Swedish artist Bonander releases her second album 'and we stood there' February 13 via Icons Creating Evil Art. “The album is about different stages of powerlessness,” Bonander explains. “I think that comes from feeling a simultaneous apathy and panic toward the chaos of the world right now.”

Bonander has been described by GAFFA and Hymn as one of Sweden’s most underrated artists—an irony not lost on an artist whose project has existed and evolved for years beneath the surface. With and we stood there, she takes a decisive step into a more confrontational musical language, tracing how ordinary people are shaped by political anxiety, exhaustion, and the slow normalization of the unthinkable.

The album’s previous singles approached these themes from different angles. In edith the soul is fractured, complex, and dark, carrying both contempt and resignation.  apathy functioned as a direct confrontation with political numbness, collaging media fragments, distorted choirs, and fractured rhythms into a defiant rejection of passivity. clay focused instead on quiet transformation—how anxiety becomes a survival strategy, and how adaptation reshapes us over time. Both tracks received strong early support and quickly appeared on influential playlists such as Spotify’s Oyster.

Musically, and we stood there is built through a solitary, labor-intensive process of sampling sounds, instruments, and voices, later expanded through collaborations with a wide circle of musicians. The album features contributions from Dan Berglund (Tonbruket), Kristina Issa, a string quartet, and Tusen Tungor, whose presence—sometimes explicit, sometimes deeply embedded—has become central to the album’s sonic identity.

Despite its heaviness, and we stood there is not a record of surrender. Aggression and fragility coexist, leaving room for grief while insisting on motion, resistance, and collective force.

“I hope the album can spark some kind of drive,” Bonander says. “To keep reacting. Maybe even to act.”

Bonander's and we stood there—is an album that refuses silence, even when exhaustion sets in.

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