Still Woozy Invites You Inside His Head
For most of 2020 we were confined to our homes, physically separated from our communities and day-to-day routines. This physical separation translated into a mental separation for many, trapping folks in their head and removing them from the present moment.
For Still Woozy, the solo project of Portland-based Sven Gamsky, he embraced the highs and lows of being locked in his mind, incorporating them as a major theme in his latest album, If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is. As Sven boldly exclaims on the chorus of the album’s first track “Woof,” “You wouldn't last a day in my head.” The 13-track album embodies his characteristic psychedelic-bedroom pop sound that has since propelled him to hundreds of millions of listens on streaming platforms.
As part of the recent press rollout for Still Woozy’s project, we got the chance to speak to the Bay Area native via a virtual press conference. His thoughtful commentary gave us insight into the creation of his album while further humanizing him as both an artist and a person. Sven Gamsky is deeply in love with his fiancée, likes to play basketball, and is working on separating himself from his anxieties. Like all of us, he’s still on his journey.
The title of the album, If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is, is his sage advice to his audience. It’s a reminder to approach life with cautious acceptance—to acknowledge the little yet nice things we have going for us. Yes, we are certainly living through a period that will forever be marked by global tragedy. Yes, we still have no idea what the future holds. But hey, we’re still here.
Since 2017, the majority of your tracks have been released as singles. What were some of the highlights and downsides of releasing 13 songs at the same time?
I think that it was important and necessary for me to do this because it allowed me to release songs that weren’t these “big single” songs. Those sides of me exist and I record a lot of songs like that, but they usually just sit on my computer. [The album] was a venue for those releases. The downside is that some songs will get neglected just because they’re not singles.
Many of the songs on this album were critical of what it’s like to be stuck in your own head while life goes on around you. What inspired this theme throughout the album?
Just living in my own head, trying to deal with my own mental health issues. Especially in quarantine but also in general. It’s hard for me to write about other people or not write about myself. So, what you see is what you get.
The song “Drake” opens with a folksy acoustic guitar, which is unexpected in terms of your usual sound. Any chance this song is named in honor of Nick Drake who is known for his acoustic guitar-based songs?
I love Nick Drake, but it wasn’t actually. It was named for Peter Drake. It was named after a person so not far off in terms of name proximity. He has this song called Forever. You should look it up on YouTube but it’s this really beautiful, old 50s song. It’s in 6/8 [time signature] which gives it this swingin’ feel. Usually, songs —like all pop songs—are in 4/4 so I wanted to do a song in a different time signature. It’s kind of Motown-y, super dreamy, just such a beautiful song. I wanted to capture that feeling.