PREMIERE | Astral Brain, "Behind Our House"
From left — Astral Brain’s Siri af Burén and Einar Ekström; press photo courtesy of the artists/Shelflife Records.
In our efforts to better understand the bewilderment of our world, we continue to look and listen to the arts for insight, elation, inspiration and absolute awe. The arts that arrive like real life manifestations from our most joyous and opulent dreams nurture our spirit in the most ineffable of ways. The aesthetics that make us feel right at home, at peace with others and ourselves with a degree of contentment that can often be so elusive in our own lives. The creative works that in turn encourage us to be better than our previous best, to embody the greatest versions of ourselves that we want to be, living a truth that is genuine, honest and seeks to be a force for positive change in our communities and perhaps affect and impact the surrounding world at large.
Introducing the cosmic duo of Stockholm's own Astral Brain, who present the world debut of the galactic beauty of "Behind Our House" from their album The Bewildered Mind. Comprised of Einar Ekström (formerly of Le Futur Pompiste) and Siri af Burén of Testbild! — the two forge together a barrage of sophisticated pop art touchstones that sparkle with an understated production that bridges upbeat cinematic moods and atmospheres that dearly glide and ascend upward into the celestial expanses of the stratosphere. The two ruminate upon the experiences of growth, the passages of time, the responsibilities that arrive with the demands of nurturing a family, the paths traveled, adventures close to home and measuring the extents of fond memories with the new lessons and realizations found with each step upon the leaf laden trails of life.
From the floral rose that swirls within the spin of the eye — Astral Brain's visuals for "Behind Our House" traces the flight path of a butterfly amid a kaleidoscopic assemblage of colorful patterns and psychedelic effects. Earthy elements of forest passages, cloud formations, floral motifs, a pram situated on a hill, polychromatic skies and more enter the frame in rotations like the whirl of long player wax on a direct drive platter. Vocalist Siri's visage appears within the cavalcade of mind expanding components as she delivers a modern day pastoral about all the places we go, all the places we have been, all that is recalled, forgotten, misplaced and all that has yet to arrive. "Behind Our House" is a testament to human growth, observing the changes in ourselves and our lives like the autumnal season of leaves whose color change and litter the roads that connect the humble confines of home to the new terrains we embark upon. Astral Brain explores the natural spaces of our collective backyards, mapping out how we redefine our needs and the things that matter most as our realities change and we as humans evolve and discover new meanings and purposes in our lives. And just as the tides and cycles of the natural realm abide by their own rhymes and rhythms — these environments serve as both a backdrop and analogue to our development that takes places along the way in the journeys of our own respective life trajectories.
Astral Brain’s Einar Ekström provided some exclusive insights on the new album The Bewildered Mind and the track “Behind Our House”:
The Bewildered Mind
The work leading up to this album basically already started back in 2010, around the time my previous band Le Futur Pompiste released their second, and final album. The band split up shortly thereafter but I was still writing music with the hopes of finding a new singer to work with. After some years I happened to run into Siri a few times at various concert venues and it turned out she was a member of Testbild, a band that I had been listening to for years. What was even stranger, she happened to live in the exact same building where I was working at the time so it felt like an opportunity that had to be seized. After some talks we teamed up and started working on the songs I had written over the previous years and that's how the band started.
Siri has written the vocals and lyrics to many of the songs, while I have been in charge of the music production with some occasional forays into vocal and lyric work as well. All music is recorded, produced and mixed in my home studio, which is a very compact space, as it’s situated in my apartment in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. Nonetheless, it holds an assortment of vintage keyboards, guitars and other necessary items so it's a self-contained music production space with everything we need.
Working up to all songs on the album has been a rather slow process as we both have families and work, but we've been chipping away at a steady pace. Most of the time we are sending files over to each other and that's how the songs take shape. Every now and then we're getting together for some recording duties or band meetings. The music draws inspiration from film soundtracks, library music, 60's psych, early electronic pioneers and 70's synth groups, to mention a few of the core elements. There is no one specific aesthetic concept we follow, instead the music forms as an organic melding between these elements, always being pushed randomly, or purposely one way or the other during the creation process.
When we started working on the cover art I was assessing the songs and their meanings and I could find that quite many of the lyrics were portraying the observations of a perplexed mind trying to make sense of the outside world. Naming the album The Bewildered Mind seemed fitting and the theme for the cover art started to unfold from there with the strange-looking, radiating eye looking at you.
SirI & Einar of Astral; press photo courtesy of the artists.
“Behind Our House'
“Behind Our House” was the last song to be finished for the album and it was the missing piece that finally materialized after a brief period of writer's block. I had had discussions with Siri about writing a song dealing with the experiences of becoming a parent since it was something we both had experienced recently and were deeply affected by on many levels. We wanted to write a song that dealt with both sides of the emotional rollercoaster that becoming a parent can be. It is a different experience for everyone who goes through it and beside the obvious euphoric aspects of it, there is a flip side that such a life-changing event may impose on you. “Behind Our House” is one of these stories and it tries to tie the entire spectrum into something that is sublime in the end, while still acknowledging the whole journey there.
The initial spark to the concept of the video came from a Rosemary's Baby movie poster portraying a baby carriage on a hill. While the movie itself is a crazy tale of occult rituals and evil it does also depict a soon-to-be mother and her worries in an insecure environment. The latter could be tied to the lyrics of the song so it felt like a good starting point. The animation style is inspired by early 1900's German cutout animation and shadow plays which worked well in the context as the concept basically was to bring life to a movie poster. The story is metaphorical and we can follow a butterfly that breaks free from its confines and enters the unknown world outside. We can also see the eye of an observer who is watching over the butterfly on its journey through strange landscapes.
Astral Brain's album The Bewildered Mind will be available October 15 via Shelflife Records.