"Carried Away" is like any other debut album, consisting of both old and new songs, echoing virtually all of the singer's major influences, mainly from the late 60's, and a few years into the 70's: Beatles, Beach Boys, CSN&Y, Phil Spector and many others. It's all baked into the product.
The majority of the songs - from the space-out opening track "Come In From The Cold", via songs such as the baroque-flavoured "Some Other Place", the Lennonesque and slightly autobiographical "Cynic" and the songs reflecting the recent break-down of Qvist's marriage, "It Won't Go Away" and "Downer" to the short acoustic track at the end, the all together optimistic "All Dressed Up" - were produced by Qvist along with recording engineer Mats-Ola Tranell.
One track, "Why Does It Hurt You" was the result of a strong friendship between Qvist and another producer and multi-instrumentalist, Tobias Walka, who loaded the song with layers of bass, drums, percussion and harmony vocals from The Magnificent Six, a bunch of singers from their common list of friends and acquaintances. "It was all very Spector", Qvist says. "I didn't have a machine gun, though, and can't seem to remember any Ramones-related events either". It was all great fun. And the other tracks ran smoothly too. People like Kim (drummer Kim Gunneriusson), Walka, Björn (guitarist Björn Linder) and a few others handled the instruments along with me. It went on for two years and then we were ready. Suddenly, there was a finished album. It was pure magic".
Hopefully, you too will hear some of the magic involved in the making of "Carried Away". It's the result of a bunch of people doing what they like the most, fooling around in the studio, while the tape is rolling.