Klara Lewis
Klara Lewis (b. 1993) is a Swedish electronic and ambient musician whose debut album, Ett (2014), was released by Editions Mego. Since then she’s released a few solo albums, like Too (2016), and various collaborative albums including Care (2018) with Simon Fisher Turner, KLMNOPQ (2021) with Peder Mannerfelt, Full-On (2023) with Nik Colk Void, and Salt Water (2024) with Yuki Tsujii. In 2024, she released the album Thankful, a tribute to Mego boss Peter Rehberg. Her newest album is Opening (2026), a stirring collection of tracks featuring backmasked samples, loops, and manipulated field recordings. Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Lewis on August 30th, 2026 via Zoom to discuss her upbringing, what she’s learned from her many collaborations, and the inspirations behind her latest album.
Joshua Minsoo Kim: A decade ago, you said that you’d seen the tough side of having a job in the arts because both of your parents are in these worlds. What sort of things did you see early on, and did your parents ever talk with you about these struggles? [Editor’s note: Klara Lewis’ father is Graham Lewis of Wire, Dome, P’o, and more].
Klara Lewis: All this was my childhood, so it seemed natural. They talked to me about the practical side of things in terms of money and not knowing what next month would hold. It was about this instability, the ebbs and flows of different projects. That was always a really small detail, though, compared to all the positives. There’s never been a question of “is this worth it?” One’s “art life” is life in general, and that’s never been in doubt. My parents were definitely like, “Are you sure you want to do this? This is such a difficult context to work within.” And it is a weird context because your workplace is other people’s time off, your “office” is other people’s context for having a fun weekend.
When did you realize that music was something you wanted to commit to? I know your mother had a club and booked shows, and I’m wondering if she brought you to any.
With my mom, we connected over film. She’s a film nerd, and so I’ve been one as well since birth. I began watching David Lynch’s work as a kid. Those are some of the earliest connections I had to work where the feeling, energy, and soundscapes created this really deep sense of calm. When you connect with music or art or film in this way, it feels like things will be okay—you no longer feel alone. With the music side of things, I remember going to London with my dad to see Touch’s anniversary event. I must have been 14 or so and seeing Biosphere, Chris Watson, and I think Russell Haswell. I thought, this is what I want to do, this is the world I want to be a part of.
You were born in Sweden and still live there. Can you paint a portrait of what it was like growing up there?
It’s difficult to say. I grew up in Uppsala, which is a university town—about 40 minutes from Stockholm. It’s a small town and there’s not that much of a music scene. Now that I’ve moved to Stockholm, it’s fantastic to be surrounded by culture and art and music, but it was kind of positive to grow up in a different area and long for this other context. That kind of outsider vibe was healthy because if I’d grown up in London or Stockholm, everything would’ve come too easily, and that can be a problem. Growing up in this small, quiet town boosted my decisiveness to connect with people from other cultures and countries. It was like, I will send my demo to Peter Rehberg. I needed to reach out.
I know that when you were first making music as a teenager, the sounds were derived from films you made. Were these just made using digital camcorders?
Yeah, the quality was not so great. I was 14 and I was filming everything that looked or sounded interesting. I was very inspired by Lynch, so there were flashing lightbulbs, creaking doors, and other atmospheric things. It’s only now that I understand how it’s not the most obvious thing to film stuff because it sounds interesting, but those two things—film and music—were so connected for me. It just made sense to take sounds from my films to compose music. What I love about making music is that I don’t think about referencing things or applying theory or having a storyline—it’s driven by intuition. And I connect film editing with the way I make music, as I make collages and layer stuff and follow specific moods. I don’t use the grid system in Logic, and I don’t know the key or bpm of anything; I just follow what feels right.
How do you think your music would be different if you hadn’t incorporated this filmmaking aspect into your process? Like, did the act of shooting these images, and with a device that has a different microphone from a Zoom recorder, affect the way you approached your work?
On a practical level, starting out with audio that’s captured by an old, digital camera was obviously a gateway into this lo-fi way of working. I really appreciate how a recording that’s of a much lower quality can have more feeling than something hi-fi and “competent.” I’m really into choosing limitations and using mistakes. It’s much more interesting than polished stuff.
It’s been 12 years since your debut, Ett (2014), and you’ve obviously released multiple albums since, some of which were collaborative. Can you talk about what it was like to work with these people. The Simon Fisher Turner album, Care (2018), was especially interesting because I primarily knew him through his soundtracks for Derek Jarman, Blue (1993) being the big one. What do you think you’ve learned from collaborating with him and others?
I’ve actually got a poster of Blue here! (tilts camera up). With Simon, he reached out early on. I think my first album might have already come out, but it was super early. He wrote to me on Facebook because he’d seen this 30-second audiovisual loop that I made for a school project. He was like, “This sounds really good, do you want to collaborate?” I didn’t really know who he was, but I recognized the name. I asked my dad and he said, “Oh, he’s a good guy. You should do that.”
Simon asked if I wanted to go on a tour with him and this French artist, Rainier Lericolais. We live-soundtracked this silent movie, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927). I didn’t know how it’d work at all, and I had basically never performed live at that point. We were booking a lot of shows, and given Simon’s reputation with the Jarman films, I was very nervous. It was a blessing for that to be my first collaboration. From Simon, I learned how to work with silence and to dare to be quiet, to dare to leave space. We were three people on stage: he was playing electronics and piano, and Rainier and I were doing electronics and had these gramophones. We used them to play these recordings that Simon had made and pressed on vinyl.
We knew there’d be this risk of too much going on, that there’d be this wall of sound. My impulse was to prove that I was bringing something to the table, that I was pulling my weight. I wanted to actively make sound, but Simon made clear that sometimes the best thing to do is to sit there for five minutes straight without doing anything. And that’s really scary, at least in the beginning. Like, I’m gonna sit in front of this big audience and not do anything? But from that, I was actively listening to what other people were doing, and it was a lot like having a conversation. When you’re not properly listening to the other person—when you’re instead focusing on what you’re going to say—you’re not with that person in the moment. You have to be present. I was finding this calm flow, and it was also about building up the confidence to believe in this process. He also told us to have fun. He was serious about the work, but he wanted us to have a great time, too.
Were there any particular highlights or lowlights from that tour? You hadn’t performed live before that, so I’m wondering if there were any shows that stand out to you in retrospect.
Because it was so early on in the process, everything was so new all the time. There was this one show where it was time to play and we took a look and there was nobody in the audience. The room was completely empty. It was like, great, no one turned up. I was like, “How do we tackle this?” Simon said, “This is great, we can just play for ourselves.” We decided to go backstage and hang out for a bit before starting in half an hour, and the set would essentially be us hanging out with one another. It turned out there was a miscommunication by the promoter and we thought we were starting an hour earlier than scheduled. The room ended up being full, but it was such an important mental adjustment to not have any hang-ups about the audience or these external ideas about success. We needed to go back to why we were doing this in the first place: we love music and sound. And because of this, it ended up being one of the better shows.
Can you speak to your relationship with Peter Rehberg? Your album Thankful (2024) was dedicated to him and involved using material from his work as Pita. What comes to mind for you about him?
He was one of the most important people in my life. From the beginning, it was just an extremely positive relationship. I sent him the demo of my album and didn’t tell him about my dad; I was basically a random person sending him an album. He responded a couple hours later saying, “I’m in a hotel room in Paris. I only listened on my laptop but this is great, can we have a call?” And then he was like, “Does vinyl and digital sound good?” I was like, what’s going on? (laughter). From that moment onward, he really treated me as part of the Mego family. He included me in a lot of the Mego gigs, like the 20th anniversary one.
From not having done any shows to then touring with Fennesz and Peter and Ilpo [Väisänen] and Stephen O’Malley… Peter was just like, “Of course you’re part of the lineup.” It was extremely formative for someone to treat me like a fellow artist. A lot has happened and changed in the experimental electronic music scene since, but at the time I was often the youngest and only female in these contexts. Still, Peter would always treat me as one of the gang, as a mate. He wouldn’t gush over my work, but he’d say, “This is good, as always.” He was very understated, but also very clear about the fact that he believed in me.
What was it like working with Nik Colk Void on Full On (2023) and Yuki Tsujii for Salt Water (2024)?
I love both those collaborations. With Nik, we played together in London at this basement venue called Birthdays. It was one of my super early shows and I was really nervous, and she was playing a solo show. I wonder if it was her first one with that setup, but she was really nervous too. I remember meeting her then and liking the tone of what she was doing, and then we kept bumping into each other at different shows. Like, I opened for Factory Floor at the ICA and we hung out backstage. We connected so much that we decided to do something.
We were supposed to play a show together in Braga at the Semibreve Festival, but then COVID hit. They adjusted the project so that we could have a residency. We had this room set up with a table and two small speakers, and we met there and made the album in two or three days. What was important was that it was this punk-y sensibility of working with small, playful, and aggressive loops. Things were messy and noisy and fun. We played stuff for each other, like, “I have this loop but it’s a little corny,” and asked each other for feedback. With her, I remember she played this vocal recording and she didn’t know if it was any good, but I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’d heard. We were helping each other get out of our respective comfort zones, and we were doing stuff that wouldn’t exist in other collaborations or in our respective solo work. It ended up being a very coherent album, and that’s the sort of thing you can’t do unless you trust someone creatively.
I wanted to ask about the new album, Opening (2026). The cover is derived from filmed documentation of a dance performance, En Masse, by the troupe Circa. I like that the cover art is also a still from video footage of the film. What’s your relationship to dance and that piece?
It’s actually quite new. One of the early references for me is my godfather Bruce Gilbert. He made a lot of work specifically for dance, and in that way I always thought it’d be interesting to work with dance and movement. The dance company, Circa, is like this experimental circus, acrobatics, and dance company. I got an email a long time ago from the director and he said he wanted to use my music. I thought it’d be a really bad idea because I had such clichéd ideas of what a circus is, with elephants and trapeze artists or whatever, but then I looked them up. The director, Yaron Lifschitz, had worked a lot with Lawrence English and asked him to make music for the show, but Lawrence said that Yaron should ask me. That’s such a typical Lawrence thing to do, to connect people.
So Circa ended up using some of my work for En Masse, and the show had my stuff alongside work by Stravinsky and Schubert. I remember seeing the premiere of the show at Lincoln Center and being really blown away by these dancers moving to my work. I don’t really have a relationship to dance, so to see people who express themselves creatively with their bodies, and the physicality of the show and the things they could do… like, I could see how the music changed because of how it met with their bodies. Regarding the cover art, it was a visual sampling of a photo of a screen of the film of the show (laughter).
I wanted to talk about the making of this album. In the past you’ve talked about how you’ve made field recordings and then sample them in your own work. You’ve said that making music in this way helps you learn more about the spaces you’re in, and I’m wondering if that still holds true today.
I approach all of my source material in the same way. It’s about being present in the moment and taking in my surroundings in an active way, where I’m seeing or hearing small details that evoke a lot of emotion. It’s about finding beauty and strangeness in these tiny snippets, these small moments. When I’m playing MIDI or a ukulele, it’s the same thing of trying stuff and noticing a small tone that makes the brain go quiet, like, “Yes, something’s happening now.” And then I lock into that. It feels the same as taking a walk and noticing a sound and realizing that something is actually happening. It makes me appreciate life more.
Was there a song on the album that was derived from these walks?
The second track, “City.” A lot of the recordings for that come from a trip to Berlin. There’s a recording of a busker, there’s the metro passing by, there’s people talking, there’s rain on the roof. There’s also a recording of sirens, and hearing them is like, it’s a really beautiful tone, but somebody’s having the worst day of their life because an ambulance is coming to pick them up (laughter).
I used to take field recordings wherever I went in my early 20s, and I found those experiences interesting. There were two things that happened: when I pressed record, I was listening more intently to my surroundings, and I was also thinking of how I’d sculpt those sounds, but I also felt that it was kind of antisocial and alienating. Like, I’m there and I’m listening really intensely, but it felt so tunnel-visioned too, like I was interacting with sound in this hyper-specific way that removed me from just being in the world. I’m curious if you’ve ever had those sort of thoughts.
I’ve had similar experiences, and I think it’s been a process to understand my relationship to field recordings. With my first and second album [Too (2016)], it felt really natural to be like, “This is the way I work, this is my thing.” But because this happened, because it became my niche, I felt I had this pressured relationship to field recordings. I remember being annoyed by the fact that I always had to bring my bag with me. I needed to bring my Zoom. I remember feeling pissed off that every single walk was a potential work situation, or a situation that I had to excel at—I had to do a good job being a field recordist.
For a couple years, I felt like I needed a break from it. I also didn’t want to be pigeonholed as this ambient and field recording musician. I’d get annoyed when I went to music festivals and technicians would assume I’d play a quiet, gentle, precious set because I’m a female who makes ambient music. I felt like I needed to make louder, abrasive things and stray from my field recording technique. But then I found an approach where I treated sampling in a way that was connected to field recordings. I was recycling and reshaping source material in different ways.
With this album, it was like revisiting field recordings again. I remember listening to Jonnine from HTRK’s solo album, Southside Girl (2024). The way she used field recordings reawakened my love for them. She used it in such a different way—it felt so natural and unpretentious, partly because of its lo-fi nature. There was this power in simplicity: she’d just be recording herself singing on her phone, and then you’d hear her open the window and hear the birds. There was this light touch, and it was really beautiful. It not being in the typical electronic ambient context was nice, too. Like, these are still songs even though they’re understated. Most of the time, I’m inspired by music that’s in a different genre or method from the one I work within.
Can you give me an example of music you’re into that someone would be surprised to hear you’re inspired by?
Something that isn’t surprising is how one of my early interests is film music. And one of my biggest inspirations is Mica Levi’s work, as well as Hype Williams, Dean Blunt, and Inga Copeland—that kind of stuff. Also the Metallica and Lou Reed album, Lulu (2011), is really good. It’s like a dirty cousin to the Scott Walker and Sunn O))) album, Soused (2014). I listen to quite a lot of rock music, and while I play instruments, I don’t play in a band. The last couple of days, I’ve been listening to the Vincent Gallo album, When (2001). There’s this song on there, “Apple Girl,” and I love how simple and quiet it is. It’s just piano and voice. Obviously I wouldn’t sing a creepy song about a girl eating an apple, so there’s not this direct influence, but I want to capture this feeling in my own way.
If I were to choose a single work that inspired this album—visually, sonically, the whole vibe—it’d be Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006). I saw the film when it came out. I was with my parents and they both fell asleep (laughter), so I was sitting there on my own, thinking that it was the best thing ever, and then I’d hear them snoring (laughter). It was a formative experience, and there was this feeling that Lynch was doing everything he wanted to do and following his vision. Everything with the handheld digital camera was inspiring.
I love how the moods in that film can really shift from a pleasant, simple situation to something extremely sinister. He accomplishes this though small changes, like the way someone looks or talks, and then things can change back again to something romantic or beautiful. It’s these small nuances that are really inspiring. Inland Empire is one of those films that I can watch again and again—there’s no limit. And I have a deep sense of calm doing so because it feels so right, even though the whole film feels so wrong (laughter). When you see a film that’s extremely dark or sad, if it’s handled properly, it can be a really hope-inducing experience because you feel seen.
Do you mind speaking to the track titles on the album? You have titles in English and others in Swedish. You use “Ta Min Hand” instead of “Take My Hand” and “Något Att Berätta” instead of “Something to Tell.”
It’s really intuitive, it’s about the feeling I have. When I was thinking about the titles and discussing them with my boyfriend, I’d say, “I think this one is ‘Ta Min Hand’ and I don’t think it sounds right in English.” And then it was like, “Oh, maybe it should just be in Swedish.” Like, why translate? I should apply the same intuition and respect for the material with my titles. If I think something feels more like “Vaknar” than “Waking Up,” then I should keep it. My dad doesn’t speak Swedish, so we’ve always had a bilingual household. And there are differences with each language and what a certain word or phrase in one language might make you feel.
There was this theater project [Det är allt (2026)] I took part in that was based on Marguerite Duras’ final book [No More (1996)]. It was both a theater performance and concert, and I worked with Isak Sundström, who writes really beautiful lyrics in Swedish and is in this rock band. There was an actor on stage and she’s never acted in anything before—she’s 78. The whole thing is really raw because she’s talking about dying in a powerful way. We did four shows in June and we’re seeing if we can do it abroad, but the text is in Swedish so we’ll have to figure it out. I think that experience made me realize that I do have this more emotional connection to Swedish. “Ta Min Hand” is more intimate—my partner and I speak Swedish to each other, so it’d be weird to have the title in English.
I also think it’s amusing that the song “Hardcore” is one of the quieter, prettier tracks on the album. With that track and others, I’m wondering about your interest in backmasked samples and loops and how you approach these methods.
It’s about how limitations can be both inspiring and freeing. They can be a creative drive, like, “How far can I push this specific loop or melody?” I want to see how much one phrase can be repeated again and again, and how the atmosphere and vibe and story can be affected by a small change. Also, a lot of the tracks may sound like they’re built on samples, but they’re actually melodies I’ve written and played and then sample myself. Everything’s intertwined in that way, whether it’s a field recording of someone playing an instrument on the street, or a recording of music from a film being played on a computer, or me playing something in my room and then putting it into DJ software. Everything is about intuition and about seeing what a small detail can grow into.
Are you the one playing piano then on tracks like “Bud”? And the strings are just things you’re playing on a keyboard or synthesizer?
Yeah.
What about the voices on “How Far?”—it sounds like that was recorded in an alley or something.
That was a backstage moment. A choir was doing vocal warmups and I was just standing around the corner and recording it. I was a bit sneaky.
Were there any tracks on the album that were particularly difficult to create, or do you feel like everything came swiftly? Were there any particular challenges with making the album?
Good question. In a way, the opening track was difficult because I felt that the material was so important, that it had so much potential. I really wanted to make sure I took care of it. Sometimes when you’re making something, you find it really emotional and you want to make sure it feels right.
How did you approach the sequencing of the album? You have songs like “Drip” and “Feel” that were initially for Mika Taanila’s film Failed Emptiness (2024), and the song “Tide” was originally for the On “Dissolving Strawberry” (2020) compilation from last year. The album also ends with the track “Opening,” which feels intentional.
I finished some tracks right before sending the material to Mego, and others were pieces I started making up to eight years ago. There were some pieces where I had a melody and just never found the right home for it. It’s strange that even though so much time has passed, there are these connections you can make between all the pieces. The track “Fortsätt,” which means “Continue,” was one I started a long time ago. It started during a period when I was touring on my own, outside of the Mego family, and living in Uppsala. I didn’t feel part of a local scene—I felt isolated—and I had all these associations connected to the piece. Now that I live in a city where I’m connected with others, I’m much happier, and it became a therapeutic process to take care of this material. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the album.
What’s something you’ve learned about yourself in having made this album?
I studied to become a psychologist during COVID and now work as one part-time. I now appreciate being emotionally present both while making music and performing live, and it feels similar to being with a patient. Now that I have this 50/50 setup, I feel like things are a lot better. There’s a lot less pressure knowing that my income isn’t solely coming from touring, and when I have free time after working my job, I realize that the best way to relax is to sit down and compose. Even if nobody else hears the work, I still do it because I find it stimulating. I’m really thankful to have that in my life.
Are there specific facets of being a psychologist that feed into the way you think about and approach music?
When I started studying, people asked if I wanted to do music psychology, and I said no. I really didn’t want to because I didn’t want to mix these contexts, and I guess it’s the same reason why I haven’t studied music either. I don’t want to add theory to my music practice—I want it to be this free, intuitive process. On the other hand, at the university I studied at in Stockholm, it’s obligatory to go to therapy as part of the training. They want to make sure that you’ve dealt with your own shit (laughter) and that you won’t start panicking when hearing things from your patients. And that’s obviously a major thing. I think it’s also interesting noticing how important music and culture are for my patients. I work in an open psychiatric ward with people who are highly suicidal, and I already knew this for myself, but I can see in such a hands-on way how music can really save lives. I see how people can be willing to stick around another day because of it. Funding has been getting cut for the arts everywhere— it’s not valued in this way—but at my job, I see how it really does matter. It’s really nice.
I end all my interviews with the same question and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?
I have this lifelong perspective of music-making. It’s such a gift to feel this connection to the scene, to people in countries around the world. That this is something I can do, that it makes me happy, that I’m able to age within music… most people don’t retire because it’s just a way of life, and I love that it makes me stay curious. It’s a major gift that I’m happy to have.
Klara Lewis’ new album, Opening, is out September 4th via Editions Mego. More information about Lewis can be found at her website.
Thank you for reading the 238th issue of Tone Glow. “Some men change. Well, they don’t change, they reveal.”
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