Born in the mid-nineties, Thea Gustafsson was raised in Örebro, a small city in the middle of Sweden. Her musician father – proficient in accordian, piano and flute –immersed her in music from infancy, playing jazz and soul records at home. Gustafsson’s musical education become more formalised when she picked up the violin at age 7, leading her to perform in orchestras and master classical arrangement and composition.
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Contemplating a career as a professional musician, Gustafsson moved to Stockholm in 2014 to attend Musikmakarna – a renowned music school in Sweden’s capital. It was here she was exposed to pop music for the very first time, coming face-to-face with music epitomised and made famous by the likes of Max Martin and Aviicii (she spent an eye-opening year as an intern with the latter during her second year of study). Although she felt somewhat of a black sheep during her time at Musikmakarna, it proved to be a formative experience as she learned techniques on traditional song structure which would feed perfectly into Becky and the Birds.
Trasslig, is Becky and the Birds debut 4AD EP and will be released digitally on 12 June. Gustafsson uses Becky And The Birds as an outlet for songs about complex women - strong, independent, sensitive and romantic women – and Trasslig (Swedish for “entangled, messy, intricate”) echoes that sentiment. She says, “people are scared of women who could be both powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and there’s no space for that. But’s it’s okay to be trasslig, to be all the parts of yourself.”
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