Swedish singer/songwriter Julia Logan reflects on her warm, wondrous, and wistful sophomore album ‘Faraway Nearby,’ a record that captures the push and pull of distance, both physical and emotional, in a time of uncertainty.
Stream: “Moodswings” – Julia Logan
I wanted to explore this idea of how we are all connected by technology, but so lonely as individuals. This album focuses on how we can be separated by huge distances, but we all face the universal experience of life in all its forms.
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Julia Logan’s sophomore album, Faraway Nearby, is a study in contrasts – distance and closeness, solitude and connection, melancholy and hope.
Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s evocative phrase and painting of the same name, the LP explores the push and pull of human experience, weaving together folk, Americana, pop, and more into enchanting soundscapes full of raw feeling and lush sound. Written partly during the pandemic and shaped by the shifting tides of personal and global change, Faraway Nearby captures Logan’s ongoing evolution as an artist, deepening her introspective lyricism while embracing a broader, more expansive sonic palette.
Tender and intimate, expansive and unfiltered, it’s a record of connection within and without, trying to make sense of a world in disarray, and finding one’s voice – and footing – in a sea of constant churn, chaos, and change.
Houses, friendships,
places you thought you knew
Hardships, righteous, faces,
a change in views
We’ve come too far, to turn back time
To turn around
You know you are a wandering scar
You’ll hit the ground
It’s such a loss
When you’ve got no redemption
What became of you
At the top of the world
I saw you
In the heartache alley
I saw you man
– “Top of the World,” Julia Logan
Originally released in November 2024 (with an extended version released in January 2025) via Dumont Dumont, Faraway Nearby is a warm, wondrous, and wistful voyage through these strange, often trying ‘modern times.’ The follow-up to her 2022 debut album Everly Foreverly finds Swedish singer/songwriter Julia Logan singing with one foot in the past and the other in the present, working hand-in-hand with producer Daniel Bengtson (First Aid Kit, Viagra Boys, Dina Ögon) to create a body of work that captures the beauty, the weight, and the sheer intensity of life as we know it in the 2020s. It’s a journey from the “Top of the World” to the “End of the World” – quite literally – and one that holds a mirror up to the evils, hardships, and ongoing challenges of our age, while still savoring the little moments, finding wonder in the ordinary and embracing the everyday.
“A lot of the songs were written during and after the pandemic and address my internal journey, but also the lives around me and the small community I grew up in,” Logan tells Atwood Magazine. “I co-wrote the album with my long-time collaborator and producer Daniel Bengtson. Faraway Nearby explores themes of personal fears and changes, isolation, loss, getting older, hope, and finding your place in the world. I wanted the lyrics to address the challenges of global events and increased social isolation but also the importance of finding small moments of connection and hope. We were inspired by 1970s Laurel Canyon, Fleetwood Mac, Midlake, Tom Petty, and Nick Drake to name a few.”
“It’s definitely a natural continuation of my first album, but I would say Everly Foreverly is a more acoustic and sun-drenched album,” she explains. “It was a creative inward expression of a personal loss in our family and my ties to California. Faraway Nearby focuses on the external world and addresses a collective and universal response to the uncertainty we all face.”
With half the songs written during the pandemic, and half of them written between 2023 and 2024, Faraway Nearby blends Logan’s experiences with isolation, solitude, upheaval, and disconnect, with those extended feelings of instability, yearning, and dread that have permeated society in the years since the global emergency subsided.
“I think my initial vision was to have ‘harder’-sounding songs with more electric guitars than acoustic, but I realized that I could achieve that sound with the piano and drums, especially on songs like ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Forever Changes Around,’” she says. “I think most artists have a vision coming into the record but then in the end the songs decide the trajectory you’re going in and that initial vision changes and grows.”
Logan candidly describes Faraway Nearby as a melancholy, hopeful, and spiritual album.
The title itself is inspired by the Georgia O’Keeffe painting, From the Faraway Nearby.
“She would also sign her letters to the people she loved farther away with the same phrase,” Logan explains. “I was inspired by what that phrase expresses both physically and psychologically, the extreme distance and closeness. We are all tied together in a universal longing for connection, but in her paintings, she blurred what we perceive as being near and far away by making a flower as important as the mountain of a painting.”
“I wanted to explore this idea of how we are all connected by technology, but so lonely as individuals. This album focuses on how we can be separated by huge distances, but we all face the universal experience of life in all its forms.”
Highlights abound throughout Faraway Nearby as Logan channels familiar emotions and sentiments into ten soul-stirring, seductively catchy songs.
Album opener (and lead single) “Top of the World” remains a standout; an enchanting mix of melancholia and hope, the song aches with raw vulnerability and heartfelt emotion as Logan reflects on the world around her and the one within. She’s alone, yet yearning for connection to something greater than herself, coming to a beautiful climax in the song’s tender, impassioned chorus:
At the top of the world I saw you
In the heartache alley I saw you man
Can’t see the skyline, no no
Into the night
The restless, aching “Mirrors,” and the golden-hued reverie “Thrown Down” further capture Logan’s talents as an evocative singer and storyteller, while songs like “Hope That I” and “Moodswings” highlight her ability to tap the very depths of human experience and emotion. Candid, cathartic, and comforting, “Moodswings” is an especially potent exploration of loss and hope, and the balance thereof; an especially spellbinding, tender tempest, the song finds Logan turning unfiltered, raw angst and some of life’s unbearable weight into beautiful, heartwarming sound.
‘Cause the heart’s a lonely hunter
In an empty space
When the moodswings
Color the ground
And the summit wind blows
I’ll wait for you
Like a jewel in the sky
I’ll be gone
“I usually don’t listen to my songs when they are complete, but when I am in the process and in the studio, I listen to the songs and edits over and over with my producer Daniel,” Logan says, asked about her own favorites. “Most of all, I love seeing musicians putting the songs to life. I especially loved seeing Ola Gustafsson add pedal steel to the songs, it was such a special experience being in the room.”
As for favorite lyrics, she shares a line from sixth track, “Cul de Sac Summer”:
‘See the sky wrap around
Like a gate closing in
Oh you try to believe
It’s just rows and rows
Of kaleidoscope dreams
Passing by
Don’t you ever want to cry like the sky’
It’s a poignant encapsulation of the album’s themes – the intimate and the universal, the faraway and the nearby colliding in a present that feels increasingly daunting and inescapable, and yet full of wonder, love, and possibility.
“All I can hope is that listeners can relate to the album and be inspired to give their own meaning to the music,” Logan shares.
“My goal as an artist is to guide listeners into a place that allows them to be vulnerable and to allow their hearts to be open to their own path of self-discovery. Most of all, I want them to know we are all on this journey together and that they are not alone.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Julia Logan’s Faraway Nearby with Atwood Magazine as the singer/songwriter takes us track-by-track through the making of her sophomore album, reflecting on its themes, inspirations, and the journey that brought it to life!
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:: stream/purchase Faraway Nearby here ::
:: connect with Julia Logan here ::
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Stream: ‘Faraway Nearby’ – Julia Logan
:: Inside Faraway Nearby ::
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Top of the World
I wrote Top of the World with my producer Daniel Bengtson in his studio. It came from a conversation we had and a piano melody which grew into a song. The song deals with personal challenges and fears, depression, getting older, and navigating societal expectations. We recorded the demo with only piano and a guitar and wanted to keep that simplicity in the final version and not overload it with production.
Thrown Down
This is the last song I wrote for the album. I was listening a lot to Maggie Roger’s ‘Don’t Forget Me,’ Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty, and Nick Drake and wanted to kind of emulate that Americana, twangy sound with bright acoustic guitars, pedal steel, and piano. I didn’t have a melody for the chorus yet so Daniel and I worked on that in the studio. I wrote the lyrics for the chorus in a stream of consciousness and it tied the song together really well. It’s about my personal inner struggles, but also the universal hardships humanity faces, and that you just have to keep moving forward in life even when you’re feeling ‘thrown down.’
Mirrors
Mirrors came about when I was about to go on a month long trip. Daniel started playing on an old synth and the melody and some words came about in a flow of consciousness. It was kind of an aha moment because we don’t have many upbeat songs. The song deals with life’s frustrations and feeling stuck, but also about finding a beacon of light in the dark through reflection.
Hope That I
This was a really fun song to record and went through a lot of different phases sonically. First we had a lot of layers of electric guitars and other instruments but decided to keep it more bare bones. I like the way the “ba ba” singing sections become an instrument in itself. When I recorded the demo at home the intention was to use another instrument but I’m glad we kept it in the final recording.
Forever Changes Around
I wrote this Francoise Hardy inspired song in 2022. The verse melody came to me one evening when I was walking home and I worked on it from there. I saw this quote by Joni Mitchell: ‘As a young person, you’ve got to pull the weeds in your soul when you’re young. Otherwise they will choke you.’ It really resonated with me, the importance of pulling the ‘weeds,’ working on yourself, and trying to become a better version of yourself — so I based the rest of the lyrics around this theme.
Cul de Sac Summer
I wrote this song when I came back to Sweden from a tour in the US. I definitely had a case of post-tour blues and felt a bit empty and lost after such an exciting yet albeit intense trip. I wanted to express that melancholy feeling through the pedal steel melodies and let it organically grow to an instrumental crescendo at the end with the Rickenbacker 12 string guitar.
Moodswings
Daniel had a voice memo of the verse melody with him playing guitar and his daughter playing the flute. It was such a beautiful melody that we had to make it into a song. Written during the pandemic, Moodswings explores loss and hope. Unavoidable in life we all experience grief but there is light and freedom for those we have lost too.
Faraway Nearby
This song was inspired by Georgia O’keeffe’s painting “From the Faraway Nearby.” Daniel and I had written the song during the pandemic and I wrote the lyrics based on a trip to Big Sur. It’s about finding your place in the world and the importance of being connected to nature. Production-wise we were inspired by Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’ and Glen Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman.’
All That I Have
This song is about changes, how scary it can be, and the importance of finding a little place of home in the midst of chaos. When I recorded the demo it was much more pensive and I’m glad we chose to make it lighter and let it soar to a loftier place with Wilco’s ‘Sky Blue Sky’ inspired electric guitar.
Hold It on the Line
I love some of War on Drugs’ slower songs like ‘Suffering’ and ‘Thinking of a Place,’ or Bob Dylan’s ‘Most of the Time.’ These songs have a lot of space to breathe and an ethereal atmosphere, that’s what I wanted to achieve with Hold It on the Line.
End of the World
This was recorded with a beautiful string quartet and our artist friend Klara Keller on backup vocals. I wrote this song with my brother Jonathan, about my friend who was going through depression.
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:: connect with Julia Logan here ::
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