Tove Lo on Challenging Herself and Finding a “Grand Love” with Dirt Femme
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The post Tove Lo on Challenging Herself and Finding a “Grand Love” with Dirt Femme appeared first on Consequence.
At the end of 2020, Tove Lo shot a film in her native Sweden called The Emigrants. For someone who has built her career on a foundation of grungy, gritty, experimental pop music, taking on a major role in a heavy drama was a new adventure, and one that required the often difficult process of sitting with herself. Tove Lo enlisted an acting coach to prepare for the role of an alcoholic sex worker, and, as anyone who has taken an acting class before can attest, the work of tapping into the emotions required for such a project is far from easy.
“I’d be digging into my past and darkness, and it was so heavy and uncomfortable,” she recalls, speaking with Consequence over the phone in late August. “I feel like I learned so much.”
When she wrapped the film two months later, she remembers physically itching in her skin with the need to get back to writing. Flexing this different creative muscle had encouraged her to get back to her primary art form of choice, and the resulting work arrives this Friday, October 14th.
Dirt Femme is Tove Lo’s fifth studio album, and her first as an independent artist, a factor she believes has come through in the final product. Writing and recording independently allowed her to dig into more artistic aspects of an album rollout — things she acknowledges might not “necessarily be profitable,” but which give her the space to provide insight into her work in ways she might not have been able to otherwise.
“It feels like the first time I’m putting out an album again,” she observes. “It feels weird to say that since I’m always so personal with my albums, but I feel like there’s an even deeper element to this one.”
Take “Suburbia,” for example; in the third track of Dirt Femme, she sings, “I never wanted babies, I know they’re kind of cute/ I never wanted marriage/ But here I am with you.” It’s the kind of confessional that could become a folk song with a different production spin, a first-person observation on unexpected circumstances in life that feels simply, ultimately human. On the aching “True Romance,” she taps into a sense of melodrama, asserting: “I’d die for love and loyalty.”
The raspy vocals on the latter track might not have been intentional, but they ended up suiting the desperation in the lyrics. The primary audio that landed on the final version of the song was pulled from one take, and her first at that. She’d been singing a lot at the time, she explains, which lends a ragged, desperate quality to her vocal performance.
“I decided to really go for it with this record — I wanted to push myself a little bit,” she continues. “It’s been a challenge, but a fun one.” In addition to the extra personal nature of the tracks in Dirt Femme, Tove Lo is pushing herself physically, too, working with choreographers and preparing dazzling visuals that she’s been rolling out in pieces.
The middle of the album features a string of collaborations, pulling in First Aid Kit, Channel Tres, and SG Lewis. The pulsing “Call on Me,” one of two tracks with British singer-songwriter SG Lewis, was the first song written for Dirt Femme.
Meanwhile, the album’s introductory track, “No One Dies From Love,” was inspired by Tove Lo’s love of stepping into the role of DJ. “The song was heavily influenced by dance music,” she says, while the album overall pulled from different eras. “I challenged myself to play with other genres,” she adds — “Cute & Cruel,” which enlists folk duo (and fellow Swedes) First Aid Kit, is a more rustic take on her classic, club-ready pop sound.
The through line of Dirt Femme is Tove Lo pulling the thread of her own relationship with her femininity, which can come in so many forms. There can be feelings of complication, of joy, of restraint and freedom in equal measure. “The album, to me, is about love and feelings and thoughts and fears and intertwined with my relationship with my femininity,” she explains. “The songs are very cinematic and dramatic with grand love descriptions. Visually, I wanted to portray that by giving every song its own character.”
This led to the creation of avatars of sorts for each song — she mentions a “Wonder Woman with Big Dick Energy,” along with a “damsel in distress with an edge.” Some of this cinematic perspective came through in the visuals for “2 Die 4,” which sees the artist in a dusty landscape that recalls Dune or Mad Max. “Maybe it doesn’t make the most sense,” she says of this approach. “But it’s the dream.”
“I don’t like the real world/ It’s tough out in the real world/ Let’s go back to our world,” Tove Lo sings on “True Romance.” In Dirt Femme, at least, she’s brought a world of her own design to life — and now, we all get to be privy to it ourselves.
Catch Tove Lo on tour; tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
Dirt Femme Album Artwork:
Tove Lo on Challenging Herself and Finding a “Grand Love” with Dirt Femme
Mary Siroky
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