Best of What's Next: Marching Band

Photos by David Holmström

Hometown: Linköping, Sweden
Album: Pop Cycle
Band Members: Jacob Lind (percussion, keys, vocals), Erik Sunbring (guitar, bass, vocals)
For Fans Of: Yo La Tengo, Spoon, Fruit Bats

Swedish pop has come a long way since the days of “Dancing Queen,” and the most recent offering of proof is Linköping-based Marching Band. With their deft administration of jangly guitar, upbeat percussion and big hooks, the duo of Jacob Lind and Erik Sunbring make crafting twinkling, understated indie pop look effortless. And, to hear them tell it, it’s been a pretty easy ride so far.

“I think the first thing I said to Erik was, ‘Hey, I heard you’re a musician. You want to start a band?’” says Lind of the pair’s first meeting at a Linköping University party a few years ago. “The first time that we met after that was in my bedroom with one guitar each, trying to write songs.”

After many hours of dorm-room scribbling, Marching Band began work on its 2008 debut, Spark Large; that album, recorded in L.A. with producer Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yo La Tengo), has a decidedly different tone from the band’s sophomore effort, 2010’s Pop Cycle (out now), recorded two hours from their hometown in Sweden’s capital city. “The songwriting process for both of the albums was pretty similar,” Lind says. “But of course it’s different to fly over to L.A.—that’s different than taking the train to Stockholm.”

Pop Cycle is more musically complex and introspective than Marching Band’s debut, fully reflecting the frigid darkness of a Swedish winter—not a simple task, considering it was written entirely in English, Lind and Sunbring’s second language. But for the duo, taking an Anglophonic approach to songwriting comes more naturally than writing in their native tongue.

“English is the universal language of pop,” Lind says. “You can say things in English that if you said them in Swedish it would sound almost too straightforward. But when you sing it in English it sounds more natural because you’ve heard so much … pop music that’s already used those phrases, so it’s kind of how it’s supposed to be.”