[Cover photo credit to Peter Malmgren]
Swedish singer/songwriter Benjamin Gustafsson has announced his album release The Nature Within, his first with Decca Records US. The 11-track set will be released on Sept. 8, 2023 and the first single from the collection is “Sleeping?” out now.
The lead track off the album, “Sleeping?” is a “pensive tender song tinged with a silver lining.” It’s accompanied by an official video.
Gustafsson comments:
‘Sleeping?’ was written in the house in the woods I spent more than two years in by myself. I remember I had woken up multiple times from very vivid dreams. Those milliseconds between being so immersed in a dream, to waking up into reality was really hard to just brush off. I started to think and read a lot about dreams, and this song kind of embodies that time.
The Malmö-based artist has spent much of his career to date writing and recording music that was often instrumental with a classical bent. For his album The Nature Within, Gustafsson focuses a little more intently and also covers Nick Drake’s “Which Will”.

The Nature Within is inspired by Gustafsson’s relationship with his mental health, and “not succumbing to it” with music as “solace and therapy.”