sir Was AKA: Joel Wästberg has shared their new single “Waiting For The Weekend.” The track is off her new LP Let The Morning Come, out via Memphis Industries on October 15, 2021. Alongside news of the album, sir Was has announced a show at Chats Palace, London on October 21, 2021.

Last year, the Swedish multi-instrumentalist was booked to open for Little Dragon across Europe and the US. When the tour was cancelled due to COVID, he decided to channel all his energies into writing new music instead, but in August of 2020, he received some life-changing news. Tests revealed he carried the gene for a rare, hereditary condition causing multiple strokes.

“At first I got very sad and scared,” says Joel of the devastating diagnosis. “But at the same time, it was like all the other worries I carried suddenly didn’t matter. I just got this very intense feeling of being alive.”

This dichotomy lies at the heart of his beautifully bittersweet third LP. Meditating on love, growth, self-acceptance, forgiveness, mortality and the passing of time, Let The Morning Come, which arrives self-produced by Joel, contains his most candid writing to date. And yet, for all the heartache that comes with being cruelly confronted with one’s own mortality, the prevailing impression Wästberg leaves listeners with is one of hope, resulting in a collection that is life-affirming in the very truest sense

This first single, “Waiting For The Weekend” nods towards an album that marks the latest step in his evolution as an artist renowned for conjuring dreamy hooks and unconventional arrangements. Sonically it marries complex melodies with Joel’s soaring falsetto, butter-smooth grooves and gentle funk-indebted electronica. With the new album and this first single, Wästberg sought to “condense” his songwriting, with the aim of evoking the immediacy of the music of his youth. Lyrically too, time is of the essence, as evidenced by the title, “Waiting For The Weekend.” This palpable sense of a race against time is heightened by the fact he suffered a stroke in January of this year when the album was “99% complete.” Now thankfully recovered, the experience has only strengthened his resolve to grasp every possible opportunity and to live life authentically and without fear, ideas that ultimately permeate the album.

sir Was
Let The Morning Come
Track List
Memphis Industries

1. Hope We’ll Make It Through
2. I Need A Minute
3. Spend A Lifetime
4. Before The Morning Comes
5. One Day
6. I Don’t Think We Should Wait
7. Waiting For The Weekend
8. You Float
9. I Wanna Feel Like That
10. Time To Let it Ou

Pre-order Let The Morning Come here