I appeared on a reggae CD in Spain too. As a singer on one of the tracks! I also appeared on a CD with an Arabic-Spanish fusion group in Spain. I never toured with that latter group though. It was just a recording.

What about one of the CDs you sent me; Theatrical Jazz?

That’s a demo with a few songs I did in Madrid, and a few songs I did in the Stenhammar Auditorium in the Gothenburg Concert House some years ago.

Sophie, you and I met at the Stockhausen Courses in Germany last year, and now you’ve been there again. How come you went there?

It seemed interesting to me, and I wanted to develop my classical technique further, and I also think that Stockhausen’s music can inspire any other music. My music is kind of hybridized, and Stockhausen also has this theatrical aspect in his music. That is mighty compelling to me. I may not be all that interested in the technical ins and outs of his compositions. I don’t know anything about that. I pick up on him in a more primitive way, to learn and get my own ideas. I also enjoy the classical techniques of vocalizing; how to place my voice and so forth. It was more of a totality thing, a holistic thing, the Stockhausen Courses.

I also notice that I’ve become better in the higher registers. I have pretty much a mezzo voice, but I’ve wanted to practice the higher registers too, to give me more possibilities – in my compositions – to handle other… since I arrange my songs so tediously and layer voice upon voice, I enjoy being able to sing up there on high! I do that more now, partly thanks to the Stockhausen Courses. I enjoy being able to apply what I learn not only in classical singing, but also in my own compositions, my own songs. Kate Bush, for instance, does this. She floats around up there, and then she suddenly moves through the sub-terra in dark nuances.

Looking at your biography, do you originate in Gothenburg?

Yes, from a place outside Gothenburg. I’ve moved around extensively since then, but since about a year I’m based in the Gothenburg region again.

What are your plans directly ahead?

Well, that is to plan for my next project, the more complex recordings. I want to do a more highly arranged CD with background vocals, keyboards, strings – with my own material. I think in terms of humor, theatre, groove, cheeky and cocky attitudes – and romance! I have heaps of material. I just have to sit down and start working with it! I got to place myself in front of the Macintosh and hit it!

Are you writing attack wise, in creative rushes, or are you very disciplined, working from, say 10 AM to 2 PM or something?

I write intensely from time to time, but I can do it in an orderly fashion too – but I don’t sit down at the desk to write certain hours each day, no. Sometimes I start with just the texts. I look at the texts, and may get musical ideas from them. In pop they sometimes begin with the texts – and really, it’s very logical, isn’t it? I never did it that way before, though. I always used to begin with the bass. It was good, in the USA, to get more inside the jazz thing. I feel that I can manage to sing jazz while I compose other stuff, and I might have spent a lot of time on composing only, and forgotten the physicality of singing jazz. I’ve focused less on how to sing the tunes, because I’ve been so deep inside the act of composing. Then suddenly it dawned on me; my God, I am in fact a jazz singer!
I really started to enjoy all these curvatures and flexings that I excel in, but not just to show off. I use this to convey something; to tell a story – with a little humor! I sing certain songs because I want to make a statement! There is a reason why I sing such and such songs. That’s the way it ought to be always in music. There should be a reason relating to the text or the stuff around it, but sometimes music is played just to be played, sort of, because it’s supposed to be hip, or… With my conviction, I believe people will also easier grasp what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. They don’t even have to think it or analyze it. They feel it! I don’t want to make it intellectual head music. It should become challenging and be conveyed that way, but people shouldn’t be forced to think it out intellectually or dwell in analyzes of the music. When I succeed in this aim, it’s really fun! I do make some provocative stuff, but the folks get it anyhow, kind of. They can feel what I’m about.

I’ve had all kinds of influences. A few years ago I felt the Björk influence, for example. For the time being I’ve put the Björk influx on ice. Her surroundings have become so trendy, sort of. People all try to crack their voices and so on. I guess it was more the concept I dug, how she utilized differentiated rhythms. I’ve also been somewhat obsessed by finding new rhythms, like writing a song in one time while singing in another time… You always do that in jazz anyhow…

I’m also delighted in singing songs wherein I can use my voice as much as possible. In my own music I keep on keeping on back and forth. I talk-sing, a little like this thing that Dylan does, you know – I’ve thrown that in too! I’m not sure why, but I think I’ve been inspired by a theatre musician I knew in Madrid, who sings too, and he talked, and I thought it was so cool, so I picked up on it. We also rehearsed a theatre play together, and that taught me a few tricks, referring to the importance of how you say something, how you articulate.
I also appreciate what Ricky Lee Jones does. I’m also very fascinated by Kurt Weill and all those old tunes, but I still want to apply my brand, my atmosphere, to it. I have to make my very own interpretation. That whole scene is very enjoyable, kind of film-inspired. I’m kind of obsessed by this contemporary cabaret thing, and one of my loose plans is to have an electronic cabaret band, sort of… to do a number of cabaret covers right off, aggressively, with keyboard and guitar and… with all these old Kurt Weill songs!

Well, it’s time to leave. You have to go to Gummeson’s Gallery to hang your paintings! Are you walking or taking a subway or something?

I have to be there in half an hour, I don’t know how long it takes to walk there?

I don’t know, you’re walking through downtown. I’m going to the Central Station, so I walk, it’s pretty close.

Ok, I’m walking too then. Let's go!