Hey Fredrika, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Could you tell us a little known fact about yourself?

Well, I’m extremely good at telling the temperature of water when I’m swimming. We’re talking cold Nordic waters now, so I’ll go in and I’ll be like “this is 16,5 degrees (celcius)” and I will be right.

Your new EP embraces messiness, intensity, and beauty. How did you channel those contrasts in your production and songwriting process?

I think contrasts are a huge part of me (for example, I used to be a lawyer and now I’m a music maker) so they come out naturally when I create. I tend to make messy, hard beats and then put emotional vocals over them. The beauty often lies in the contrasts in my opinion. I appreciate places and things that are sort of ugly-ish but then suddenly you see the beauty. That’s probably why Brussels is one of my favourite cities. And that’s why Stockholm bores me sometimes.

As a DIY artist and producer, what does having full control over your sound mean to you?

It means that the music I release sounds exactly like I want it to sound. I do enjoy working with others but sometimes the result can leave me feeling a bit like something is “off”, like it’s not 100 percent my sound. When it comes to my own music as Fredrika Rei I’m a bit of a lone wolf to be honest.

What inspired you to give these emotions a home on the dancefloor specifically?

Cause I’ve always felt at home on a dance floor. That’s where I feel like myself and like I’m in my body. I will immediately leave the dance floor if I don’t like the music though.

Opening track ‘just love (welcome)’ sets a mantra-like tone for the EP, so what does it represent in the emotional journey of the project?

I wrote “just love (welcome)” when someone I know got cancer. I had been working on this Kanye-style beat, and then I just started repeating “get through it” over the beat cause that’s what I was feeling at the moment. Then it sat on my computer for two years but I always felt that it was meant to be a part of this project because it captures the contrasts of the whole EP; the intense drums vs the soft singing.

How did you decide on the track order, and was it important for the EP to tell a narrative?

I decided on the order of the songs based on the energy, not so much the lyrics. It’s not a linear narrative. The important thing for me on this EP was to convey the sort of intense feelings that I remember having as a 14-year old. You know there’s this thing about how the music you hear and the movies you see around that age hit you harder than any other cultural experience ever will in your life. I think that that is so beautiful, how your soul and heart is so open to experiences that it hurts. When you get obsessed with a song, or a character from a movie, or a real-life person you have a crush on obviously, or whatever it is. And making some of these songs, I found my way back to that teenage openness. I don’t want to be one of those grown-ups that walk around with my heart closed to the world, I’d rather have too many strong feelings than not feel my feelings. It’s funny cause this may sound like I’m a super-emotional person but around people I’m pretty easy-going actually haha. Meanwhile the feelings are having their own party on the dance floor in my mind and then in the music I put out.

What’s next for you?

I’m actually resuming studies in music production this fall. I’m a constant student, I love learning haha. At the same time I hope to be working on what will be my debut album. I have so many goddamn songs and now I need to sort them out and decide what’s what and how they fit together, or don’t. But who knows, maybe I’ll write new things instead. Either way, there will be interesting releases in 2026 from Fredrika Rei.

Follow Fredrika Rei on Instagram.