DEAR VISITOR,
Welcome to my homepage. Here I´ll share my works in music, film and literature. Mostly music.
I´ve been running the project WAR SAN since 2019, but you will also find some experimental
videos, a comic book and a few texts where I reflect upon the stuff I am doing.
Very glad you found your way here!
Yours! /K.
LATEST PUBLICATIONS
New album The Miraculous Life of Stella Maris is out now on CD and all digital platforms. Seven songs filled with self-disclosure, poetic lyrics and dreamlike, atmospheric soundscapes.
The single Float Pt 1 was released almost three years ago. December 18th Transnational Records releases the full album FLOAT, an instrumental journey that seeks both confrontation and the meditative.
A three song EP leading through the structures of an abandoned prison and its cells mixing contemplation with optimism.
NEWS
April 10th 2025
THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF STELLA MARIS
New album is now available on CD and all digital streaming services.
TRACKLIST
The Drunken Thief
Sanctuary of Wonders
Rise rebel, rise
Hello Siki
The Rescue of Stella Maris
Celestial Female Area
The Iberian Oracle
Violins on The drunken thief & Hello Siki by Amir Trabulsi.
Opera voice on The drunken thief by Lene Sörensen.
Astral Oracle on the cover: Ramón Moreira.
Costume Design by Lilli Hartmann
Executive Producer. Ragnar Bay & Transnational Records
Sound Supervisor: Lars Fagerlund
All songs written, performed, recorded and mixed by Kim Warsen.
Recorded in Sessebro / Sweden, 2021, except The Iberian Oracle, recorded in Calle de Embajadores 24 / Madrid, 2011.
All songs mastered from mp3 to wav in 2024.
A confession regarding Stella Maris
The embodiment of a goddess
Some years ago I “stole” a gigantic Venus sculpture in the city park of Kalmar.
At the time I was working on a small documentary film about the marvelous mexican sculpturist Anabelí Díaz. When we were editing the film I found out that one of her majestic sculptures of Venus was going to be thrown away. It had been cracked in the burning, couldn´t be sold and wasn't allowed to stay in the city park of Kalmar inside of the beautiful chapel that protected it. I couldn't allow it, so I asked if I could take it home. I was told I could give it a try, but that it probably wouldn't survive to be moved.
I asked everyone who participated to keep it a secret, that the least we could do for this magnificent sculpture was to make it disappear in a certain amount of mystery. So we did. What we did not expect was the sculpture to go on TV as ART ROBBERY IN KALMAR (Smålandsnyheterna, 2016). Neither did we expect comments on social media about people wanting the death penalty to be reinstalled to punish the one who stole it.
But things went fine, I am still here and alive, and so is the sculpture. It stands in my garden under a small roof that we built to protect it, watching over us. Its presence has always felt like a blessing.
For this reason I asked Anabelí to use an image of the sculpture on the back cover of the album, to which she kindly accepted.
Love. /K.
PS. You might consider bringing this story to light right now a promotional trick to draw attention to the new record coming out tomorrow. It certainly is, and also, a hymn to femininity and wonders.
Mar. 26th 2025
HELLO SIKI - Official Video
The Official Video for the single Hello Siki is out now.
Watch it here.
The Making of the Video
Mainstream esthetics and personal resistance
She asked me, my 79 year old neighbour who is starring in this video; why I was doing it. We were sitting under a tree in the middle of the forest and having a coffee break from filming. My quick and honest response was; because it makes me have a coffee with you in the middle of the forest. But she asked again: where do you want this to go and what do you want from it?
I like my neighbour a lot. She is intelligent, sharp, has a great sense of humor and we normally end up having interesting conversations. So, since my answer didn't seem to satisfy her, I tried again. It went something like this, or at least I wish it did:
“I just want to produce an alternative to the mainstream narration of things, to restore some kind of dialogue with what really surrounds me. For my own sake, to keep me sane. In a way it is my personal resistance, to fabricate an expression outside of the norm that includes the trivial and the sublime. A low budget camera and limited recording equipment seem like rather modest tools to use for this purpose, the imperfect appearance makes it more human somehow.
Then there is a message to my son as well, the song is written to his future self, like to tell him that there are perspectives that will limit you and there are others that won´t; that it is really fascinating to be alive and absolutely nothing normal about being here at all. I guess I would like him to wonder why his dad made a film about a walk in the forest with his neighbour, when we were on the brink of the AI-revolution and netocracy.”
She smiled, took some more coffee and started to speak about the importance of networking.
It felt like she enjoyed our walk. I sure did.
Kindly. /K.
Mar. 20th 2025
THE IBERIAN ORACLE
New single from the forthcoming album "The Miraculous Life of Stella Maris"
is out now on all digital platforms.
The Iberian Oracle was written and recorded 14 years ago, in an apartment in Madrid, inspired by the Swedish singer Freddie Wadling and his fantastic records with the Fleshquartet in the nineties. To me Freddie became an angel the day he proclaimed to be a monster. As a way to shed light on my half-hidden past and to reconcile with my musical shortcomings, this song concludes the forthcoming album “The Miraculous Life of Stella Maris”.
Feb. 27th 2025
HELLO SIKI
New single is out now on all digital platforms.
Featuring Amir Trabulsi on violins.
The song is written to my son, Siki, named after the Senegalese boxer Battling-Siki. It was written when he was born four years ago and its lyric is loosely inspired by the renowned mystic George Gurdjieff´s teaching on the natural hate a child will feel towards its parents and then gradually, its necessity to forgive them and to stop whining about their flaws. This teaching ironically becomes more attractive from a parents point of view, but nevertheless it seems like the most important step towards some sort of wider consciousness.
On the cover you see two magicians and dear friends who assisted at the wedding ceremony of Siki´s parents. The persona in front acted as a ritual shaman and incarnates the union between masculinity and femininity. The forthcoming album THE MIRACULOUS LIFE OF STELLA MARIS will be released in april and tells the story of this union.
/K.
Cover by Chema Castelló
Dec. 11th 2024
FLOAT Pt 2
OFFICIAL VIDEO OUT NOW
Duration: 6:09 min.
MiniDV / 4:3.
Float Pt 2 is an audiovisual artwork based on audio and video recordings of flowing water at Rolands Damm in Mortorp, Sweden.
The visual depicts the rushing water in fragmented lines and forms abstract textures and symbols, while the sound of the rapid's roar is confronted by a soundscape that slowly transitions and harmonizes into something meditative and quiet.2024
A Spotify Playlist with all of the instrumental music produced by WAR SAN between 2020-2024.
Including Lortbron, Fe, Carabanchel Prison and FLOAT.
Nov. 2024
FLOAT Pt 2
"The sound of water rapids"
Transnational Records
War San releases new album, FLOAT, out on all digital platforms dec 18th 2024.
The single Float Pt 1 was released almost three years ago. It was called ”20 minutes of pure gold” by the Swedish music magazine HYMN, and was included on their list of best instrumental music of the year. December 18th we release the album FLOAT, an instrumental journey that seeks both confrontation and the meditative.
On November 26th, the album’s second single, Float Pt 2, will be released, and soon after, the video with the same name, an audio-visual experiment depicting the movement of water at Rolands Damm south of Kalmar.
Photos by Chloé Gilson
Kim Warsen about the new single
The idea came from a desire to work musically with the sound of water rapids. There is something striking and uncompromising in the sound of large amounts of water being pushed forward, something at the same time cleansing and consuming. The idea was to confront it, to try to portray the roar musically and that this would then create a further movement. Filming the water also turned out to provide material for a variety of abstract variations to accompany the music.
Only in retrospect do I realize that the project visually has a certain kinship with the video art of the late Bill Viola, but above all it is a form of local patriotic nature romance that I engaged in. I now live along the Hagbyån and the water rapids at the various dams testify both to nature’s unconditional movement and our temporary limitation, in that experience there is something very vital and cathartic.
Nov. 2024
FLOAT Pt 2
Single / WAR SAN
New single out now on all digital platforms.
(The full album FLOAT will be released 18th of December.)
2023
CARABANCHEL PRISON
Soundtrack EP & Short Film
After 17 years this project is finally ready. The images were filmed inside of the notorious spanish prison in 2007, a year before it was demolished. The film is released together with a new made soundtrack published by Transnational Records.
More interviews and reviews below.
Carabanchel Prison invites us to reflect on the fact that those days are over now,
and looks to a brighter future. It traces a line – quite literally – from confinement to exit,
and to freedom. If only this was possible for more historical dates and places.
11th August 2023
/Christopher Nosnibor
Read full review from Aural Aggravation
Hubo una época, no hace tanto tiempo, en la que las cárceles habitaban los barrios de nuestras ciudades,
formaban parte del paisaje urbano y nos recordaban a todos que podíamos entrar en esa dimensión paralela oscura y maloliente.
Hoy eso ha cambiado, pese a tener una población penitenciaria enorme, proporcionalmente mayor a la que hubo en muchas décadas pasadas,
y necesitamos a artistas como Kim Warsen para ofrecernos paseos por lo liminal, por las ruinas de una cárcel que,
de forma complementaria, también nos muestra las ruinas de nuestra libertad.
17th August 2023
/Pablo García aka Pablo und Destruktion
2023
CARABANCHEL PRISON
Short Film
The film portrays a person painting a line from the prison's epicenter to across the wall. The abstract textures that
drown the images are created by streams of water. The film was shot in 2006, inside the prison of Carabanchel,
Madrid. The prison had then been closed and abandoned for almost 10 years. It was finally demolished in 2008.
The tapes were edited in 2023, 17 years after its making.
The film features Ragnar Bey as the painter. Original Soundtrack made by WAR SAN and released on Transnational Records.
A film by Kim Warsen.
Format: MiniDV / 4:3. Length 10:59 min.EXTRACTS
2023
CARABANCHEL PRISON
The 3 song EP soundtrack by War San is out now on all digital platforms.
"Almost spiritual", "Blends contemplation with optimism"
// Aural Aggravation, Christopher Nosnibor 2023
2023
THE STRANGER
Single / War San feat. Amir Trabulsi
New single "The Stranger" is out now on all digital platforms.
2021
FLOAT Pt 1
EP / Single - War San
Float Pt 1, a twenty minute piece of instrumental music, is now available on all digital platforms. The first part of the piece was inspired by the legendary soundtrack "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, best known to be the theme for Francis Ford Coppola´s "2001, A Space Odyssey".
2021
FE
Single / War San
Featuring Amir Trabulsi
New single "Fe" is now available on all digital platforms
and forms part of the International Art Exhibition "Hope" created by the Mexican art centre Kupula.
2020
Album / War San
New album "Lortbron" is now available on all digital platforms.
The album is losely based on Warsen´s homwtown Nybro in the south of Sweden and also works as a personal psychomagical ritual that ties together his family over generations. A longer text about the album can be found under War San on this page.
Nov. 2023
The making of Lortbron
For many years I have been a big admirer of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his psychomagic theories. I strongly recommend his book “Psychomagic - an art that heals” or the wonderful “El Collar del Tigre” by his son Cristobál Jodorowsky. The mix of humor, madness and wisdom is fantastic. Basically it comes down to growing spiritually by using your own imagination and creativity as tools. So, LORTBRON is the result of these theories and became a ritual for my own spiritual growth.
During the making of the record I had our one-year old daughter sleeping in the garden while her brother was on his way to arrive. It was an overwhelming time with ambiguous feelings towards fatherhood and responsibilities. Therefore I decided that the record had to be performed and captured on a slightly untuned piano. It seemed like the fair thing to do, since I wasn't bringing my children into a world that is perfectly tuned. It can be a pretty nice place, I told myself, if the mind is balanced and the circumstances accepted. Throughout the whole recording process, keeping the mind balanced and learning to enjoy the imperfect sound of the piano became the main task.
Most of the field recordings on the record are the sounds my daughter, and later her brother, was hearing while sleeping in that garden. The sound of the terrace door opening and closing, the wind chimes in a tree nearby, the leaves and the field. In my imagination the record would become a place for them to visit later, to reconnect with the sounds that surrounded them at their arrival. Three years later it turns out the record has been a very effective lullaby and peacemaker for them during cartravels. I would like to think that it connects to their subconsciousness somehow, but anyway I'm very happy it has a calming effect on them.
There is also the sound of a giant buddhistic gong (on Sibyllans Stad) that my wife and I found and recorded on a mountain in the north of Sweden some years earlier when we were traveling up there to reconnect with the roots of indigenous Sami people. Although the record circulates around my hometown Nybro in the south, my grandmother moved there from the north. Therefore her travel also has something to do with my origin. I can't explain what the buddhistic gong was doing on that mountain, but while working on the record I sometimes imagined myself being a buddhistic ghost revisiting my own memories.
To honor my grandmother and the Sami people a song is named Fatmomakke, which was a holy place in the north for the indigenous people before they were christianized and a church was built upon the place.
During our trip north we visited Fatmomakke and the church that was built on the Sami ground. Since the Christian church back then considered the indigenous people satanists, I performed “Sympathy for the Devil'' by The Rolling Stones on the organ. It seemed like the right thing to do and Jodorowsky might even consider it an act of psychomagic.
Three years ago I had still never seen my biological parents together. They split up before I was born and made their lives in different parts of Sweden. I kept telling myself it didn't bother me, but since I had just become a father myself it felt wise not to leave things unsolved.
My biological father is a musician, so I sent him the songs and asked him to mix them. He gladly accepted and did the work beautifully, with a great amount of care and devotion. My mother on the other hand was at the time responsible for designing the interiors of the newly renovated Grand Hotel of my hometown Nybro, a place once called LORTBRON. The cover of the record is the windows of the hotel my mother was decorating. Basically what the record did was to bring my parents together, without them knowing, for me to be able to visualize them together. My father mixed the album and my mother's work covers it. Ironically, or maybe not, less than two years after LORTBRON was released, they were both sitting together in my kitchen laughing.
So, the album LORTBRON is a chain of acts that combine my parents, grandmother and children in one. It most likely just matters to me, but could maybe inspire someone to tie loose knots together. I see those rituals as a way to create new memories to one's narrative. They kind of stabilize the chain of actions and can also complete unsolved issues. I strongly recommend it, in my case LORTBRON became quite a peacemaker.
With love /K.
2019
Album / War San
War San´s debut album "New Religious Movements" is now available on Vinyl and digitally on Batir Records homepage and bandcamp. The songs were originally recorded back in 2012 in the studio ZTA in Torrijos and was produced by Carlos Torronado (VETA, PAL), together with Ojo (La Débil, Nudozurdo, +øc), Borja Martín-Andino (La Débil, +øc) and Ana Galletero (VETA, Travolta, Joaquín Pascal).
Listen to an interview about the record here.
2019
Album / War San
New album "Silent Talk" is now available on all digital platforms and on CD by spanish label Lovemonk. Released the same week as "New Religious Movements", this album was recorded after 5 years of musical silence and can be seen as a complementary dialog with the former record. This time the recording was done at Warsen´s own studio in the swedish forrest and counting with the violins of Amir Trabulsi, along with other syrian musicians and a duet with Amir´s father Ismael Trabulsi.
Sep. 2023
The mysterious cover of Silent Talk
In 2018 Wences made a beautiful cover for the album NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS, recorded back in 2012 and released seven years later on vinyl by Batir Records (2019). After listening to the record he imagined a sea battle with several ships burning. With the band's blessing he then turned it into an amazing painting that became the front and back cover.
The same year I finished the album SILENT TALK and reached out to Wences, who I actually never had the pleasure to meet, and asked him to do the cover for this album as well. He agreed and I sent him the songs. Some days later he wrote back that he imagined a man holding up a new born baby and a woman lying in the grass just after giving birth. I was stunned and quickly asked if he knew that my wife was pregnant, since she was only in her third month and we had kept it to ourselves. He answered that he didn´t. This is what he imagined listening to the record.
There are no lines on the record about wanting to have children and the songs had been written before I even met my children's mother. But there was a task I had given myself working on that record: “Become your own best friend and imagine a future you would like to meet”. Even though I didn't describe having children, I guess I was indeed longing for them. Somehow that is what Wences heard and his intuition blows my mind.
While the childbirth was getting closer it felt a bit overwhelming to illustrate it on a record cover. We finally decided not to use the whole painting. Instead you see the fire from the sea battles at the horizon. SILENT TALK was released on the 11th of April 2019, nine days after our daughter Lou was born.
I strongly recommend you to visit Wences homepage www.wenceslamas.com
Love! /K.
PS. SILENT TALK was released by Lovemonk and is available in their catalog and on most music streaming services. It wouldn't be possible without the support of Chloé Gilson, the beautiful violins of my dear friend Amir Trabulsi and the amazing voice of his father Esmaeel Trabulsi (Gates).
DISCOGRAPHY of WAR SAN
with LYRICS & CREDITS
FLOAT Pt. 2
Single 2024 / Transnational Records
