Danish band Efterklang have changed approach several times over the run of their albums, and there has been the side project Liima, but for the first time in their near-two-decade run, lead singer Casper Clausen has ventured off for a solo release. He has today announced an album called Better Way, which will come out on City Slang on January 9. Ahead of that he’s shared a nine-minute lead single called “Used To Think”, saying:
““Used to Think” was one of the first songs I wrote for “Better Way” a couple of years ago. I had a run of some small shows around Portugal testing the new songs I was working on at the time, and this one became one of my favourites, I really like the energy of it. It was also the song that made me reach out to the producer Sonic Boom. He ended up mixing / co-producing the entire album. There is some inspiration from his band Spacemen 3 lurking around in there and he lives in Sintra, very close to Lisbon where I’ve been the past couple of years, so it all made sense. To me “Used to Think” is like a Kaleidoscope with interchangeable lenses, each section of the song, a different pallet of colours and shapes. Before I stopped thinking I thought, open up, share more and think less.”
From its opening seconds, “Used To Think” creates a mechanical world of whirring gears and lightly chugging clicks. It’s quite apart from the overtly melodic sounds of his main band, but the affiliation with Sonic Boom is certainly very clear. Somewhere in the realms of no-wave and krautrock, “Used To Think” spends several minutes building up a head of steam and setting a captivating scene of ever-shifting sonics. There is a sudden but subtle change in tone around three minutes, when guitar and live drums glide in. Soon Clausen’s voice follows, guiding us into a vivid memory wormhole that he revels within for the song’s remainder, as he says, changing the lens several times for aural glee.
Casper Clausen’s Better Way comes out on January 9 through City Slang (pre-order). You can find him on Bandcamp and Instagram.
