Luminous Kid

You’ve probably come across the work of Olof Grind, aka Luminous Kid, but you just don’t know it. Known primarily as an acclaimed photographer, videographer, and visual artist – he’s shot for the likes of Vogue, Vice, and was responsible for the artwork for Phoebe Bridger’s Punisher – music is a very recent addition to the twenty-something Swede’s creative repertoire, honed during a long journey around South America a few years back. Stuck in a Colombian coastal town, he bought a guitar and started strumming – the result is at the end of the dream, his debut album that was released last month.

The trip even gifted Grind his stage name.

“This Colombian guy I hung out with told me that I had a luminous aura and started calling me ‘luminous kid’,” he says. “I thought it was catchy.” (interview by Joe Hoeffner)

As is his music, a soft, warm collection of songs full of jangly guitars and tender melodies. “Dreamy” is another apt description; these are songs for good times with friends, full of gentle euphoria and lush compositions. Grind’s calm, almost spoken-word approach to singing lends them an intimate air too, and matches perfectly with his evocative poetry.

His goal is simple yet noble – to elevate queer love stories and to “create freely within my own space”  (interview by Joe Hoeffner).That wild-eyed sense of freedom, and ambition, sits at the heart of his songs and lends them their sweetness. “Earnest singer-songwriter” is currently a crowded field but Grind fully deserves his place among the best – that guitar was a very worthwhile investment.