James Yorkston

In the organizer's words:

Support: Viking Moses

"Songs for Nina and Johanna" is the title of the new album that acclaimed Scottish singer/songwriter James Yorkston is releasing in August 2025. It is his sixteenth work for Domino Records. Recorded again in Stockholm, together with musicians from the Second Hand Orchestra, it is an album about closeness, about family, about what remains when you pause.

It features two of Sweden's best-known voices: Nina Persson (The Cardigans) and Johanna Söderberg (First Aid Kit). They don't sing together, but alternate with Yorkston - five songs with Nina, four with Johanna. Their voices are touching in different ways, and this is precisely the strength of the album: the variety of soft tones.

Songs for Nina and Johanna doesn't sound like a big statement, but like real moments. It was created live in Studio Rymden, produced by Yorkston and Daniel Bengtson. It's not about perfection - it's about capturing something before it passes. "I tried to give them space," says Yorkston about the collaboration with Persson and Söderberg. "They interpret the songs as they feel them."

The album plays in the gray area between folk and pop. "The unpretentious, sometimes almost childlike nature of the music matches the unpretentiousness of Yorkston's lyrics, which are characterized by everyday experiences and a touching humanity." (Jörg Schlüter/Rolling Stone)

Live, James Yorkston will perform the songs from this album - "songs that soar into indie pop heaven" (Musikexpress) - solo, which gives them a somewhat rougher charm. "Touching folk" (TIP Berlin).

"Songs like little short stories." (Deutschlandfunk Kultur)
"Yorkston's songs have the usual class: floating folk that detaches itself from the pub stink and refers to the freshness of the open sea." (Musikexpress)
"He is a master of nuances and quiet tones. (...) An album that radiates so much warmth and comfort that you want to lie down in it like in a bubble bath. (...) Folk songs about nature, family and sadness, upbeat and almost pop." (Stern)
"James Yorkston, the king of warming guitar tones." (Abendzeitung)