On 16 January 2026, Swedish electronic musician Carl Sjöström (Scapa Flow-member) will release his debut full-length album as Hoy, titled “Getting Closer,” via I/O Music on CD and as download/streaming. The album brings Sjöström’s electronic/dark wave mix built around restrained tempos, detailed sound design, and intimate vocals.

“Getting Closer” is Hoy’s first album after a run of singles and EPs started in 2024. I/O Music describes the debut as “a focused journey through melancholic electronic soundscapes, with themes of loss, distance and acceptance”. Karolina Westlund appears on several tracks on backing vocals while Nano Ona contributes on one of the songs, namely “Thought You Knew”.

The new album compiles earlier material alongside unreleased songs. The single “Out Of Love” for instance was released on 12 December 2025.

The material is available as a digital pre-order on Bandcamp, with “Out of love” and “Why” already streamable for buyers.

About Carl Sjöström, Scapa Flow and Hoy

Carl Sjöström first came to prominence in the late 1980s as a member of Scapa Flow, an electronic body music (EBM) band formed in Uppsala, Sweden in May 1988 by Andreas Carlsson, Johan Lavsund, Johan Nygren and Carl Sjöström. The group was part of a wider local wave of electronic acts that also included Cultivated Bimbo, Inside Treatment and Systema.

The band recorded several cassette demos in 1988–1989, including “The Core,” “Crucial Impact” and “Overflow,” and began performing live in Uppsala and Stockholm. Their track “Servant” appeared on the compilation “Trans Europa (A Swiss – Swedish Techno-Compilation)” via Front Music Production, which later released the band’s debut LP “The Guide” in 1989. A CD version followed in 1991 through Parade Amoureuse, expanded with the songs “Join the Line” and “Creation.”

The second album “Chased By Sunset” arrived in 1991 on Energy Rekords, after the label transition from Front Music Production. That release led to a German tour with Pouppée Fabrikk, followed by more Scandinavian dates. They then issued their third studio album “Heads Off To Freedom” in 1994, again through Energy Rekords.

After a series of live shows through 1994 and 1995, the band went dormant but later compiled tracks for the retrospective CD “Pax Vobiscum 1988-2001,” released in 2002 on Energy Rekords. In November 2014, the band reunited for a performance at the Progress festival in Gothenburg, and in 2018 the label Progress Productions remastered and reissued “The Core” demo as a limited CD.

Sjöström founded Hoy in 2023 and musically moves away from the body-music format of Scapa Flow toward a slower electronic/dark wave sound. The first releases arrived in Summer 2024, when the project issued a pair of so-called “Animals EPs”. The EP “Like a Dancer” was released in June 2024, followed by “All the Things” in September, each collecting songs written over the previous decade and reworked. Selected tracks from this period, including “Hold Me Back” and “Desert Walk,” were remixed by artists such as Moist and Nano Ona.

In January 2025, the project contributed the instrumental piece “Intertwinings” to the Lamour Records compilation “Because We Love Music,” and delivered a remix of the Gränslöst track “Limön.” During the same year, Sjöström worked on remixes and collaborations including Nano Ona / Shaperwave – “Villain,” the Nano Ona + Hoy single “Live With It,” and a remix of Fun Control – “Poor Vlad.”

A first live performance took place in Gävle, Sweden, in August 2025 at the small outdoor event Synth & Motion, where the project played instrumental versions of tracks. Later that year, the single “Out Of Love” from the forthcoming album “Getting Closer” was released on 12 December 2025.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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