press
i-D Magazine
#202 May 2002
p. 12
by Lauren Zoric
magnet
Return of the Norwegian new romantic
Even Johansen doesn't give too much away. The evasive Bergen native, whose first four-track EP as Magnet has just been signed to Ultimate Dilemma (home of Zero 7), currently makes him home in a tiny village just outside Lockerbie in Scotland. A peculiarity explained away with a begrudging grunt. "Girlfriend. She lives here to her boyfriend has to live here too," he adds softly. "I'm blessed with a girl who looks after me." Sounds cosy. The debut EP, all written, recorded and played by himself, finds a suite of extraordinary songs augmented by vibes, pedal steel and lilting descending guitar scales. Vulnerable soul sighs, soft nights under uncertain stars, all floating in space and reflecting light like the dust off angel wings. An assured musical debut, then. Except it isn't, as Johansen speaks hesitantly of "a country-tinged thing, ages ago, that a friend of mien put out in a couple of shops in America," which resulted in the song, Where Happiness Lives, being used on the soundtrack to the X Files-lite TV show, Roswell High. A route to stardom shared by Dido. "They heard a track on the radio and thought it would fit in well with a snogging scene," he qualifies. "The States are very friendly with the Magnet." So Magnet live in Scotland, maintains a recording space in Bergen and gets mad love from America. "It's like a continuous process. It comes out, but producing it is about trying to - that old cliché - make the sounds in my head. And it doesn't work like that because most music is based on mistakes or accidents, especially when you're recording it - argh! something goes wrong and ahhh, that sounds good. At least, that's what I've based my whole life on. Little accidents and failures, that's my life," he smiles helplessly. He's played in apparently nameless bands before, produced a couple of other nameless bands. And never got an education? "I haven't really studied, no," he squirms. "I play music and that's what I do. And I've never done anything else and I dont' think I ever will. Music is very abstract, you can't touch it, you connect with it on a emotional level," Johansen deems. "I'm more of a romantic person, and romanticism is much more appealing than realism." Magnetic, even.