Photo Credit: Alexander Skepp
Fearlessly experimental, deliciously irreverent and defiantly unclassifiable for 25 years, Stockholm’s Gösta Berlings Saga have announced the release of Forever Now, their highly anticipated 7th studio album, on 6th June via Pelagic Records. The quintet have also unveiled the first single / video 'Through The Arches'.
Watch the video to 'Through The Arches' here: https://youtu.be/1PT_MGo4TW0
Pre-order Forever Now and stream the single here: https://orcd.co/gostaberlingssaga
The band comment on the new single: "'Through the Arches' is GBS in 2025 - pure and amplified. One of the first tracks completed for the new album, it packs all the classic GBS ingredients, but turned up a few notches. Melodic, cosmic, chaotic, euphoric—all in one track. The accompanying video, crafted by Martin Gustafsson, is a visual journey into the everlasting and beyond, perfectly capturing the song’s essence."
A masterful collision of intricate songwriting, raw rock spontaneity and their signature disregard for genre limitations, Forever Now rests on no laurels; it’s a driving continuation of a journey that suggests, even after two decades and counting, the band’s best work may still be ahead of them.
On the new album, the band continue: "Super stoked to soon unleash Forever Now upon the world. It’s an album we’ve put our heart, soul and every atom of our beings into. Written, recorded, mixed and produced by ourselves it fills us with great pride that even after 20+ years we still find joy, creativity and new ways to approach music. Forever Now is a journey in search of small fragments of eternity within the present moment - where time dissolves, and music becomes the gateway to the infinite."
Stockholm, the Saga began in 2000 with a creative spark keenly felt between keyboardist David Lundberg and drummer Alexander Skepp. Taking formative inspiration from the ‘60s jazz fusion improvisations of fellow Swedes Hansson & Karlsson, Gösta Berlings Saga broadened their sonic palette with the addition of bassist Gabriel Tapper and guitarist Mathias Danielsson before the release of their debut album Tid Är Ljud in 2006. Danielsson subsequently left the project to be replaced by Einar Baldursson, contributing to the darker and more complex sound of 2009’s Detta Har Hänt, 2011’s Glue Works and 2016’s Sersophane.
The overt manipulation of sound and melody on this trio of early releases helped set Gösta Berlings Saga apart from the rest of the progressive pack, swerving easy cliché and navel gazing nostalgia in favour of a fervently forward-thinking ethos. Undoubtedly influenced by the greats of prog, art-rock, electronica and the avant-garde, Gösta Berlings Saga have remained thrillingly impervious to categorisation.
2017 saw another evolution within the band as Baldursson left to be replaced with Rasmus Booberg whilst percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Jesper Skarin also joined the ranks. Rejuvenated and revitalised, Gösta Berlings Saga’s subsequent albums, ET EX (2018) and Konkret Music (2020), introduced a whole new audience to the band’s idiosyncratic fearless experimentation, breakneck rock ‘n’ roll infused with even more found sound electronics and sonic obscura. Uncompromising and utterly distinct, these albums solidified the band’s belief that staying true to their own artistic vision was always the only way forward.
Forever Now is 10 tracks of hand-crafted chaos that bear all the brilliance of Gösta Berlings Saga’s 25 years of irreverent innovation. Entirely written, recorded, produced and mixed by the band for the very first time, the album sees synthesizers and arpeggiated guitars spiral ever higher, colliding with helter skelter percussion and pulse-racing drums on the way, whilst the band’s innate trust in each other and in their music form the propulsive core of a perpetual energy engine five years in the making.
Although not established as a concept album as such, personal tragedies during the early writing process ultimately left their mark. For a time the band tried to separate their collective creativity from the events of their private lives but, rather than grief and darkness making their presence felt, Gösta Berlings Saga built this album on the pursuit of the eternal - a euphoric glimpse beyond time, where music becomes a bridge between the present and what was and will be, echoing connections that never fade.
Gösta Berlings Saga are:
Jesper Skarin - Percussion
Gabriel Tapper - Bass
David Lundberg - Keys
Rasmus Booberg - Guitars
Alexander Skepp - Drums
Forever Now track list:
1. Full Release
2. Through The Arches
3. Arrangements
4. Forever Now
5. The Sprig and the Birch
6. Fragment II
7. Ascension
8. Dog Years
9. Make of Your Heart a Stone
10. Ceremonial
