Music, Style & Culture

Class Of 2012: Icona Pop

The ferociously talented twosome tell Harriet Jennings about their year ahead.

Sitting in Mercury HQ, surrounded by copious amounts of biscuits, you might be forgiven for forgetting that you're in a major label's board room. And those girls sat opposite are not your friends but instead a ferociously talented twosome upon whom a good proportion of their record label's hopes for 2012 are pinned. Pressure? Not if you're asking Icona Pop. Words: Harriet Jennings. Photos: Sam Bond

“It's exciting for us to see where we'll end up. It's kind of chaos...” Caroline begins. “It feels so weird though. We've been working so long and now something's finally here, but it's very fun.”

Fun is quite clearly something very high on Icona Pop's agenda. Meeting in their native Sweden only two years ago, Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo are the latest in a long line of Scandinavian pop exports. With the same haunting vocals and mashing of light and dark that might incite references to the schools of Robyn and Lykke Li, the duo are incredibly proud of their home country. “I think it's kind of cool that a small country like Sweden has so many artists out there at the moment,” Aino gushes.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what these girls are good at, but their latest EP goes a step beyond their earlier work to reveal something a little more sinister. As such, it's quite difficult to pin down what to expect from the band's first full-length release. “I think the album will be like a mix between everything,” poses Aino. “Some tracks are slow and some have big drums and twisted synths, and the other songs may have our vocals on and just a bass.”

For the as-yet-untitled album, the girls are currently working with Elof Loelv (Niki & The Dove, Eric Hassle) and Patrick Berger (Robyn), two gentlemen that they affectionately refer to as “the real rock stars.” “Elof is a crazy guy,” smiles Aino. “We have been working with him since day one. He's amazing. He's just helped us to create our sound and take it to another level.”

By all accounts, the producers are about the only people permitted to voice their opinions on the record's progress. Or, in fact, most things. “We've been given a lot of space,” affirms Caroline. “The label have been supportive of what we want to do. I think they realised quite quickly that we have a lot of opinions and we're quite sure of what we want. We bring a lot of ideas to the table. I think that makes it easier for them. If we don't do it, someone else will do it for us.”

“We're constantly writing,” she continues. “And even though we have enough songs for maybe three albums, you're developing all the time. I think that this month, we will write a song that will end up on the album.”

“We always write when we move to new places,” Aino nods, grinning at her band mate. “You get so much inspiration that you have to get rid of the energy somehow and often it ends up with us two sat with a laptop. We've been doing lots of new tracks and we've only been here for a month.”

Icona Pop's new London home has also been lending itself to a few collaborations (New Young Pony Club, Style Of Eye, to name two) but the band have their sights set pretty high for future targets: “I would like to work with The Knife or Planningtorock. They both have this really dark side and I think that would be a great clash, to bring the really, really dark theme into Icona and twist it even more, that would be awesome.”

“That would be very cool,”agrees Caroline. “And then of course it would be very nice to write a song with Prince. We're working like 24/7 so sometimes when you're sitting down you have a moment where you're like, "whoa, what happened?" A lot of stuff's going on and sometimes it's just crazy. We're just working and doing our thing and just hanging out with each other, having fun.”

“Will we ever be finished?” ponders Aino, “I don't think we'll ever be finished in our heads. We're very nervous. It's like releasing a diary.”
“Yeah, but I also think that even though I'm nervous, I am excited because this is our little baby and we've been just keeping it to ourselves. Now I feel that we're ready, we're ready to show that to the world.”

And show it to the world they intend to, with plans for this year including an album release around March and hopefully a tour, it's safe to say that Icona Pop will not be short of nights like this in 2012.



Taken from the Winter 2011 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.