Description
Tracklisting:
Side A
1 Falling
2 Rat In The Room
3 Clueless
4 Houses Of The Holy
5 Miracles
6 The Exhaust
Side B
1 Violins
2 Weightless
3 Fool For Change
4 Mother And Daughter
5 The Fumes
On Exile On Mainstream Kristian released two albums so far: 2015 “Summer Of Crush” and 2014 “Float”. Both records got entirely written, recorded and produced by himself. This new record “The Fumes” marks a somewhat departure from this approach. It got recorded and produced by Kristian and Lars Lundholm (On Trial, Oresund Space Collective, Hanne Boel, Papir, among others) at Black Tornado Studios and Room 21 in Copenhagen. Mastering was done by Nikolaj Vinten (Coldplay, among others)
Guests on the album feature on bass Jakob Falgren (Trentemøller), on keys Jesper Bo Hansen (Glenn Hughes), Mads Beldring Hansen on drums and singer/songwriter Nana Schwartzlose as backing vocalist.
The content and approach behind “The Fumes” is described as follows by Kristian himself:
I set out to create a simple, dark, melancholic and beautiful Indie Pop/ Rock album with short ‘straight to the juice’ songs. I had this the Beatles Rubber Soul era ideal. Cut the fancy sound imagery and emphasize the songs, the vocals and lyrics. I brought in musicians for the recordings, and most of the songs are recorded live in the studio with drums and bass.
I wrote these songs in a period of touring a lot on my own, while working in various shitty day-to-day jobs when at home to pay the bills. Lyricwise the songs reflect my loneliness on the road and disillusion with the music industry and the modern labour market. Writing these songs I was constantly fighting the feeling of being the outsider and not really welcome in the world. A feeling of being dehumanized by society, chewed and spat out.
The fumes are the easy thrills that help us make it through the day in the consumeristic circus of money and status, power and pleasure. It’s the short term happiness by quick shots of endorphines that blur how the circus is devouring humans and nature and isolate us from each other while pretending the opposite. It’s the feeling of knowing we are heading for desaster and all we can do is to abuse and ignore ourselves to enjoy the ride. I don’t do well in this circus, and I have a very hard time seeing a way out of it. It was a lot on my mind writing these songs and the album resonates these thoughts. For me it’s a very angry record, but I’m not sure everybody will hear it as such.