Erika Angell

Erika Angell's exploratory approach to sound draws from indie, electronic, art pop, and jazz realms, incorporating melismatic phrasing, spoken-word delivery, and a wide vocal range. Following her involvement in the 2000s and 2010s with the noise duo the Moth, the singer/songwriter project Josef & Erika, and the Polaris Prize-nominated experimental rock outfit Thus Owls, she issued her first solo statement, the dramatic album The Obsession with Her Voice, in 2024.

Born Erika Alexandersson on an island off Sweden's western coast, she relocated to Stockholm in 2004 seeking musical prospects. There she joined the longstanding Fylkingen collective, the experimental music and art organization established in 1933 that functions as both label and venue. Alongside bassist/singer Josef Kallerdahl she issued Wallpaper Stories in 2005 under the name Erika & Josef. That jazz- and folk-focused partnership followed up with Small Small Small Small Sounds in 2007, the year she also co-established the experimental rock group Thus Owls together with drummer Ola Hultgren, bassist Martin Höper, and pianist Cecilia Persson. Guitarist Simon Angell from Patrick Watson joined the lineup before year's end. The ensemble then delivered Cardiac Malformations in 2009 and Harbours in 2013; afterward Erika and Simon, by then married, shifted the project to his native Montreal. In the interim the Moth, her electronic noise duo with Martin Öhman, debuted via Antennae in 2009, while Josef & Erika released their third album, Floods, in 2011.

With Höper, keyboardist Parker Shper, and drummer Stefan Schneider, the Angells tracked Thus Owls' third full-length, Turning Rocks, in Montreal during mid-2013. Secret City Records put the set out in April 2014, after which it earned a longlist placement for the Polaris Music Prize. The Moth followed with their second album, Mammoth, in November 2014. Secret City issued the Thus Owls EP Black Matter the next year. Josef & Erika also returned in 2015 with the long-player Short Cuts/Highways. Although Thus Owls' subsequent release, 2018's The Mountain That We Live Upon, incorporated additional contributors on guitars, drums, vocals, trumpet, and bass saxophone, the core had reduced to a duo. As Erika's other endeavors wound down, Thus Owls persisted, capturing a double album in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic; the resulting Who Would Hold You If the Sky Betrayed Us? appeared as a self-release in March 2022. In May 2023 the avant-garde trio Beatings Are in the Body surfaced, featuring cellist/vocalist Peggy Lee and pianist/vocalist Róisín Adams alongside Angell, who handled vocals, electronics, and bells.

On her 2024 solo debut The Obsession with Her Voice, issued that March by the Montreal indie imprint Constellation, she traversed the stylistic breadth of her earlier work and beyond while highlighting her vocal agility.