Danish duo Cort Lunde unveil their new album release a year after their warmly-received debut – an album both imaginative and ambitious, ‘Hydrophilia’ continues along the themes and inspirations that were beautifully established through ‘Flora Electronica’.
Comprised of musicians, composers and multi-instrumentalists, Erik Lunde Michaelsen and Thomas Cortes have used the ‘Cort Lunde’ moniker to create music as a response to our world’s ever-changing landscape. In recent years, it has often felt like that landscape is perhaps changing faster than we, as a global society, are able to keep up with – the consistent threat of our impact on the environment still perhaps doesn’t resonate with us all as loudly as it should, we are still reeling from the repercussions of the global pandemic and the impact that extended quarantine periods had on us as individuals, families and even businesses; the continual threat of war looms over us and then of course we find ourselves bracing for an AI revolution that could find us recontextualizing our own place in society even down to the art we create and consume.
There’s certainly a burden and a stress that comes with all of this but Cort Lunde tackle the concerns, not solely as the proverbial sword of Damocles that continues to threaten us all, but in more inspired ways instead opting to ask how our place amidst it all changes. Looking past any fear or dread that we may have, the more constructive approach is almost to acknowledge the potential changes that lay ahead and to consider how we can best create harmony amidst all of these factors accepting our place within them all.
Throughout the make-up of ‘Hydrophilia’, there are traces of electronic insertions within the compositions courtesy of Lunde on synthesizer and Cortes’ sampler that sit alongside portions of the album that comprise of field recordings from the North Sea. It’s a stroke of genius and the metaphor of all metaphors to perfectly address the theme showcasing the elegance to be found within the balance of technology alongside live instrumentation.
And “Elegance” feels like such an apt term when digesting this album – the music is exquisitely performed and composed and while it’s joy rests in the sublime, there is still so much personality in the music to vehemently debunk the duo’s affectionate self-deprecation referencing their music as “a kind of absurd elevator music” on their Bandcamp page.
The trio of opening numbers comprising the ‘Blæretang’ suite delivers as the album’s sensational high point – separated by a three-minute interlude between the ‘Blæretang’ two-parter, the tracks capture the best of the album’s scope and, once again, the charm that the duo have expertly brought to their music releases to date.
‘Hydrophilia’ – as with ‘Flora Electronica’ before it – will likely serve as another in the group’s continuing explorations into the world’s evolving state. While we continue to examine our place amidst such ardent changes, the first step to achieving the harmony that forms the basis of ‘Hydrophilia’ may eventually come with the realisation that order and chaos are not opposite at all and attempting to control either is what we have to let go of first.