‘We’re From Barcelona’ by I’m From Barcelona received a physical release on Mute‘s Interpop imprint in September 2006. The track had been available on iTunes earlier in the year, first as part of the EMI Sweden Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams, Buddy! EP, and then again as a single track download. The sleeve photo captures all 25 of the members of the band, like some sort of yearbook photo; the sleeve helpfully lists out who all the members are, but doesn’t go so far as to tell you what they all actually do in the band.

Kitsch sleeve aside, ‘We’re From Barcelona’ is a highly original pop track. Taking its cues from grand, Phil Spector or Van Dyke Parkes-style productions, the song is multi-layered to the point where it is often difficult to identify individual instruments, something that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys did to much more commercially-successful effect on Pet Sounds.

As songs go, ‘We’re From Barcelona’ is one of the happiest, most upbeat and inoffensive track ever conceived, with pretty, tinkly, sincere melodies and a chorus that only the most depressed individual would fail to be moved by. The CD single version includes a different version of the song, minus the lead vocals.

B-side ‘Glasses’ also appeared on iTunes as part of EMI Sweden’s digitial release of ‘Collection Of Stamps’. Beginning with the sound of cicadas, the track evolves into a gentle, rousing folk ballad about not wanting to wear spectacles. Quite how the group’s founder Emanuel Lundgren manages to be able to write songs about the most mundane feelings and objects is well beyond me, but the delicate ‘Glasses’ – all simple percussion, big sweeping vocal harmonies and relaxed, bluesy guitars – is another example of a very individual talent.

First posted 2011; edited and re-posted 2019.

(c) 2019 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence