I found out about Maia Hirasawa through Vu and while doing a bit of research, found that she’s a backup singer for Annika Norlin’s Hello Saferide (W♥M post). Hirasawa is a Swedish-Japanese singer-songwriter who was born and raised in Sweden. She’s signed to Razzia Records, the same label as Annika Norlin (Hello Saferide / Sakert!), Jonna Lee, They Live By Night, and others. In other words, she’s among wonderful Swedish musicians. Her debut album, Though, I’m Just Me, was released last year and according to the press release:

It is a logical name for the album, originally a phrase from one of the songs that didn’t make the cut, because this album is Maia Hirasawa, all the way.

Mattis & Maia

She didn’t just write all the songs by herself, she also produced, arranged and recorded them in a terrace house in Sollentuna and in a cottage in Skåne. Maia thought long and hard about with whom she wanted to record her debut album, before she realized that the most logical choice was to do it on her own. She had to teach herself how to record in the midst of the process of recording but already had a flair for arranging.

The result is the finest of pop, but “with quite a lot of stage musical influences, perhaps a bit like Björn and Benny”, a vague feeling of classical music and melodies you love the first time you hear them and that you’ll never grow bored of.

Crackers

Her first single “And I Found This Boy” (video) is an upbeat, pop song about finding love (“for the night”) and regretting it. In “Mattis and Maia”, she gives the love song a modern spin; instead of the conventional face-to-face break-up, MySpace is used as the source of messaging. Although their relationship is over, both feel it might not exactly be the end.

She’ll be performing at The Grammis Awards (which is basically the Swedish version of The Grammy Awards) on January 9. It’ll be broadcast live on TV4 (buy tickets here).

I also wanted to point out that her song “Crackers” features Miss Li, another great musician I’ll be posting about soon.