Mind control

Most of the material for the album was recorded in 2016 and 2017. Before the release of the album, Gessle planned to release 3 singles. The fact that the song “Save Me A Place” was fixed in the American chart MediaBase Dance chart for 6 weeks in the summer of 2017 further convinced the musician of the need to release a full-fledged studio album. Gessle also says that he wanted to release a "classic" album, so there are three instrumental compositions on the disc. ^[2]

Demos of songs were not recorded for the album either. Only the acoustic version of the song “Couldn't Believe My Luck” was recorded, the rest of the material was recorded directly in the studio. ^[2]

• Dr. Robot - Per Gessle - vocals, guitar
• Cooky Carter - Helena Yousefsson - vocals, percussion
• Rain Davis - Clarence Everman - Keyboards
• Bright Jones - Christopher Lundqvist - Guitar, Bass, Computer Processing

• CD
• 2-LP - with two additional bonus tracks
• digital distribution

Initially, the album was released in digital format with the same list of songs as on the physical CD, and only 2 additional songs were recorded on the vinyl record. On March 29, 2019, these bonus tracks were additionally released digitally.

Information about the four songs of the group (“I Found My Soul At Marvingate”, “LaLaLove”, “Shelter From The Storm” and “Tell Him I Said Hi!”) Is based on an interview that Per Gessle gave to The Daily Roxette, published on the portal page in the social network Facebook.

• “In Control” was the first song written specifically for the Mono Mind project in 2013. ^[2] The song repeats the text of the refrain from the single “I Found My Soul At Marvingate”.
• “LaLaLove” - the only song written in 2018 - all the rest of the material for the disc was recorded in 2016 and 2017. Alex Shield, a Swedish musician who recorded on Gessle's Space Station 12 label and performed as the opening act during his summer tour of En vacker kväll in 2017, co-wrote the music for this song. ^[3] A video clip was shot for the song, in which of all the band members only Helena Yousefsson appeared ( video ). The song also featured a French cover of LaLaL'amour, written by Martin Yousefsson, spouse of Helena Yousefsson. ^[four]
• The song “I Found My Soul At Marvingate (Sofa Tunes Remix)” was released on the album as Sofa Tunes Remix. The original song was released on the "I Found My Soul At Marvingate" EP . The song was written in the summer of 2013 under the working title “Mercy”. This is the first and, at the time of the release of the album, the only song of the group that performed guitars in the style of “a la power pop”. There are numerous references to The Rolling Stones in the lyrics: the words “That Jumpin 'Jack had painted it black” are an allusion to the songs “ Jumpin' Jack Flash ” and “ Paint It Black ”.
• The first version of Tell Him I Said Hi! Was called Tell Her I Said Hi! And Per Gessle sang it completely. Later, he wanted to change the composition, changed the text a bit and added Helena Yousefsson's vocals.
• The song “Sugar Rush” was released in 2016 and was the first song Mono Mind ever released. The author of the music of this composition, as well as LaLaLove, was Alex Schild, who repeatedly collaborated with Per Gessle.
• “Couldn't Believe My Luck” was originally written for Roxette , but the group did not record this song and in the end Gessle decided to use it in the Mono Mind project. ^[2]
• “Save Me A Place” was co-authored by Jack Hisbach, Giorgio Tuinfort and Michael Einziger. ^[3]
• “Shelter From The Storm” is one of two bonus songs released only on vinyl. The song was written in 1982 for Gessle's first album, “ Per Gessle, ” but it wasn’t on the album. Initially, the song was called “Segla på ett moln” (Swim on the Cloud). Instead of Gessle himself, the song was recorded by Gothenburg singer : both musicians recorded on the same label, EMI. The song performed by Ride became a big hit in Sweden, and today it sometimes performs it at her concerts. Already in the early 1980s, Gessle tried to rewrite his songs, which became popular in Sweden in order to achieve success on the world stage. So, the text “Segla på ett moln” was translated into English by a friend of the musician, DJ and poet Hasse Huss. Huss is particularly famous for writing many songs for the Swedish artist Michael Rickfors (together they wrote the song “Yeah Yeah”, which was included on Cindy Loper 's album “ She's So Unusual ”). Translated into English, Diane Ross became interested in 1984, who wanted to record this song and Gessle waited almost six months, but in the end nothing happened. In 2017, Gessle discovered a translation of the song by Huss and found that the song deserved to be recorded. With the participation of Andreas Broberger (Andreas Broberger), with whom Gessle collaborated on the recording of Roxette 's album “ Good Karma ” (2016), as a producer, this song was released on this album.

1. Save Me A Place (July 14, 2017)
2. “I Found My Soul At Marvingate (Sofa Tunes Remix)” (January 12, 2018)
3. LaLaLove (June 29, 2018)
4. Down By The Riverside (DJ Antonio Remix) (April 5, 2019)

Singles

• The single "Save Me A Place" became No. 1 in the US on three charts: Dance Radio, iTunes Electronic and Amazon Electronic Charts. ^[5]
• The single “Save Me A Place” spent 21 weeks in the French charts, but could not rise above line 59 (April 7, 2018). ^[6]

Album

• The album took 1 line in the iTunes chart (Sweden). ^[7]
• In Spanish iTunes, the album took 10th place on the day of release, but not the next day fell to 58th place. ^[8]

• Per Magnusson, a columnist for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet , rated the album 3 out of 4. He described the style of music as “more retro-futuristic than modern” and noted that “it’s visible everywhere after the history of pop music.” The music on the disc is somewhere between the “disco of Giorgio Moroder , the French vocoder pop, sugar eurodance, the irresistible cover of George Michael on New Order “ True Faith ”and the Dutch EDM pop. However, something shines through all the effects - typical tunes of Per Gessle, which can be recognized even from the moon. " Magnusson calls “Tell him I said Hi” and “Stranger on a bus” the best songs on the disc. ^[9]
• In an interview with Expressen , Per Gessle said that the single “Save Me A Place” was a big hit in the US in 2017. ^[10]
• The album received 2 points out of 5 from a critic of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter Niels Hansson. ^[11] , as well as from Jan Andersson, columnist for the Göteborgs-Posten. ^[12]
• Sophie Vinberg, a columnist for the Nöjesguiden portal, wonders how Per Gessle talks about the project and the fictional characters, the band members - “I wonder when someone will tell him about the Gorillaz group?” The critic asks. In her opinion, the album “very intense dance music” ( Swedish extremt intensiv dance ) and it was “absolutely absurd to listen on Wednesday in January.” Winberg describes the record as if " Ace of Base on strong club drugs." The album received a negative rating. ^[13]
• The We Love Nordic portal, dedicated to Scandinavian music, rates the album 3/5. Browsers describe the music as “a pleasant mixture of his [Gessle] ability to write strong songs in a more powerful electronic sound environment than what we heard before” and continue: “This is a lightweight album that is nice to listen to, although we would like a little more deep emotion or sound. ” Summing up, the authors write that they prefer Gessle's country-style songs (probably referring to his last two solo albums), and also note that Helena Yousefsson is “a savior with her perfect singing”. ^[7]
• Mono Mind and Czech observers are compared with the Gorillaz group. ^[fourteen]

The Swedish newspaper Expressen publishes a separate article dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Per Gessle. It tells us that the "pop icon" celebrates its anniversary in Miami , Florida , USA , where it combines work to promote the new album, and also has a rest with his wife and close friends. In addition, the article highlights a whole paragraph on the possible "celebration" of the 40th anniversary of the Gyllene Tider group in the same year. ^[15] A month later it was announced that Gyllene Tider would indeed go on a Scandinavian tour , which would also be a farewell for the group.

• Mono Mind Official Website