"This entire album campaign is becoming a document of a person who can no longer hide:" Tove Styrke renames forthcoming album, shares single “Sunflower”

“Sunflower” departs from the upbeat pop of Styrke’s earlier singles released this year, unfolding as a tender, slow‑bloom love song. Built on live drums, analogue warmth, and a lyric that turns toward devotion, the track stayed with her for months before finally clicking into place. "Deep down, I knew there was one more song left to write, one that would feel like a long embrace," she notes in the press release. "When we finally set out to explore it in the studio, it was as if the song simply fell into my lap from above. Within a few hours, it existed."

That gradual unravelling runs through the whole album campaign. Originally titled The Afterparty, the record demanded a new title when Styrke accepted that the songs were not detached character studies. “I feel like this entire album campaign is becoming a document of a person who can no longer hide,” she says. “The story unfolds in real time, on the record but also in my actual life. I thought I was observing the protagonist until I realised I was her.”

The resulting LP is a concept piece that traces a night’s worth of reflection. “The story plays out as if you’re facing an entire life’s worth of thoughts during one night from dusk til dawn,” Styrke says. She shaped the record over several years with a tight, local crew: producer and co‑writer Magnus Larsson, drummer and producer Joel Kiviaho (Boko Yout), and songwriter Linnéa Martinsson (Lune). Styrke co‑produced the whole thing, foregrounding hardware and live takes.

“So much of the production is about building tension, slowly gliding between moods and letting each sound have its own journey,” she notes, adding that the approach draws more from electronic music’s patience than from pop’s usual immediacy. The palette leans on 1970s and 1980s analogue synthesisers, live drums and electric bass; no samples were used.

Outside the studio, parenthood and a return to nature have reshaped Styrke’s perspective. She has spent recent years training as a biodynamic gardener, and says both that and becoming a mother have fed directly into the music. “Becoming a mother has also meant a really powerful shift in my life,” she says. “I honestly don’t care what anyone thinks of me anymore. It’s freeing.”

Alongside the album, Styrke has launched Året Var, a Swedish‑language political rock band with her partner Sanna Sikborn Erixon. The duo’s debut EP arrived in May, and an album is due in September ahead of Sweden’s election.