Many moons ago, I worked the graveyard shift at a college radio station in the basement of the communications building. I was the only person in this building at the time. The halls had this liminality to them, and I would often wander around while a long set of uninterrupted music played before my next aircheck. Often, I would imagine the locked doors to storage rooms suddenly opening, washing white light over me, and welcoming me into strange worlds. But this was due to my sleeplessness. I spent many hours muttering insomniac God-knows-what into the microphone during my college years.
Anyway, while I was making a fool out of myself in front of no one, tracks sounding like “Lydia” by Andreas Grundel would play. Somewhat beachy, somewhat transcendent, providing the sound of floating above your body. Guitars and soft synths and voices mesh together in a track that is wistful and danceable and nostalgic and new all at the same time. It’s a lovely four-minute ditty from the Swedish songwriter that touches the spirit.
But “Lydia” is not a new song: Grundel recorded and released the track back in 2014. So why talk about it now? Because its release on February 19, 2026, happened to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the birth of VÅRØ Records, a Swedish indie label, whose founders were friends with the owners of the label that originally released “Lydia” (Ramberget Recordings). Ramberget faded away not long after “Lydia”, and the song faced oblivion. But with VÅRØ turning ten, they found a good reason to give the song new life.
And so here we welcome “Lydia” back from the brink, and introduce it to your eardrums. And we congratulate VÅRØ Records on ten years and many more releases, and wish them well in the years to come. We hope you, the listener, enjoy “Lydia” and perhaps take a moment from your busy day to let it transport you to another world, or maybe just give you a reason to move your head around a little to its infectious beat.
The song is available on most streaming services, including Bandcamp, and you can find buttons to find those services and socials below. However, there was a video produced for “Lydia” back in 2014, which is quite nice, and it feels wrong to let it go to waste. You can check that out below as well.
Written by Will Sisskind
