It’s been a couple of years since Forwardman (Sakari Viittala) last appeared in these pages. He has featured three or four times and made it into NMC’s ‘Songs of the Year’ for 2024.
In fact only recently I wondered what had happened to him and couldn’t find him on social media either, apart from Instagram.
But he’s still around and in fact just released a new single, ‘No Man’s land’.
I remember him for a soft Brit Pop-like musical persona but also one who demonstrates an underlying sense of drama and even darkness on some of his tracks.
Musically, ‘No Man’s land’ is a little more electro-poppy and laid back and yet also more melancholic than the hard-hitting, in-your-face stuff on the ‘Stranded Future Soho Fugitive’ album from 2024; his fourth.
I don’t profess to know what it is about and there are few obvious clues. No Man’s land began as a place of execution just outside of the London Wall in the 14th Century but latterly, since the First World War, has come to refer to the area of land between two enemy trench systems, not controlled by either side, while also used metaphorically, to refer to an ambiguous, anomalous, or indefinite area, regarding an application, situation, or jurisdiction.
In this instance lines like “You’ve gotta break the spell, you’ve gotta leave it all behind” and “Walking about in a state of imaginary craze” suggest to me someone who has entered into a state of mental turmoil from which he is only now beginning to exit and even that the turmoil in question might be in some way responsible for his absence during the last couple of years in a No Man’s land of his own.
And then the repeated line “Catch me if you can” was of course the title of the 2002 film about the infamous American conman Frank Abagnale Junior. Is this a case of Forwardman questioning his own values?
I doubt either proposition carries much weight or supports scrutiny. My point is merely that Forwardman consistently lays down material which causes you to think hard about how you interpret it, which is how it should be.
He’s the musical equivalent of a character actor; a chameleon with a multitude of roles and stories to tell.
Find him on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forwardmanmusic/
