Transboundary Sound Designer Badlands Shares “The Dead” Single + Video | New LP ‘Nobody Dies’ Out Now!
The woman behind the moniker, Catharina Jaunviksna, found her love for creating music early on in her life. Finding herself intrigued by DIY genres like punk and hardcore, it wasn’t until her teenage years that she discovered synths and sampling. Jaunviksna began her music career working in the filmmaking world crafting scores when she finally discovered her own musical identity. She became a touring musician on synths and keys for The Radio Dept. and founded Badlands in 2012. Since conception, Jaunviksna has attuned herself with the electro community in Dublin, Ireland, and even opened her own studio in Malmo.
“‘Nobody Dies’ is about war, delusion, resilience and what it means to be human. It tells the story of a character in a broken landscape who is forced to invent and ascribe new meaning to things in order to endure existence and sow new hope.” She continues, “It’s a comment on the current state of the world and where we are heading, about deception, but also about making the best with what you got. It’s about the importance of art and human interaction, and the striving to find a way, even at times when everything seems hopeless (and even if that sometimes means delusion).”
Swedish producer, composer, and sound designer Catharina Jaunviksna, also known as Badlands, is set to release her highly anticipated fourth album, Nobody Dies, via RITE. The record fuses lo-fi ballads with salvaged electronics and old string instruments, exploring a raw, human musicality in a fragmented world. Ahead of the release, Badlands shared the haunting single and video “The Dead”, premiered by Earmilk, which layers textured instrumentation and Catharina’s expansive vocals to reflect on the emotional and moral aftermath of war. The track exemplifies the album’s broader themes of human resilience, responsibility, and the search for meaning amid chaos.
Nobody Dies expands Badlands’ sonic palette into cracked folk-ambient songforms, blending voice, detuned strings, and salvaged electronics into dreamlike, post-apocalyptic soundscapes. Guest contributions from Maggie Björklund on pedal steel and folklorist Ida Mitchell on cello add spectral textures, while visual artist OSKARP integrates a blurred collage of memory and fiction. Drawing inspiration from artists like Broadcast, Grouper, and Hidden Reverse, the album meditates on war, delusion, and survival, capturing the necessity of art, human connection, and hope even in moments of despair.
Make sure you check out “The Dead” on YouTube below and the whole LP on Spotify!
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Who am I? Just some guy who decided to start writing on the Internet years ago and now operates his own brand and site. Owner/Operator of Modern Neon Media, I make all kinds of niche content to suit my interests at the time. DIY Enthusiast, Brewmaster extraordinaire, and avid freak for geek culture. Follow on my socials for a more “on” version of me.
