We last caught sight of Sea Change, aka Berlin-based Norwegian Ellen Sunde, she was teasing the dance threads out of Tuvaband‘s single Wolfpack on a remix in March. Now Sunde is back with her own project, having just announced that the follow-up to her 2015 debut Breakage is landing later this year. INSIDE is out this November, and its introduction to the world comes in the form of lead single Stepping Out.
If Stepping Out is an indicator of the sound of the rest of the album, then Breakage is a long way behind her. The heavy, layered atmospherics of that debut are gone, and replaced by a lean, more minimal sound that hooks in influences from the club culture she’s encountered in her new home city. The song’s main motor is a tight, muscular beat, but it’s what she does with it that makes it special. With that beat set in place as the song’s solid spine, it gives her the freedom to drift and dream, and she builds a world of hazy, twilight electronic pop, a mix of murmured motion and subliminal tensions. As the song progresses, that world gets lighter and airier, Sunde gradually spinning it into something softer till it evaporates into nothingless, a release to the twitching intensity it starts with. Of the album, she says
“When I made this record I tried to channel the same state of mind I have when I go clubbing. Not overthinking everything, like I usually do, but instead embracing my impulses; working intuitively, almost anti-intellectual. I learned that that’s where I am able to get to the core of what I need to express and that I just had to trust those decisions.”.
Every Monday we’re updating the 50-track-strong Listen AHEAD Playlist on Spotify, adding ten strong songs by sill relatively unknown artists at the beginning. This week’s new picks also include fresh songs from artists like FEET, Julia Church, Lokoy, The Still Tide, Tropica and more. Follow the playlist right here on Spotify and give these new talents a chance.