Molly Nilsson

Swedish singer-songwriter and musician (born 1984)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (December 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Molly Nilsson]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Molly Nilsson}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Synth-pop
electronic
minimal synth
hypnagogic pop

Occupation(s)

singer
songwriter
musician

Years active2007–present

Musical artist

Molly Lilly Maria Nilsson (born 14 December 1984)^[1] is a Swedish singer-songwriter and musician. She is the owner of an independent record label, Dark Skies Association, founded in 2009. As of 2004, Nilsson resides in Berlin.^[1]

Early life

Nilsson is from Stockholm; she was born in Gröndal and grew up in Södermalm, in a non-musical family.^[2]^[3] Both of her parents were communists.^[4] She has described her father, a graphic designer, as her "biggest fan".^[3]

In school, Nilsson had some piano lessons and a punk rock band with friends, where they "played a little bit", but mostly "just hung out".^[4] Growing up, she listened to a lot of 1970s punk from the United Kingdom.^[5] As a teenager, she sometimes worked as a DJ.^[3]

She began her creative pursuits in comics and writing. Soon she began experimenting with a friend's keyboard and transitioned from visual media into songwriting.

Music

Nilsson moved to Berlin to pursue music. She worked in the cloakroom of Berlin nightclub Berghain, while saving money to write songs on weekdays.^[6] She released her first album in 2008 titled These Things Take Time, which she released on CD-R with just 500 copies. In 2009, she released another self-produced album, Europa. Nilsson gained more visibility in 2011 when her song "Hey Moon" from These Things Take Time, was covered by John Maus for his album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves.^[7] After releasing another album, Zenith, in 2015, Nilsson began a world tour.

Nilsson produces and performs her music on her own, though she co-releases much of her music on Dark Skies Association and Glasgow's Night School Records.^[8] Nilsson's style features minimalist arrangements of synthesizers and drum beats and is often categorized as dark pop or lo-fi synth-pop.^[9]^[10] She cites solitude as a necessary and important part of her creative process.^[6] During live performances, Nilsson often sings over a CD of her own work.^[6]

One of Nilsson's heroes is Polish socialist Rosa Luxemburg, the subject of Nilsson's song "Obnoxiously Talented". In an interview with Tribune magazine, she said: "[A]part from her work and legacy, I've really developed a relationship with Rosa Luxemburg on a human level. It's great to find people in history who can give you an example of what's possible, or how you can live your life, or what you should strive for."^[4] Nilsson's album Extreme (2022), was released on the date of Luxemburg's death, 15 January.^[11]

Discography

Studio albums

These Things Take Time (2008)
Europa (2009)
Follow the Light (2010)
History (2011)
The Travels (2013)
Zenith (2015)
Imaginations (2017)
2020 (2018)
Extreme (2022)
Un-American Activities (2024)

Extended plays

Sólo Paraíso (2014)

Singles

"Ugly Girl" / "Wrong Boy" (2016)
"About Somebody" / "Quit (In Time)" (2017)
"Hey Moon" / "Silver" (2021 – charity re-release for Black Lives Matter)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Molly Nilsson.

^ ^a ^b Ritchie, Kevin (4 October 2012). "Press-shy Swedish songwriter opens up". Archived from the original on 1 October 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
^ Weirdo, Bobby (25 November 2018). "Molly Nilsson on New Album Twenty Twenty, The Importance of Context, and Excitement for the Next Decade". Weirdo Music Forever. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c Katz, Juli (22 September 2019). "Molly Nilsson über ihre Musik: "Ich liebe Humor"". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Retrieved 7 October 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c Brown, Alexander (23 January 2023). "Molly Nilsson: 'Leave the Pessimism to Conservatives'". The Tribune. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Adam, Cherry (6 May 2019). "Entrevista a Molly Nilsson: "Es mejor, y a veces más constructivo, estar loco que triste."". Indienauta (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 October 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (5 November 2018). "Molly Nilsson: the synthpop star embracing hope and loneliness". The Guardian. London.
^ Sendra, Tim. "Molly Nilsson Artist Biography". AllMusic.
^ Mandel, Leah (25 October 2018). "Molly Nilsson's 'Twenty Twenty' Exposes The Fragments of Life". NPR.
^ Kemp, Sophie (13 September 2018). "Molly Nilsson "Days of Dust"". Pitchfork.
^ Mallon, Steve (23 March 2016). "Molly Nilsson: Planetary Vistas". Crack Magazine.
^ https://nightschoolrecords.com/molly-nilsson-extreme-the-new-album-coming-january-2022/