A new collaboration between songwriters Astrid Swan and Stina Koistinen debuts via Soliti – Swan/Koistinen EP is out today 3rd of May, 2019.

Swan/Koistinen EP is an art pop symphony for two voices. The EP depicts life with chronic, incurable illness, and brings sick women’s experiences close to the listener through music.

The project unites two artists’ voices for a moment celebrating the importance of co-survivors (or thrivers/metavivors) and the power of sharing with others in similar situations. The songs on the EP deal with issues that arise when living as a sick woman. Life continues but everything has changed. The music brings up fragility, sadness over loss, and the elated giddiness of living. It also discusses embodiment, becoming a subject of medicine and argues for the importance of listening to marginalised, crip and chronic people’s voices.

The songs, co-composed by Swan and Koistinen, recorded and produced by Swan, are made of hospital atmosphere, human voice, electronics, piano and Canadian pop visionary Owen Pallett’s string arrangements (Arcade Fire, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean, Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Initial reaction:

Image (front cover feature), KSML 4/5, HS 3/5, Soundi, Rumba, Metro, Radio Helsinki album of the week, Flow Festival Magazine, Soundi Review
Desibeli “… ryömimään ihon alle, mutta todellinen yhteistyön riemuvoitto on mielestäni Hospital. Raastavaa kauneutta, huoneiden kulmiin saostuvaa pelkoa sekä suoranaista ahdistusta. Tuon kaiken alla virtaa mielestäni vielä jotain muutakin, jotain joka jättää kysymykset avoimiksi.”
Päivän Biisit “Tässä on kyse elämää suuremmasta taiteesta: Sävellys, tarina ja tulkinta ovat niin vakuuttavia, että maailman arvostetuimpiin jousisovittajiin kuuluvalla Owen Pallettillakin on suuri kunnia olla koko Swan/Koistinen-ep:llä mukana. Pallettin hento sivellin taustalla vain vahvistaa Swanin ja Koistisen erinomaisuutta..”
Austin Town Hall “it’s four songs of these two women putting that experience on the table for all to see. Musically, I’m drawn to the throbbing pulse of “Hospital,” while I’m also growing to love the arrangements that accompany “Symptoms.” Honestly, it’s a tough listen lyrically, but perhaps one that provides many a fan with solace…ultimately ending in the joy of ‘Singing’.”
Rosvot “…first comes the diagnosis, then hospital visits become an inseparable part of your everyday life, and you deal with the horrific and often even irrational symptoms. But what you’re left with is the singing. Music overcomes all obstacles.”
Indie30 “…a disorienting representation of the mental space between hopeful denial and crushing reality.”
Nordische Musik “They are voices from the dark, from the life with the ubiquitous fear that sounds in songs like “Diagnosis”. But there are also voices of the powerful rebellion and the bilious mockery that sound in the track »Hospital«. In the last track »Singing«, the two musicians even manage to turn their experiences into a luminous melodrama. Totally kitsch-free.” 6/6
God Is In the TV “Oh these clever Finns. Why they don’t figure higher on the world music stage beats me.” 9/10

Swan/Koistinen: Swan/Koistinen EP (Soliti 073)
Release date: 03/05/2019

1. Diagnosis
2. Hospital
3. Symptoms
4. Singing

Credits:

Diagnosis
Lyrics and music: Astrid Swan & Stina Koistinen
Vocals: Stina Koistinen & Astrid Swan
Instruments: Astrid Swan
String arrangement, performance and engineering: Owen Pallett
Engineering and production: Astrid Swan
Mastering: Dick Beetham @ 360 Mastering, UK

Hospital
Lyrics and music: Astrid Swan & Stina Koistinen
Vocals: Astrid Swan & Stina Koistinen
Instruments: Astrid Swan
String arrangement, performance and engineering: Owen Pallett
Engineering and production: Astrid Swan
Mastering: Dick Beetham @ 360 Mastering, UK

Symptoms
Vocals: Astrid Swan & Stina Koistinen
Instruments: Astrid Swan
String arrangement, performance and engineering: Owen Pallett
Engineering and production: Astrid Swan
Mastering: Dick Beetham @ 360 Mastering, UK

Singing
Vocals: Stina Koistinen
Backing vocals: Astrid Swan
Piano and drums: Stina Koistinen
Other instruments: Astrid Swan
String arrangement, performance and engineering: Owen Pallett
Engineering and production: Astrid Swan
Mastering: Dick Beetham @ 360 Mastering, UK

Swan/Koistinen featuring Owen Pallett will play this year’s Flow Festival.

The EP will appear in a visual album format directed by photographer Tekla Vály later this spring.

DIAGNOSIS

Singer and musician Stina Koistinen has lived with brain cancer for nine years. Her cancer started in the pineal gland when she was 24, was next found in the pituitary and later in the cerebrospinal canal. Koistinen has gone through three courses of radiation, four brain surgeries and lives with hormone replacement therapy. Now cancer has been inactive for 1.5 years. Still, each day and month is a precious gift when you have heard doctors repeatedly utter “after this treatment there is nothing we can do”.

Singer and songwriter Astrid Swan has lived with cancer for five years. She got a diagnosis for breast cancer in January 2014, at the age of 32, as a mother of a two-year-old. In May 2017 she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. At this point Swan has gone through three operations, two rounds of chemo, one set of radiation therapy and 5 years on hormone blockers as well as every three weeks receiving intravenous maintenance therapy. Currently her state is stable and the maintenance is keeping cancer cells invisible.

Stina Koistinen has released three highly regarded albums with her band Color Dolor, the latest of which, Love ,was released Spring 2018. The video for the Color Dolor song ‘Anyway The Wind Blows’ won the main prize at last year’s prestigious OMV Festival. The Love album won this year’s Teosto prize for 2019. Koistinen has also been the recipient of the Finnish Music Publishers free category music award.

Musician and composer Astrid Swan has made 5 albums and one covers album over the course of her career. As well as releases in Finland her music has been welcomed by audiences in the USA and Germany. In 2018, Swan’s last album From the Bed and Beyond won the main album prize in Finland’s largest music award, the Teosto Prize.From the Bed and Beyond was also nominated for last year’s Nordic Music Prize.