Preface

Digging in Sweden can be a joy. Like with any country, there is a mass of crap that you tirelessly need to flip past and learn how to block from your mind once you’ve seen their sleeves one too many times. But somehow you always find something. It might not dawn on you at first, but by the time you had crossed off the whole list of wants and spotted the cheese there is still a section left: the unknowns. That’s where taste comes in.

Without any reference points (i.e. ’have I seen this in my IG feed before?’) you really don’t know if subjecting yourself to the sound of a 1989 soca pop 12” will be your cup of tea. But it might just blow your mind, as mine has been blown and scattered across the crates of so many record stores for so many years.

For many of us, it is like fishing. You need all those hours spent in order to be there for the right moment. You can’t think of it as wasted time, even when leaving empty-handed. You gotta be zen about that shit. If you assume you know it all already, then what’s the fun of digging? And when you get that feeling that a spot has been dug through one too many times, you can rejoice - or damn your timing - by knowing that a friend might have picked out those cherries before you.