Josefin Öhrn has made an album about falling headlong into desire again, and she isn’t the least bit coy about it. ‘Cherry’, her solo debut, was written during a period of reinvention and recorded while she lived at Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg, a residential studio far from her London routine, where she was breathing music every waking and sleeping hour. You can hear that immersion in every track. It’s a sensual, unguarded record, made by someone who knows exactly what she’s feeling and has decided to say so.

Öhrn arrives with serious form. Between 2011 and 2019 she fronted Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, whose hypnotic psych-rock took them from Rocket Recordings to Glastonbury, Roskilde and Berghain, earning a Swedish Grammy nomination along the way. Those who loved the band’s motorik trance will hear echoes of it here. This time, though, the avant-garde edges are sanded back in favour of clear hooks, laid-back atmospheres and her voice placed firmly at the front of the mix. The obvious reference points are Kurt Vile, Lana Del Rey and Natalie Bergman, and she keeps some very good company too. Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis, and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream all appear, with production from Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm of The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

The album is about fresh starts, desire, love and grief, written during what the press notes call “a giddy second adolescence.” It sits alongside recent records from Robyn and Lykke Li in which women’s experiences are laid out candidly and without apology. Öhrn herself describes it as a document of endings and awakenings, which is as good a summary as any.

Opener ‘Electrified’ sets the tone, a dreamy rush with Gillespie on backing vocals, capturing the dopamine glow of new love. The instruments ripple like a skipping stone thrown across a pond with a buzzsaw spine. Öhrn describes the sensation as:

that super heightened state of mind, that dopamine bliss.

‘Dreaming of You’, lifted by playful synths from Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, is pure sunshine as it skips and dances with a joyful restlessness and a wandering bass line. Öhrn describes it as all about desire, about that longing for connection, with that someone.

First single ‘Cherry Tree’ is slow, hazy melancholy pop, and the clearest bridge between The Liberation and the solo Öhrn: a breathy meditation on love that will never be returned. ‘Lose Yourself’, with Newcombe, drifts into Mazzy Star territory with its brittle crystalline guitars and hypnotic roll.

‘The Real Thing’ is pulsing psychedelic disco and a sharp comment on the dating-app era of love bombing and projection with a Donna Summer pulse and a Jesus and Mary Chain barbed-wire spine.

‘What If’ has a Jane Birkin/sixties insouciance, slinky, sensuous and antheimc.

‘I Want You’ continues with this feel, going unashamedly pop, with breathy vocals, swirling bongos and nostalgic Moog. It’s almost day-glo pop with a skipping pace that evokes dappled sunshine and euphoria.

The two covers work as the album’s emotional anchors. Her take on ‘Always On My Mind’ is suitably sultry. Her version of ‘Jag Ger Dig Min Morgon’, Fred Åkerström’s 1970s Swedish cult song, is a tender nod to home with its trilling instrumentation and gentle exposition.

That idea of home comes back on closer ‘Shoreline’, a reflection on growing up in Sweden, with family in France and Belgium and a decade in London, and on not quite knowing where you belong. Crystalline guitars etch a thread throughout the track as Öhrn’s vocals are dreamy and reflective, delicate and heartbreakingly beautiful.

What makes Cherry compelling is that its giddiness is earned. This is not youthful naivety but the rush of someone with life experience, and a long-held sense of responsibility, choosing freedom anyway. Creativity does not have a use-by date, and neither, it seems, does falling in love.

‘Cherry’ is an epic work of art, delicately crafted and expressive, melodic and anthemic. There are echoes of JAMC, Mazzy Star and Jane Birkin – a delicious sonic kaleidoscope that shimmers.

‘Cherry’ is out now via Eagle Lane Records / Republic of Music on vinyl and digital here. Josefin Öhrn plays Rough Trade in London on 29 September and The Jacaranda Club in Liverpool on 1 October.

Feature Photograph: Colette Slater Barrass

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