Track of the day: ‘Oppenheimer’ by Loney dear

The stark ‘Oppenheimer’ takes cues from the life of American theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, examining just how quickly good intentions can be altogether overtaken by events.

“A lot of those people working with the atomic bomb were astrophysicists and they were passionate about researching space and mathematics,” says Emil. “Here they had this amazing opportunity, almost too good to miss. Maybe they were also trapped in a situation that was hard to avoid in a way. And immediately they understood, when they saw the results, that this is horrible. Like we’ve been tricked into doing this.”

Listen to ‘Oppenheimer’

“There’s the famous quote by Oppenheimer; ‘I have become the destroyer of worlds.’ There’s just something really powerful about it and that era. It’s crazy, the fact that during that nuclear age, the atomic bomb was the future and it was popular culture. And the fact that the bikini was the latest fashion product and they named it after where they detonated an atomic bomb just tells you so much – it was a different age.”

Read the lyrics to ‘Oppenheimer’ on Genius.com

Recorded with producer Emanuel Lundgren in a mythical studio on western Södermalm in Stockholm, A Lantern and a Bell is Loney dear’s second album for Real World, following 2017’s self-titled release. Emil will also appear on First Aid Kit’s forthcoming Leonard Cohen live tribute album, Who By Fire, due out later this month.

A Lantern and a Bell is out on 26 March 2021.