Distant Days

Distant Days' music fuses traditional song writing with dramatic and at times angular arrangements - placing it in a musical landscape with equal bits of Americana, singer songwriter, post-punk and alternative rock. Think Bowie meets Television meets the National meets Jack White. The band hails from Uppsala and Stockholm in Sweden. Erik Illes (vocals, guitars), Michael Funke (guitars), Ulf Eklund (percussion, keyboards, vocals) and Anders Vretenäs (bass). The band has collaborated closely with eminent producers as Stefan Brändström and Lasse Halapi. One fan is Björn Olsson, renowned producer and musician, perhaps best known for being part of Union Carbide Productions and The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

Inspiration for the 2017 album Dying of the Light come from many places: John Cale’s “Andalusia” on a rainy night in Phnom Penh. Cold spring in Sarajevo with David McComb’s longing voice. Scott Walker in a Brussels bar, Vientiane and a whispering Vashti Bunyan. Tom Verlaine playing in Uppsala. Lee Hazlewood strolling down a street in Stockholm. Losing oneself in Berlin with David Bowie. Dusty Springfield on the car stereo somewhere in the Swedish Woods.
Looking at the songs themselves, there is plenty of love and loss, desire and despair, reflection and passion, defiance and hope… and the ever present collision of the present with the past and the future.
The album was well received, and at the moment the band is recording a follow up.