Boy Bjorn Makes Stunning Solo Debut with “Ballad Unknown”

We’ve often written about Wisconsin transplants Foreign Fields, who seem to emerge every few years with a breathtaking, layered, emotionally resonant, and conceptual new work, most recently last fall’s sophomore LP Take Cover, their most intense and ambitious to date.

One half of the group’s core duo, Brian Holl, has recently unveiled a new solo project Boy Bjorn, and with first single and video “Ballad Unknown,” has managed to reinforce all of the qualities we love about Foreign Fields, while exploring a more singular, personal, and nostalgic artistic point of view.

Channeling the ambient, lush electronic tonality and raw, almost folky core of Foreign Fields’ earlier work, Boy Bjorn was “born out of a desire to capture moments lost,” Holl writes, explaining that his debut album Mistaken Animals is “full of caricatures and stories from the past. iPods and parking lots in high school. Beauty in the mundane that’s forgotten as knowledge grows. Deconstruction and reconstruction.” He tells us, “I want this to be a little immature, a little romantic.”

Along with “Ballad Unknown,” Holl has debuted a music video, adopting a lo-fi, home movie visual style that perfectly suits the song’s deconstructionist, somber exploration of a variety of sonic palates. Watch the spot below, and keep an eye out for more from Boy Bjorn in the near future!