A Short History of The Ändå
Discover The Ändå – one of the world’s most unknown pop groups, with so far only a little over a thousand views on YouTube, 11 fulltime stalkers, no royalty earnings, and a very low carbon footprint. After a break of two months during which the band members have been otherwise busy (Karl Gasleben finalizing the new Twice A Man album “Cocoon” and Anna Öberg recording her second solo album “Vafan har jag gjort!”) The ÄNDÅ have got back together to record new material and are making their comeback on the Internet with a catchy tune called “Yoga!” set to release worldwide on March 7th.
The band was formed three years ago by Gasleben and O’Yeah as a philosophical idea, but for the first one year nothing concrete happened because men are lazy. They finally started recording material in the hills of Kodagu in India in 2017, after which almost nothing happened. But the following year Öberg joined them at Studio V-Röd in Bohuslän, Sweden, and the music found a shape that earned the band a minor cult following.
The purpose of their music is to be found in its rhythm, which is custom-made for your legs, exclusively fitting your personal shoe size. Their harmonic tunes can best be described as zebra striped in orange and azure, with a silky touch. Listening closely to the haiku style lyrics, your life might unexpectedly change for the better. Sir Simon Napier-Bell, ex-manager of global acts like The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, Ultravox, Boney M and Wham! declined to sign on The Ändå considering that he has retired from the music business, but nevertheless stated, “Very nostalgic, very seductive.”
Reactions to the first release “Yes!” (launched September 2018) ranged from bewildered to awed, and the band was called a “monster constellation” and “Goan trance hippies”. Swedish synth podcast Blå Måndag reviewed The Ändå thus: “Bizarre sound!” Listen and see “Yes!” here: youtu.be/PsQykt77js8
They had an unexpected success with “Hey!” in November 2018, which charted at #3 on the streaming platform Spotify/Zero Magazine 30 best singles of the week list, where it stayed on for months – and was ultimately named one of the best songs of 2018. Regarding “Hey!”, internationally bestselling novelist Amitav Ghosh, on whose book The Great Derangement the lyrics of “Hey!” were reflecting, responded with one word: “Wow!” Listen and see “Hey!” here: youtu.be/i3gsFsMOtQI
The ÄNDÅ released their third song “Moon!” in January 2019. The video was the first ever in the world to be shot using a cheap mobile phone inside a moving car and subtitled in ten languages – including Nepali, Bengali and Chinese for worldwide reach. Newspaper The Hindu commented regarding the song that it was of a “sinister sort of dancefloor style... The aesthetic is certainly a bit cerebral and left-field, but retains hooks. When it comes to music videos, there’s a bit of the bizarre…” Listen and see “Moon!” here: youtu.be/d_ouGKBjokA
The new song “Yoga!” is an exclusive preview of their forthcoming album “Karaokey!” scheduled to be out at the end of 2019. The band is happy to announce that they’ve recently received multiple recording offers, so it certainly looks like 2019 might be the best year in global music history so far!
Contact: info@xenophone.nu

The ÄNDÅ consists of:
Captain K. Gasleben is a Swedish pioneer of synthesizers since the early 1970s when he headed bands like Anna Själv Tredje and Cosmic Overdose, before he founded Twice A Man in the 1980s together with singer and guitarist Dan Söderqvist. Twice A Man set the tone for early Scandinavian electronic pop and has to date cut 23 albums, including ground-breaking classics like Music for Girls, From a Northern Shore and Works on Yellow; the latest album – their 23rd – is called Cocoon and was launched as recently as in 2019. In the late 1980s, they produced the monumental concept show Driftwood which was based on their own LP of the same title, a multimedia musical with theatre actors, dancers, computer effects and video projections, which at the time was one of the most lavish pop shows to tour all of Sweden. Simultaneously, Mr. Gasleben experimented with club music through bands like The Butterly Effect and Beehive Plains, apart from composing music for films (e.g. by Swedish director Kristian Petri), theatre (e.g. the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden) and radio (e.g. the national broadcasting corporation SR/P3 show ‘Frispel’). In addition, Mr. Gasleben works with video.
Anna Öberg was a leading hit composer during the 1980s’ New Wave in Sweden and performed with the band Ladomir, of which she was a founder-member; they quickly became one of the hottest indie bands of their time, topping the Swedish Radio’s ‘blast list’ (‘spränglistan’) in the national radio channel P3’s music program Bommen (the main forum for Swedish alternative music). Ladomir toured extensively throughout Sweden, released several critically acclaimed and popular singles, before the band broke up towards the end of the decade, its members burnt out by years on the road and endless club-playing. Subsequently, Ms. Öberg worked on introducing creative expressions in child education by establishing music and art-focussed preschools at which she was extremely successful. Her old group, Ladomir, has also performed live sporadically in recent years. After a thirty-year hiatus, Ms. Öberg made a smashing musical comeback with newly written songs on her first ever solo album, Härsknar, which was short-listed as the Best Synth Pop Album of the Year at the Manifest Gala in 2018. Her new album Vafan har jag gjort! will be out in 2019.
Zac O’Yeah is a global writer living in India, born in Finland but raised in Sweden where he played the guitar in obscure 1980s’ punk bands and neo-progressive rock outfits, before he got hired by Twice A Man with whom he partook in several projects, such as the Driftwood Tour in 1988, and cut albums (e.g. Agricultural Beauty). However, his life took an unexpected turn after a successful book debut in 1995 subsequent to which his authorial career has included acclaimed travelogues, cult novels and also a biography of the Indian political leader Mohandas K Gandhi; titled Mahatma! it was short-listed for the August Prize in 2008 as the best Swedish non-fiction book of the year. Most recently he has published the Majestic Trilogy, a series of detective novels set in his hometown Bengaluru. Over the years, he has written for more than 75 different publications ranging from newspapers to magazines in Sweden, India, China, Russia, France, Germany and other countries. In the past year, he has released the travelogue A Walk Through Barygaza, the novel Tropical Detective, and the children’s book The Mystery of the Cyber ​​Friend.