Bäck – Kalla händerna (2025)
Born out of insomnia, ‘Kalla händerna’ is the first track from the new Swedish artist Bäck. Bäck is the moniker for Daniel Johansson, and, so far, it is a departure from Johansson’s expansive synth-pop band Söderled, restraining the band’s dreamy soundscapes for a stripped-down approach that features mainly voice and guitar.
‘Kalla händerna’ starts with a strumming acoustic guitar and a subdued choir of male and female voices (including the contributions of Elvira Andersson). The music expands to include bass and drums, but not much else, as Johansson sings (in translation), “I hold my breath again/ Rest the back that once bore / One more night.” At about three and a half minutes long, ‘Kalla händerna’ is a gentle meditation on feeling alienated and out of place. Bäck sings, “Cold hands / Pale nails on hollow bones / Turned a stranger here / Before I said something’s wrong.”
Reflecting about the origin of the song, Johansson comments, “I worked nights for a long time and felt alienated from society, being awake when others were asleep and barely sleeping during the day. Because of the lack of sleep, I found myself in a state between sleep and wakefulness, which was draining and made me fragile. Through this phase came the need to scale down and scale off – and out came ‘Kalla händerna’.”
This certainly comes across in the song. The subdued voices and the simple guitar, bass, and drum parts give ‘Kalla händerna’ a somnambulant feeling, as if the song itself could use a full eight hours of sleep. But if there’s a place where the song really comes alive, it’s in the vocal parts. The male harmony voices bring an unusual dynamic to the song and cause the female vocal parts to really break through. By the end of the song, there is a lot going on vocally that creates interest and speaks vibrantly to the need for human connection.
