Smith & Thell fuse introspective songwriting with buoyant, polished arrangements in their polished indie-folk sound, uniting singer/songwriter Maria Jane Smith with producer/songwriter Victor Thell. The pair first appeared as a duo on the 2012 single “Kill It with Love,” which they followed with “Super DJ” the next year. Their fifth release, the country-tinged “Statue (The Pills Song)” from 2015, earned them Rookie Artist of the Year at the Swedish Denniz Pop Awards, whose jury included Max Martin. That track anchored their debut album, Soulprints, issued by Playground Music in Sweden during 2017. They subsequently joined Arista for the 2018 EP Telephone Wires. Also in 2018, “Forgive Me Friend,” featuring Swedish Jam Factory, placed second in the second edition of Our European Song Contest, the web-based event modeled on the Eurovision Song Contest. The single climbed to number seven in Sweden, reached the top of the Polish singles chart, and entered the Top 30 of Billboard’s Alternative Songs tally in the United States. In 2019 the duo returned with “Hotel Walls,” which they co-wrote alongside Alexander Tidebrink and Kent’s Joakim Berg.
