Set against a backdrop of sumptuously textured alt-pop, her debut LP "In Bloom" finds this rising artist wholly embodying whatever mood she's conjuring: love-struck, vengeful, heavy-hearted, triumphant, all the while maintaining a deliberate vulnerability and willful sensitivity that speaks to the quiet power in softness.
Each song is rooted in raw emotion, as the album demonstrates a poet's attention to detail and knack for unexpected turn-of-phrase, whether the mood is ecstatic or stormy, outrageous or fragile, GRANT endlessly proves her skill at sculpting melodies and lyrics as exquisite as a tune from some centuries-old music box.
Her latest single release, "Catcher In The Rye" - OUT TODAY - serves as the follow up to GRANT's sublimely devastating debut single, "Waterline" which arrived last fall and quickly earned acclaim for its elegant intensity and candid depiction of choosing survival over suicide. "When I wrote that song I'd been feeling bad for a long time, and I realized I had to make a choice," says GRANT. "I decided that even though I was probably going to feel bad many more times in my life, I wasn't going to let it drown me-I was going to choose to live."
Through the years, that balance of dreamy sincerity and cheeky playfulness has emerged as an essential element of GRANT's songwriting. Born Alma Caroline Cederlöf, she grew up on a farm in the countryside outside Stockholm, spending much of her childhood among the horses, "singing and imagining the different possibilities of life." At age nine she joined an after-school music program, and soon fell in love with performing. "There was a small gathering for all the parents to come see what their kids had been up to, and it was the first time that a whole room went quiet and actually listened to me," she recalls. "It was the most empowering feeling I'd ever experienced, especially being a shy kid in a very loud family."
In high school GRANTattended music school full-time and dedicated herself to studying jazz. "I have a family friend who's a jazz singer and gave me lessons sometimes," she says. "It opened the door to the most amazing music I'd ever heard, singers like Billie Holiday-their voices and their storytelling went right through me, straight to my heart." Along with mastering the jazz phrasing that still informs her music today, GRANT also explored pop music for the first time, having mostly grown up on artists from the '90s alternative music scene (PJ Harvey, Tricky, Björk and Nirvana). "When I graduated, I decided I wanted to make music and I wasn't going to let anyone write my songs for me," she says. "But I also felt a little bit lost, and I had to figure out what I really wanted to do as an artist."
By spring 2017, her debut track "Wicked" had caught the attention of blogs and music fans and she soon inked a record deal with Sony Music Sweden, and released "Waterline" that October. In February of this year, she made waves with her spellbinding performance of the song at the Swedish Grammy Awards-a show-stealing moment centered on her now-signature, preternaturally still stage presence. "I think I've always been inspired by Edith Piaf, how she just stood and talked with her hands and sang from her heart, and everyone listened," GRANT notes. Watch the mesmerizing live performance
HERE.
Stay tuned for GRANT's debut album, In Bloom out June 1
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