Becky and the Birds serves as the outlet for Swedish singer and producer Thea Gustafsson, who crafts an off-kilter blend of indie electronic soul marked by theatrical flourishes and frequent dance rhythms. The self-titled debut album under this name surfaced in 2018. Following a string of shorter releases, her second full-length effort, Only music makes me cry now, emerged in 2024 with a more fractured sonic approach.
Gustafsson, born in Örebro, was raised amid a household of eclectic music enthusiasts whose listening spanned jazz, classical, Swedish folk, and '90s R&B. Her father performed on accordion, prompting her own early engagement with several instruments; she began formal violin training at age seven and later turned to composing and arranging works for orchestra. In 2014 she relocated to Stockholm for studies at Musikmakarna, where exposure to pop and dance productions by figures such as Max Martin and Avicii proved novel. Frustrations arising from interactions with male producers and songwriters prompted her to launch the solo endeavor Becky and the Birds in 2016.
Handling every aspect of writing, performance, arrangement, and production herself, Gustafsson issued the project’s first album, Becky and the Birds, in 2018. She subsequently joined 4AD, which put out the feminism-themed EP Trasslig (Swedish for “tangled”) in 2020. The non-album single “The Wolves (Act I and II),” featuring quivering orchestral folk textures, bridged the gap until 4AD released her follow-up album, Only music makes me cry now, in 2024. Though livelier and more splintered than its predecessor, the record remained wholly self-recorded.
