Action Biker - "Hesperian Puisto" (Friendly Noise Records)

It really is time for Action Biker’s first solo album! It has now been six years since she emerged as an artist doing fun and popular live shows and releasing CD-R’s in the indie pop scene of Gothenburg, Sweden, which included people like Jens Lekman and The Honeydrips. Since then, Sarah Nyberg Pergament has been involved in other projects, such as Flow Flux Clan, Kissing Mirrors and The Dreamers, whose record “Day For Night” has received great acclaim from different places around the world. Over the years, Sarah has also performed lots of Action Biker shows (some, as an opening act for Le Tigre and The Embassy), contributed to recordings with Lars Blek (The Field), Differnet and The Honeydrips, and all this time, new recordings with Action Biker have popped up on compilations and singles.
In brief, when “Hesperian Puisto” finally is released, it means the début of someone with a lot of experience… The record is named after the Hesperian park in Helsinki, Finland, where Sarah lived for a while. She describes her music as baroque on synthesizers. It is pop music built on complex naivety – altogether very accessible music with distinct vocals and a crispy, sweet, analogue sound. Two great-looking videos are also included on the CD.
References and Influences: Young Marble Giants, Broadcast, Dislocation Dance, Moondog, Virna Lindt, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Antena, Francoise Hardy, Saint Etienne, Brian Eno, Ghost Box, Stereolab, Fred Astaire, Maurice Ravel, ESG, Komeda, Cluster, Flying Lizards, Syd Barett, The Passions, St Christopher, John Barry, Can, Human League, Colleen, Marine Girls, Eric Dolphy, Telex, George Delerue, The Wake, Kraftwerk, Lori & The Chameleons, Differnet.
Katja Ekman’s liner notes for “Hesperian Puisto”.
With a voice like Spring, and always dancing. So far, the myths that flourish about Action Biker all agree. But pinning her down has proved difficult. Contradictory accounts associate her with the North and the West respectively, giving rise to strange conjectures. Following sightings of Sarah walking through Hesperian Puisto, she has been connected with the Hesperides, those guardians of a tree of golden apples in a grove at the western border of the Ocean. These were renowned for their sweet singing. Rumoured the daughters of Night, they inherited her influence over creation. According to another theory, they were sisters with Calypso, making the Evening Star their grandfather.
A link can also be traced to a race of Apollo-worshippers in the far north, in short: fans of sun, music, and poetry residing somewhere past the North Wind. Legends resounding with the beat of drums tell us of their questionable ways to happiness, while certain documents, now lost to us, mention much simpler causes for rejoicing (late night kitchen dancing, shopping ingredients for peach pie and so on).
However, the dominant impression left by Action Biker has to do with the artistic refinement of her mind; her intense ability to dream; her gift for hearing music where others would not. The image is one of fearlessness, of unending playfulness.