On January 26, 2023, NASA reported that an asteroid came within 2,200 miles of the Earth, nearly striking the southern tip of South America. Designated 2023 BU, the small asteroid measured approximately 11.5 to 28 feet in length, the size of a box truck, and became one of the closest objects to approach the Earth ever recorded.
When Thea Glenton Raknes heard the report on the radio, the news of the close encounter helped put some things into perspective for the Norwegian singer and songwriter, and founder of Thea & The Wild. “The whole thing that made me think,” says Raknes. “I’ve been worrying about stuff. I’ve been down in the dumps, and it’s like, ‘What’s happening to me? Am I just going to be depressed?’ And the news was almost like a relief.”
Raknes adds, “It’s a horrible thing to say, but it made me realize that I’m not in charge of things. I can’t fix everything, and maybe everything’s actually out of our hands.”
The news also inspired Thea & The Wild’s fourth album Truck Sized Asteroid (Fysisk Format). “The idea of this asteroid the size of a truck was huge,” Raknes says. “It just comes at you with this speed, and then it makes such an impact. … Then I was thinking about the parts of the body, the hormones, that all come together and create something quite extreme in your mind.”
From there, Raknes began writing through more contemplations during a songwriting trip with drummer Bjørge Fjordheim to the Faroe Islands.
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Written at Bloch Studio in the capital of Tórshavn, Truck Sized Asteroid also reflects the landscape of the Faroe Islands, Irish folk music, and the ‘80s music Raknes grew up with. She and Fjordheim continued working on the album at the brewery-turned studio, Tou in Stavanger, Norway, before moving to Athletic Sound Studios in Halden to record live along with guitarist Kenneth Ishak and finishing it off at her home studio, Helt Vilt Studios in Filtvet.
Being away from home and her two young children, Raknes tapped into something more revelatory on the album.
“That brought out existential thoughts about where the world is heading and a lot of self-examination,” said Raknes in a previous statement. “At the same time, I felt a great sense of freedom and creativity, a joy from getting to create something.
The context of the “soundscape and mood” was directly impacted by her environment, from the sea, greenery, and more dramatic, brutalist landscape of the Faroe Islands to walking through old industrial towns in Western Norway at night.
Playing around with echoes and guitar delays, Raknes wanted a bigger, more cinematic sound for the album while in the Faroe Islands. “I had these videos in my head of waves,” she says. And my mood is in waves constantly. It’s in cycles, so I had these pictures of crashing waves, and the quiet sea, and the beautiful sunset and sunrise, and these green cliffs.”
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Later mixed and co-produced by Raknes, Fjordheim, and her partner, musician Cato Salsa, who also contributed guitar on several tracks, and mastered by Victor Garcia Gruartmoner in Barcelona, Spain, Truck Sized Asteroid expanded into something bigger than expected.
Truck Sized Asteroid grapples with life and the forks in the road of motherhood, womanhood, being an artist, and everything in between within cascades of darkly anthemic and celestial synth pop, from the opening spacier pops of “I Need Your Love” and “On the Horizon.” Raknes’ angelic vocals flare around the mentally charged “Have You Ever Lost Your Mind,” questioning Have you ever lost your mind / And did you ever find it again?
“Rebel River” navigates monotony, self doubt, and escapism—will you take me far away from this rut that I’m in—with a breezier traipse into womanhood and acceptance on “Get Your Body Back.”
As a letter from mother to child, the folkier “My Young Bird,” Raknes crosses some of the inevitable phases of life—And each spring when the lillies / Poke their heads from the snow / They remind of your grace / Your small wings and your glow.
The bird motif continues on the closing “Listening to Men Talking”—I’m a bird in a cage won’t you let me out—and a more empoweing encounter: So sick of standing around smiling / Listening to men talking / I wanna scream I wanna shout / I wanna tell them what it’s all about.
While working on Truck Sized Asteroid, Raknes was also asked to record a tribute album for the late Norwegian folk singer and songwriter Lillebjørn Falk Nilsen (1950-2024). Familiar with Nilsen’s music since childhood, Raknes connected with his songs more while working on Spiller Lillebjørn Nilsen. Bending more toward the socio-political, Nilsen’s lyrics covered the differences within society, something she related to growing up in Norway with her mother.
“In Norway, lots of people have money and they have a cabin in the forest or another house,” says Raknes. “I grew up with my mother, and it was just the two of us, and we didn’t have an extra house. We had a flat and we got by, but some people take it for granted.”
In Nilsen’s songs pictured kids growing up playing on the asphalt in the city, which she found in one of her covers of his 1975 song, “The Storm” (“Stormen”).
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“His whole universe is about all these differences,” says Raknes. “‘The Storm’ is about standing back and watching a shipwreck, and with everything happening politically and in Gaza … and the way you feel like you don’t have any power.”
Recording the Nilsen tribute album gave Raknes a chance to step back, then reassess the songs on Truck Sized Asteroid. “He [Nilsen] had important lyrics,” says Raknes, “but at the same time they were very light and cheerful and gave me this nice perspective again, and how I have to remember to have fun with things.”
She continues, “It’s scary putting something out into the world. I feel that every time I write something. There are times I get really caught up with everything, but in the end, I want to still have fun.”
Photos: Magdalena-Malinowska
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