«It’s basically a soft-spoken archive dive. Some of these songs have been sitting around for over a decade — now they’re finally getting their moment in the sun.»

 

That’s how Mats Mentzen Wang sums up Soft Commute, the new album from Mats Wawa — a project that once came to life out of bedroom demos and late-night festival slots, but now reemerges in a different light: quieter, more inward-looking, and maybe just a little older and wiser. If 2018’s Scuzz EP and 2020’s Rock Omelette were about building a band, this one is about stripping it all back again.​​

 

Think of Soft Commute as the anti-studio album: written and recorded quickly, with minimal planning, and finished before anyone had the time to second-guess it. Most of the songs were tracked in a few hours at a time, in a rehearsal space at Kiellands Plass, with producer Petter Haugen Andersen at the helm. One day a week, one song per night — and that was the rule.

 

«I didn’t want to overwork anything,» Wang says. «This time, it was more about capturing the moment, trying new sounds, and having fun with it.»

 

And there are new sounds — lots of them. Nylon-string guitars sit next to analog synths. Hip-hop-inspired textures bubble up under lo-fi vocals. There’s even a clarinet cameo. What started out as a strict “no drums, no bass, no electric guitars” concept gradually broke its own rules — because of course it did. But that soft, spacious core still holds. It’s all a little less “band” and a little more “bedroom.”

 

From the nostalgic shimmer of “Høstsangen” — one of the first songs Wang ever wrote — to the gently absurd “Torsk og sei fra brygga” (his first-ever song in Norwegian and about fishing), Soft Commute is a patchwork of personal moments. Or, as Wang puts it: “En myk reise gjennom arkivet.” A soft journey through the archives.

 

Call it singer-songwriter, call it soft pop, or just call it what it is: music made for the quiet hours.​

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RIYL: Jessica Pratt, The Microphones, Mac DeMarco’s demos, early Kings of Convenience, fishing trips, offbeat lyrics, mellow synth pads, music that makes you smile a little without knowing why.

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Soft Commute will be out on all platforms May 23rd. 

The single Cityleaving will be out May 2nd. 

 

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