Cocoanut Groove - How To Build A Maze (2014)

How to Build a Maze is the second album from Cocoanut Groove, which is due for release on 4 November. Fronted by Olov Antonsson, it’s their first as a full band, the debut album Madeleine Street (2008) having essentially been a solo project. Hailing from the North of Sweden, Antonsson wears his1960s baroque pop influences on his sleeve, along with traces of latter day guitar pop like The Smiths and The Clientele, and folk acts like Vashti Bunyan and Nick Drake.

The songs for How to Build a Maze were written and recorded over quite a long period of time. Bleaker and less naive than their debut it’s still no great departure, with Olov continuing to strive for 60s pop perfection, attempting to write something as beautiful as “Beechwood Park” by The Zombies or “World Of You” by The Aerovons. As well, there are quite a few traditional Swedish folk melodies hidden on the album, like the ones you find on the album “Jazz på svenska” by Swedish pianist Jan Johansson.

Recorded in various places around Olov’s hometown Umeå, with no professional recording studios involved whatsoever, the album is about getting lost in different ways – losing your way in city streets, losing friends and watching summers pass. The theme can be summed up by this simple definition from Wikipedia: “A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route.”