SunYears is a musical project of Peter Moren of Peter Bjorn and John, and the new single premiered today on Americana-UK is ‘Last Night On The Mountain‘ finds him collaborating with Sam Genders of Tuung and Lisa Hannigan which naturally pushes the folk feel of the song. Speaking of the song, Peter has said: “During the pandemic, I tried my hand and head at a couple of distanced Zoom co-writes. To be fair, nothing much came of it. I found it a bit hard. With one exception. Sam Genders, from Tunng and Diagrams, was a delight to work with. Another expat Brit, he these days lives on the island Orust on the Swedish west coast. Wrong coast for me, though, and we have yet to meet IRL. But we managed to write a couple of songs! One of them stayed with me, and I just had to have a go at recording it. A folky ballad, almost sea-shantiesque verse, stood against a bigger rhythmical chorus and a middle-eight that is very me somehow. A nice construction, feel and sentiment on the whole. I can’t exactly remember how we did it, but I do think the majority of the lyrics came from Sam, and the majority of the music came from me.”
Sam Genders told Americana-UK, “I’ve been a fan of Peter’s work since the earliest days of being in Tunng, and I was excited to connect with him after moving to Sweden a few years ago. A real Swedish musician! I loved writing with him—even though we never actually met in person (it was Covid times). We had a pretty intense day of ideas bouncing back and forth in person (kind of…via Zoom) and via texts and voice memos. All at once at times! A bit bonkers but fun! He’s one of those people who loves to collaborate and just wants to make something enjoyable…so no big ego moments. I feel lucky to have played a small part in the making of the record. The song is like a snapshot of a moment in time. Both Peter and I had been through some challenging times personally and had, for one reason or another, doubted ourselves and our ability to thrive in life. When we first started swapping ideas, we were both coming out of that place. In a weird way, our spidey senses were telling us things were going to be better moving forwards…and it turned out they were. So by the time we really started writing together, we were feeling much more hopeful and uplifted. We both liked that image of someone stuck on an icy mountain but aware that help was coming. In a way, the song is about recognising your old mistakes and then becoming free in life by loving yourself, your life and other people just as they are. Embracing connection with other people as the centre of life. Seeing the amazing possibilities that were around you all the time, but you weren’t seeing them.” Lisa Hannigan added “I was thrilled to hear from Peter about collaborating on a song. I loved switching between the melody and the harmony as the colours change, my favourite place to be.”
Peter is touring the US this month with Peter Bjorn and John and playing in Europe and the UK in September/October as part of Robert Forster’s ‘Swedish’ band. Sadly no SunYears tour dates yet.
