Memory Be a Blade

“I think I suffer heavy from limerence,” says Stockholm-born singer-songwriter waterbaby. Upon learning the term, she realized how much it resonated with the type of person she is, especially as an artist.

“I’m extremely nostalgic. I ruminate, both good and bad. I romanticize. I can be very much stuck in the past, but it doesn’t feel like a sad way because I’m cherishing my history.”

On Memory Be a Blade, the Stockholm, Sweden-born singer-songwriter’s second release on Sub Pop, the nostalgia runs deep. Her follow-up to 2023 EP Foam is darker, richer, and more personal than ever. She wanted her lyrics to dig deeper and evolve her writing forward, something she accomplishes stunningly across the eight-track project.

To spark inspiration for her new lyrics, waterbaby reflected on a past break-up. She had mostly moved on and was seeing someone new while recording the album. But when the newer relationship ended, she witnessed how much the album took on a new meaning to reflect the heartbreak she hadn’t anticipated experiencing.

“Many of the songs came to mean very different things than what I had thought when writing them in the first place,” waterbaby admits.

Both relationships made the singer reflect on her people-pleasing tendencies. She realized how badly she wanted to make the people she loves proud, sometimes to her detriment. “My favorite version [of myself] is me through someone else’s eye,” she explains. She began to wonder what it looked like when you no longer have the lens of that person on you: “What do you do? Is it a good idea to try and live up to that?”

“The older I get, it becomes more and more painful when you’re not being true to yourself,” she surmises.

In the two years following Foam, waterbaby and her primary collaborator, Marcus White (YG, Anna of the North) took their time to get the album right. They wrote and recorded around Stockholm, the south of Sweden, and even Los Angeles. As it took shape, however, waterbaby began to notice how much she would stiffen up behind the microphone. She admits she gets quite shy in the studio, opting for the familiarity of people like White to stay by her side. But in order to take her words and sound deeper, White encouraged her to improvise what she sang instead of writing it out ahead of time. 

“A larger part of the lyrics come from long freestyles that I did straight into the microphone,” she explains. 

Her improvisations were paired with compositions that reflected waterbaby’s classical background. White played piano alongside his lush and ethereal arrangements of string and horn parts. Musicians like violinist Oliva Lundberg, cellists Filip Lundberg and Kristina Winiarski, saxophonist Sebastian Mattebo, trombonist Hannes Falk Junestav, and flutist Pelle Westlin round out the dreamy ensemble. 

waterbaby offered up the first taste of her Memory Be a Blade with May single “Amiss.” The song felt like the perfect way to invite listeners into the dark, lush world of her new music without giving away too much of what’s to come. Like other songs on the project, “Amiss” has waterbaby trying to answer some big questions about love and relationships: When do you know you’ve done enough? How do you know when it’s time to give up?

Next single, “Beck n Call,” features a special collaborator: waterbaby’s own brother ttoh . 

“He really lifted the song,” she says of his verse. The pair debuted the track during a live performance at the Way Out West festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. “Mom’s super emotional and nostalgic. It’s been fun and [there were] so many nice moments during rehearsals.”

ttoh also appears on “Clay,” which began as a freestyle she had done over White’s super-pitched-up guitar. Like the album’s title track, waterbaby finds herself reflecting on her desire to be seen as good and worthy of other people’s love and the limitations of that.

As she tries to break free of her people-pleasing tendencies, waterbaby is finding herself leaning into the transformations. Memory Be a Blade encompasses so many that have happened already. And as she’s learned over time, those experiences could end up accidentally revealing more of what’s to come. 

“I took the mic not knowing what I’m about to do,” she says, “and that’s become the most honest outlet in my life.”