THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Comprised of two young sisters and a brother from South Minneapolis, Loki’s Folly play loud music that makes them happy. Annie (age 21) plays guitar and sings, Nissa (age 16) plays the drums and sings, while Oskar (age 12) plays the bass. Each brings their own unique personality to the music, resulting in a sound gelled from their shared upbringing.
Initially born from Annie and Nissa’s lessons at celebrated guitar store Twin Town Guitars with Oskar adding beats to the fledgling band, Loki’s Folly really took off when folks outside of the practice space started taking notice and helped them graduate from adolescent play to fully realized “folly.” The siblings’ energetic and passionate live shows have since garnered a devoted fan base from longtime Minnesota musicians, including Soul Asylum, Haley, Gramma’s Boyfriend, The Melismatics and Ryan and Pony, who have all asked them to support their hometown shows.
Since the songs on their debut are a culmination of work done throughout their childhood (some of the songs for Sisu were originally recorded around 2017, with the rest from 2019 and on), Annie says it has been an amazing experience getting to have this album literally “grow up” with them.
“A lot of these songs were written during sleepovers in each other’s rooms, often while sharing new music with each other and dreaming about writing songs like the ones we would listen to,” Annie says. She also adds that most of the songs on the album have very personal connections and are portraying a lot of the things they find “difficult to communicate” in regular interactions. For instance, the fuzzed-out Appease the Girl, which features Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner on guitar, is a song Annie wrote describing what it’s like having to navigate the world as an autistic person.
“The song itself is a song I wrote describing the autistic meltdowns I would have in school and the lack of response or care from the adults at the school in that situation,” she explained. “It was an absolute honor to have Dave on this album. His guitar solo adds the perfect amount of dimension and emotion and was such an amazing addition and collaboration.”
Elsewhere, the indie rock outcry of The Love Song decries the toll that bullying has on someone. The compelling, high-octane No Right documents the frustration for the casual injustices women face every day. Into The Darkness is a rowdy indie punk song about trying to escape a disconnected state of mind, while the boisterous Don’t Come Back begrudges toxic relationships and situations. Overall, Sisu offers a captivating view of the complex emotional landscape that we’ve come to know as modern adolescence, but it does so with freeing, punky abandon.
The band made Sisu at a few different places, starting off at Flowers Studio, recording three songs with Ryan Smith and Ed Ackerson (Motion City Soundtrack, Replacements, Jayhawks) shortly before he passed. The trio recalls their time working with Ackerson as, “One of the most amazing experiences in the world.” They then spent a day at IPR and recorded eight more songs with Kevin Bowe (Paul Westerberg, Replacements) and Smith. They recorded The Little Mermaid in their basement with their cousin Russell Mark while he was visiting from Los Angeles. During the pandemic lockdowns — when Annie and Nissa were working with Smith at his home studio (The Flight Simulator) doing overdubs and mixing — the sisters added Oskar to the recordings on bass. “After having learned the instrument to join the band there is nothing more fun than seeing that happen and getting to hear him on the album,” Annie says joyously.
The band also had the opportunity to work with John Fields (Pink, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato), who helped them find ways to work creatively while doing all the mixing remotely. As the pandemic took a toll on Loki’s Folly, they circled back to the term Sisu (a Finnish word that roughly translates to inner strength or one’s ability to push through and overcome difficult experiences), a fitting description of what everyone had gone through, “as well as the twists and turns the album had gone through,” Annie says. “As soon as we were close to finishing the album, we realized it was the perfect description of both world and personal events, as well as a bit of a running theme in the songs on the album: persevering and getting through tough things.”
Now, the trio are excited to finally get to share these songs that they’ve been working on for so long. Annie says it feels very cathartic (and maybe a little bit scary), since it’s their first album — everything they are doing is completely new and fascinating. But she adds, “since so many of these songs are so personal it also feels almost therapeutic to get to not only put them together but also use them to communicate with anyone who listens and share a little bit of [their] own experiences. It’s about crossing over from loneliness to togetherness, and the joy that can be found in finding others who share your experiences.”
