Sondre Lerche’s South By Southwest In His Own Words:
“I had fun at SXSW. It’s always nice to be busy there and feel sort of important, rushing from showcase to showcase. I guess at an event like that that is a good thing. We were just starting a U.S. tour so it was a nice warm-up and workout doing 12 performances in two days. That’s good for your touring muscles, whatever they might be. SXSW is cool cause everyone’s there – I mean, there were almost 20 bands from Norway alone — and they all looked cooler and more indie-hip than yourself, which I guess is also a good thing.”

This session occurred Thursday, March 15th in Austin around dinnertime. Sondre and his band of Norwegian merrymakers arrived with his publicist and the man in charge of Astralwerks. It must be strange for him to arrive anywhere without a sea of screaming girls welcoming him, I remember thinking at the time. He was warm and fun, as were his bandmates and it made for quite the hour. His hair seemed to be in the same state of greasiness as our own heads of hair so we felt immediate kinship, but then felt nothing at all like him because there’s more scary good pop genius in that young man than is legal. He’s nothing like anyone. – Sean Moeller

First song
Say It All (Sondre Lerche) [3.79MB] [4614 downloads]


– original version appears on Phantom Punch
Is written in parts over the course of three years. It started when I wrote the chorus melody on a lonesome two week holiday in Hawaii 2004. Then, after I moved to Brooklyn in 2005 I wrote parts of the lyrics and the bridge and later when I played in Norfolk, VA I wrote the verse melody and finished the lyrics in LA when we recorded. Or something like that. It’s a very personal song that is sader than you might think.

Second song
After All (Sondre Lerche) [2.84MB] [5000 downloads]


– original version appears on Phantom Punch
A very low self esteem tale of the inevitable insecurity that comes with falling ever so seriously in love with someone.

Third song
The Tape (Sondre Lerche) [2.67MB] [4658 downloads]


– original version appears on Phantom Punch
This one I wrote one afternoon in Brooklyn, June 2005. It’s sort of a paranoid tale about blackmail and coruption, but perhaps in a more emotional sense, rather than ecconomical…

Fourth song
Tragic Mirror (Sondre Lerche) [3.65MB] [4891 downloads]


– original version appears on Phantom Punch
A song that came all at once on Friday afternoon in June 2005 (a good month), very overwhelming and great at the time, one of the best songs I’ll ever write, I’d think. A very personal song, as much about myself as it is about someone else I know.