Every year as spring arrives, a sea of tiny flowers blossom across the Danish forest floor. They’re an explosion of colour, a symbol of hope and change, disappearing as quickly as they arrived and exposing the constant cycle of nature. They are known colloquially as windflowers.

For over twenty years, Efterklang have been pushing the barriers of experimental, electronic, emotional chamber-pop. Announcing their sixth studio album Windflowers, their first for City Slang, the Danish trio of Mads Brauer, Rasmus Stolberg and Casper Clausen continue a creative journey that’s brought them closer together, even as their lives grow apart. Channelling the motifs of hope and change its namesake flora represents, the album sees their many years of collaboration and experimentation distilled into some of their finest and most direct melodic moments to date.

With their ability to bring in guests and session musicians restricted, Efterklang had to challenge their usual creative process and accept their own limitations. Recorded over the course of five trips to residential studio Real Farm on the island of Møn, south of Copenhagen, the genesis of Windflowers was back to basics and became an exercise in putting their vast and dynamic experience to play. The album finds Casper singing in English again, for the most part. It’s rich and intimate, the sound of three friends finding each other at a time when the world around them felt unstable. The record is about existing, alone, together and in nature. It’s about reconnecting, and letting each other grow.

Efterklang’s constant innovation and openness for collaborating extends past the band’s core members and into the world of the listener. Now sharing new music through their Developed platform, fans are invited to collaborate and respond as they listen to the new tracks for the first time. Collaboration and community has always been the compass of Efterklang, and the group keeps looking for new ways to build a meaningful correspondence with their audience, to be inventive and inclusive. “We don’t want to play to people, we want to perform and make music with people,” Rasmus explains.

After all their years together, Mads, Casper and Rasmus share the real intimacy of family. Windflowers is proof that connection and community can triumph over adversity, and the result is something truly beautiful.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Having been one of my all time favourites, Efterklang have moved from swimming, electronic melodies and blipping Múm-esque percussives to this widescreen pop distillation. Their latest continues the line of synthy pop offerings, but with a renewed confidence and easy-going swing. Another stunner from the 'Klang.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Alien Arms
A2. Beautiful Eclipse
A3. Hold Me Close When You Can
A4. Lady Of The Rocks
A5. Dragonfly
B1. Living Other Lives
B2. Mindless Center
B3. House On A Feather
B4. Åbent Sår (feat. The Field)

Altid Sammen (meaning “always together”) is deep and sonorous, steeped in the sonic experimentation that has long been their trademark since Tripper, the Danes’ 2004 debut. As bold and ambitious in scope as their last collection of songs, Piramida, Casper Clausen (vocals), Mads Brauer (synths, electronics) and Rasmus Stolberg (bass) have taken another creative U-turn, this time fusing baroque instrumentation with their signature expansive sound.

Efterklang’s last release, Piramida, centred around a ghost town in the Arctic, was a grand and all-encompassing project that spawned a movie, live album and a series of unforgettable shows (including a live debut at the Sydney Opera House). Their final performance in Sønderborg – the southern Danish town where the band grew up – marked a closing of a chapter, for Piramida and for Efterklang.

“We needed a break from the album and touring routine, and we needed a break from Efterklang,” says Clausen. “After the Sønderborg show, things felt very exciting – and a bit scary too. We could think freely, and move in new directions again, just focusing on the things that excited the 3 of us.”

That break saw the trio explore projects outside of the group’s confines. Together they co-wrote and performed an opera with friend and composer Karsten Fundal (LEAVES, The Colour Of Falling) as part of the Copenhagen Opera Festival. Meanwhile, Clausen, Brauer and Stolberg reunited with Efterklang’s touring drummer Tatu Rönkkö for a new band, Liima. In sharp contrast to Efterklang, they scaled down the music process, creating songs in a day, and released two records of icy, grand electronic pop, ii (2016) and 1982 (2017).

What lured them back as Efterklang was another off-kilter collaboration, this time with B.O.X, a Belgian ensemble founded by lute player Pieter Theuns that performs new music with baroque orchestration. Initially invited by Theuns to compose music for a joint performance, the experience inspired and invigorated the trio to return to the studio for a new Efterklang album proper. For perhaps the first time in the band’s history, they took a less-is-more approach to Altid Sammen, engaging on a more primal and emotional level. The album also sees the trio break from tradition with Clausen singing in his mother tongue some of his most personal lyrics thus far.

“Altid Sammen’s songs are about belief and togetherness,” Clausen says. “Not in a religious way – none of us are believers of a defined religion. The words are searching for meaning in intimate relationships, in nature, in death and eternity. The bonds we create; to gather, hold hands, sing or share a moment together. We’re all connected, across nations, age, sex and gender. We come together with all of our backgrounds, and we move apart in all sorts of directions, always together.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've loved Efterklang for some time now, and it really has been fascinating to see the trajectory of the core band and their former members (Peter Broderick being one of them!). Their newest outing takes the morose poppy melodies of Piramida with some of the electronic scree of their earlier work, and it's a perfectly measured and completely brilliant electronic pop LP. Superb as ever from Clausen & co.

TRACK LISTING

Vi Er Uendelig
Supertanker
Uden Ansigt
I Dine øjne
Hænder Der åbner Sig
Verden Forsvinder
Under Broen Der Ligger Du
Havet Løfter Sig
Hold Mine Hænder

Over the years Efterklang hae developed an insatiable taste for adventure, keen to immerse themselves in different projects and be challenged musically. Collaborating with classical orchestras is one such challenge that the band have never shied away from, and the results have always been stunning. With the release of their fourth album ‘Piramida’, they continued this tradition by performing it for the first time - before the record itself was released - at the iconic Sydney Opera House in May 2012 with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. An unorthodox way of introducing a new body of work, perhaps, but the moment has become a milestone in Efterklang’s twelveyear history.

Early on in the gestation process of ‘Piramida’, Efterklang enlisted the talents of renowned composers Missy Mazzoli and Karsten Fundal to provide orchestral arrangements for the Sydney performance. Their invaluable contributions brought the orchestra into sharp focus, becoming the catalyst for the performance rather than an embellishment.

Since their appearance at the Sydney Opera House, the band have played fifteen other such concerts - dubbed The Piramida Concerts - around the globe, including sold out performances at London’s Barbican with the Northern Sinfonia and New York’s Metropolitan Museum concert hall with The Wordless Music Orchestra.

The album ‘Piramida’ was released in September 2012. It is named after a forgotten mining settlement on the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen, located just south of the North Pole, abandoned since 1998 and slowly decaying. The trio of Casper Clausen, Mads Brauer and Rasmus Stolberg spent nine days exploring this ghost town, collecting field recordings that would help form the backbone of their fourth studio record. Although cut from the same cloth, The Piramida Concerts differ from Piramida and, keen to present this other side, Efterklang decided to commit one of the performances to tape. Fittingly, they chose the concert they played in their native Denmark, and this will be released as a deluxe double vinyl package (with a copy of the album on CD).

‘The Piramida Concert’ by Efterklang & Copenhagen Phil was recorded live at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy Of Music Concert Hall in October 2012. Over the course of two sold-out nights Efterklang - plus special guests Peter Broderick, Katinka Fogh Vindelev and Budgie (Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Creatures) - teamed up with the 33-strong Copenhagen Phil orchestra and German conductor André de Ridder to perform ‘Piramida’ in its entirety.

The concert also features ‘So’, a song written during recording sessions for ‘Piramida’, and ‘Vælv’, a classical piece commissioned by Efterklang and composed by Karsten Fundal.

Mixed to tape by Francesco Donadello at the Vox-Ton studio in Berlin, the deluxe gatefold double vinyl will consist of one black disc and one white, designed by Danish artists and long-time Efterklang collaborators Hvass&Hannibal.

Forever fascinated by the purest possibilities of sound, since forming in 2001 Efterklang - childhood friends Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg - have consistently adjusted their sonic modus operandi to suit very specific inspirations. The results the band have produced so far - most notably across three acclaimed albums, 2004’s ‘Tripper’, 2007’s ‘Parades’ and 2010’s ‘Magic Chairs’ - have each explored different directions, each an end product of remarkably studied songcraft and emotional resonance. But ‘Piramida’ is perhaps the band’s greatest achievement: an album bringing the outside in, informed by frozen time and the relics humanity leaves in its expanding wake.

‘Piramida’s roots were laid in 2010, when the band first saw photographs of a forgotten settlement lying, slowly dying, on Spitsbergen, an island of the Svalbard archipelago midway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. This ghost town, which the trio eventually visited in August 2011 (drummer Thomas Husmer left before ‘Piramida’s commencement), would give their fourth album its title, and comprise the conceptual catalyst for its contents.

Once an outpost for some 1,000 Russians, the former mining facility was abandoned in January 1998. Between the empty oil drums and fuel tanks, glass bottles, lampshades, sea birds and polar bears, the band discovered the world’s northernmost grand piano, standing proudly in a concert hall that once held 400 people. Its notes can be heard on ‘Piramida’, perhaps for the first time anywhere in over a decade.

When the band returned home, nine days later, they’d accumulated just over 1000 field recordings from the many and varied environments they explored in Piramida. The beginnings of this approach can be seen on the band’s 2010 film collaboration with Vincent Moon, ‘An Island’. Then the time came to transform these audio snapshots of abandonment, of isolation touched by unique beauty, into songs.

Every added element - including contributions from Peter Broderick (violin), Earl Harvin (drums), Nils Frahm (piano), brass from the Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, and a 70- piece girls choir - owes its presence to the trio’s Piramida visit. “Everything that has gone onto this record is connected with that trip,” says Clausen. Adds Stolberg: “We didn’t really know where we were going to end the record - but the starting point was something we could control. That was an amazing framework for us, and we could constantly put what we were working on in the context of that trip.”

Lyrically, Clausen isn’t telling of empty houses and dusty grand pianos - but his heartfelt performance, more prominent in the mix here than on past albums and all the more affecting for it, is carried by a different kind of isolation, of abandonment. In his words there are glimpses of a relationship splintered, a community of two lost to the winds. It’s thousands of geographical miles away from Piramida, yet becomes the heart of Piramida.

A less-densely layered collection than the electronic-hued ‘Parades’, and more direct than ‘Magic Chairs’, ‘Piramida’ is a rare example of a conceptually strong project that never forgets to let the concept serve the song, rather than the other way around. It’s a streamlined sound, but distinct and absorbing too. It showcases a band superbly capable of transitioning experiences shared by a select few into music that can be enjoyed by a wide, open-minded audience.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Piramida stands tall above their previous releases, gritty synth lines, punchy percussion and oh yes, trumpets add to the atmosphere to create a true masterpiece.

One of two double CD reissues containing Efterklang’s first two full-length albums, together with their accompanying Eps, in deluxe foldout card packaging with new 16-page booklets containing sleeve notes written by the band.

Watershed second album "Parades" is now joined by the long-deleted "Under Giant Trees" mini-album. This also features two live recordings of tracks from the album.

TRACK LISTING

CD1:
1. Polygyne
2. Mirador
3. Him Poe Poe
4. Horseback Tenors
5. Mimeo
6. Frida Found A Friend
7. Maison De Réflexion
8. Blowing Lungs Like Bubbles
9. Caravan
10. Illuminant
11. Cutting Ice To Snow

CD2:
1. Falling Horses
2. Himmelbjerget
3. Hands Playing Butterfly
4. Towards The Bare Hill
5. Jojo
6. Mirador (Live)
7. Cutting Ice To Snow (Live)

Since 2000, Copenhagen-based quartet Efterklang (plus an ever evolving number of collaborators) have been quietly honing their craft, fusing left-of-centre electronic beats with grand orchestral gestures. Self-sufficient by nature and necessity, the band have, until now, always written, recorded and produced every element of their music from the comfort of their Copenhagen bunker. In this time, they have also released records through their own Rumraket label, working with the likes of Grizzly Bear, Amiina and Slaraffenland. So far, the results have been nothing short of revelatory; in particular, 2007’s hugely ambitious "Parades", an album that was difficult to define but even harder to fault, it raised their profile enormously, and with "Magic Chairs" they continue their evolution, exploring previously unchartered territory.
The result is an intimate and immediate record that exudes warmth. The grandiose classical structures heard so prominently and admired so highly in previous albums "Tripper" and "Parades" have been replaced by something far more streamlined, deconstructed and altogether melodious. Opening track "Modern Drift" is a statement of intent with its intricate and looping arpeggios whilst "I Was Playing Drums" is arguably their most accessible pop song to date, the echoes of its refrain linger irresistibly in the ear. ‘Magic Chairs’ still bears the occasional signature moment (an electronic buzz here, a choral flair there) but, all told, it is an album that is an even bolder step forward.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Featuring a host of guest musicians including Peter Broderick, "Magic Chairs" is an immense melodic strewn avant epic, that snuggles nicely in your collection between the latest Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear albums.

"Performing Parades" is a limited edition album featuring Efterklang performing their 2007 album Parades in full, accompanied by The Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Mojo magazine enjoyed the show so much, they gave it a glowing full page live review! The concert was recorded in their hometown of Copenhagen in September 2008, and will be performed again at the Barbican in London on October 28th, this time with The Britten Sinfonia. Mojo described the Copenhagen concert as 'uplifting, celebratory and gloriously ridiculous, like an alternate national anthem for a new northern utopia of untrammelled happiness'. The stunning live recordings will be issued as a limited edition deluxe CD+DVD package and a limited edition 2LP+DVD in a lush gatefold sleeve, with brilliant design to match the quality of "Parades" and "Under Giant Trees". These special editions are surefire future collectors' items. The live audio recording is packaged with a 55-minute concert film on DVD. The DVD includes plenty of extras, including a behind the scenes documentary of the preparations for the event, and all six videos made for tracks from "Parades", including lead single "Mirador", which has racked up over one million (1,000,000!) views on Youtube.