Listeners first entered the whimsical world of Still Woozy, a moniker of Sven Gamsky, on his debut album “If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is.” Through lush, mellow soundscapes and lyrical depth, Gamsky created a psychedelic escape.
On his sophomore album “Loveseat,” Still Woozy continues to build that fantastical world, as he explores a more expansive emotional continuum.
“I think for the last album, there were a lot of songs I made that maybe it was more about how the song felt,” Gasmky shared in a press conference with 1824. “This time I wanted to have the same vibe, but I wanted to experiment with storytelling more. I just feel it’s so captivating when someone can take you on the journey of the song lyrically and sonically. That was what I was trying to do just to grow as an artist. Just push myself to kind of be more personal and more vulnerable too.”
For Gamsky, part of constructing new worlds and finding that confidence to be vulnerable relies heavily on being “relatively grounded.”
“I have a home studio,” Gamsky explained, “when I can wake up everyday and go down and work I feel like I can get into a really good groove. But when I’m on tour – I’m on tour right now – and you’re waking up in a new place every night and it’s really destabilizing. I still really love it and it’s really fun, but…I need to have quiet space and a more familiar environment to access the deeper feeling.”
From this familiar environment a 13 track labor of love that explores a spectrum of romantic, familial, and platonic affection has grown.
In July of 2022, Gamsky married longtime partner Amiya Kahn-Tietz. Previously released singles “Shotput,” “Again,” “All Your Life” and “Lemon” chronicle Gamsky’s admiration for her as a person, an artist, and as the mother of their baby. However, Khan-Tietz isn’t just the inspiration for the project, but is also the visual artist.
“My wife and the mother of my baby actually has done all the art,” Gamsky proudly shared, “That just comes straight from her brain. She’s always just made these. She’s always doodled and loves to make things. That’s just what comes naturally to her. I saw that piece of art that she did that really captivated me and I just thought it would make an amazing album cover.”
As a new father, Gamsky embraces familial love in his song “Big Fish.” a tribute to his own father.
When Gamsky first saw the 2003 film by the same name about a complicated relationship between a father and son, he noted “it affected me differently than other movies. It was so beautiful and magical.”
Like the film, the song looks back at a life well lived. “You grew up, And found your place in life, Had a couple of kids and a wife,” Gamsky sings, before concluding the song with the tear jerking “When I travel to see you, I’m always so glad. I’ll take you any way you want to, ‘Cause there just goes my dad.”
Equally as important as romantic and familial love, is platonic love. “It’s actually necessary to have that love outside of your romantic love to support you and to support others,” says Gamsky. “I think it’s good for your psyche and mental health to love and care about other people too.”
Prior to Still Woozy, Gamsky was part of the progressive rock band Feed Me Jack, with his good friend and collaborator Robert Ross; who now releases music under Bobby.
Gamsky looks back on their meeting fondly, “When I got to college I had no idea what I was doing. I was walking in the quad in the dorms and I heard someone playing guitar wafting down from some open window. I was like that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I figured out which window it was coming from and which floor and I went up to the door and I knocked on it. And I had never met him before. We exchanged information and we played songs for each other and we just started a project. He ended up being one of my best friends.”
Although the band has parted ways due to creative differences, Gamsky has so much gratitude and respect for Ross, that he brought him on as a producer on this album. “This project was the first time that we worked together again since those years and it was so much fun. He’s so talented. He wrote all the baselines in those songs, and helped produce it. He’s an amazing producer. He actually inspired me to play the bass because he’s so insane. It was such a good moment for me to have people I love deeply on those songs and help me flesh those out.”
The album’s final track, “Rid Of Me” is an example of Gamsky’s commitment to the craft and an ode to unconditional love.
“I had been working on this upbeat dance track that actually had Maria from The Marias on it and it was going to be on the album. Two or three weeks before we were going to put it out, we couldn’t get clearance on one of the samples so it’s now just sitting in purgatory, so there was just a hole in the album. And it wasn’t like a scramble or anything, but I was like I guess I’ll just take a stab at something and I came back with that,” Gamsky explained.
This labor of love has culminated in the “Loveseat Tour,” which kicked off in Vancouver on July 17. With support from openers Gus Dapperton, MICHELLE, and PawPaw Rod, Still Woozy is bringing his vibrant and whimsical world to cities all over North America.
In terms of getting to finally explore his own vulnerability with his audience, Woozy says without hesitation, “ It feels really good…It’s been feeling pretty cathartic…It seems like people are kind of receptive to it.”
To purchase tickets to the “Loveseat Tour,” visit https://woozystill.com.
Featured Photo Credit: Alex Kennedy