An album meant for solitude, whether during late hours in a dark club, or immersed in its sonics through your headphones of choice, Mutual Dreaming is the latest project of Norway’s producer and singer Ellen A. W. Sunde aka Sea Change. While you may be one to cherry-pick single tracks, this record flows like a DJ set, keeping you trapped on your own dance floor with repetitive themes.
She intentionally rushed to make this album as quickly as possible, she’s said: “it was liberating for me, to not think things through too much. To be able to just go where the song could take me. I felt more relaxed when making this one.”
The album starts with pulsing kick drums and a throbbing bass that sets the techno tone of “I Put My Hands Into A Fist”. Sunde’s vocals drift in and out, moving around your head in a wash of delays. The first three minutes are almost like a separate intro to the album, but the transition into a bass-heavy house groove is seamless.
She follows with deep bass and muted percussion on top of a simple synth riff that carries the first half of the next track. Synth house stabs lead us into a somber vocal that asks the track title “is there anybody there?” The track continues to build with grungy loops and warm murky synths that feel primal. “When you are going clubbing and dancing you can lose yourself in your own headspace, and be more in time with your body,” Sunde has said, and she achieves that in the best moments of Mutual Dreaming.
Her filtered synth loop of “That’s Us” sets up a deep electro bass groove like an old Detroit techno record. Layers of heavily delayed vocals float over the massive, overdriven bass. This track rocks you right into “OK” which loads looped synths, guitars and spaced-out vocals with precision. As the kick and bass finally come in she pushes the energy up into what feels like a futuristic flamenco techno record.
“Never Felt” is a transition into a space age techno jam led by a big wobbly synth bass and harmonized vocals. “Night Eyes” returns to that familiar deep 808 kick that drives the energy along with mysterious sounding vocals and synth pads. She incorporates a long breakdown reminiscent of Aphex Twin and Brian Eno. Her final section climaxes as she voices “I feel different now.”
Crunchy distorted ambiences and angelic vocals combine with sound snippets drowned in a massive wall of reverb and delay. “Mirages” is both beautiful and unsettling and the title track is a continuation, transitioning to a dreamy track drifting through delayed claps and hi-hats that set the tone for the chunky bass and kick groove to come. This pinnacle is a combination of her best elements: techno beats, heavy bass, layers of synths and ancient vocals.
Mutual Dreaming concludes with “Rituals” turning again to pitched down vocals that set a spooky tone for trudging along that dark highway to the end of a rave that you’ve been dying for.
