
With the album Morte di Seeburg, Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks ended a two-decade-long renewal of rock music. The final album was supposed to be a soundtrack, but the film never came true. However, it turns out that the album inspired the author Maria Grund, when she wrote the crime novel Mortal Sin.
Detective Commissioner Sanna Bergling is the name of the hero in the crime novel Mortal Sin (or Dödssynden in the original Swedish language). The book is Maria Grund‘s debut as an author. She is already a screenwriter, and has been based in New York and London. Which may explain why there has been a great deal of interest in translations of the debut book in advance. The Swedish original edition is published by the publishing house Modernista.
Already in the first chapter, Morte di Seeburg with Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks appears (in my poor translation):
She turns off the radio, turns on the old CD player, and accelerates. Robert Johnson and Punchdrunk’s “Rabbia Fuori Controllo” crackles from the speakers as farms and crofts pass by. Meadows, fields and dark forests…
If you are the publisher of the said album, it is of course a bit dizzying to see this in writing. But the album turns out to have marked Mortal Sin even more. On her Instagram account, Maria Grund herself writes:
The soundtrack for my book. Or rather, for me while I was writing the book. It meant so much to me that my favorite track on the album – Rabbia Fuori Controllo – is actually IN the book. The song is the heartbeat of my opening scene and it is was playing inside my mind as one of my main characters – Sanna Berling – came to life. But more than anything, it is incredible music. Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks are sadly no more, but they have shapeshifted into a new group – Cantona Gut System – launching new music in April. Stay tuned. Find Rabbia Fuori Controllo on Spotify!
Maria Grund on Instagram, March 18, 2020
Great fun, I think. And I can only agree, Morte di Seeburg is a masterpiece. You can find the LP here in our web shop.
Read more about Maria Grund’s book Mortal Sin (in Swedish) at Modernista.