Electronica’s great Dane Trentemøller refuses to tread water. Unafraid of challenging his audience, he’s back to provoke your heart, mind and feet.
Imagine: Everyone loves you. Your debut album of searing electronica made you a national hero whilst you trot the globe dazzling vast audiences by replacing stolid laptops with engaging live instrumentation. What now?
Go dark.
After Anders Trentemøller’s complex second album dropped through the door, peppered with arresting depth and sparkling with sadness, Clash was forced to seek out the solitary producer.
So what’s with all the melancholia when life’s so peachy? “Actually I also wondered about that too,” laughs the Danish maverick. “But for me there are more layers in the music. I think it would be quite hard for me just to make a ‘happy-go-lucky’ song just for the sake of it. There are so many more layers in melancholia. It can also be beautiful you know?”
‘Into The Great Wide Yonder’ pushes past the immediacy of his acclaimed debut ‘The Last Resort’, which confirmed his name in dancing circles with euphoric melodies over sweeping techno landscapes. His second offering is far more challenging. Refusing to tread the same path twice, it’s a dense analogue work laboured over in solitude as the multi-instrumentalist chased more natural tones. But its tone may surprise some fans.
Trentemøller – Sycamore Feeling
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“Some people asked me: ‘What happened? Did you have a nervous breakdown?’” chuckles the Copenhagen-based producer. “Actually I’m doing quite well. But I think maybe if I wasn’t making this kind of music I wouldn’t feel better. For me making music means I can get rid of some of the more darker feelings.”
He freely admits that repeating his formula was never an option, so new territory was discovered as Trentemøller started using vocalists. Again, the depth of sound became the ruler as he blends deliveries from Marie Fisker alongside Solveig Sandnes and Josephine Philip (from the debuting Danish indie girl duo Darkness Falls) whose lyrics slotted beautifully into the understated balance of the new tracks.
Anders is surprisingly nonchalant in how easy it was to generate such unity: “I was trying to write those songs with the female vocalists in my mind because I know them all personally from Copenhagen. It was quite easy actually to write music to suit their voices.”
With only one previous LP it would be easy to view Anders as a transient techno studio fad, but peel back the layers and this Dane is a restless and hungry music fan whose debut album belied his vast knowledge of most genres – citing influences as diverse as Mazzy Star, Suicide, The Cure and The Smiths alongside krautrock canons such as Neu!, Can and onto the majestic guitar expanse of Ennio Morricone. And you can hear the depth these legends bring.
Another influence that had a significant impact is the environments in which this music was conceived: “Iceland’s dramatic nature really inspired me a lot for this album,” he reveals, having played Reykjavik’s Airwaves festival in previous years. “Everything looks like you’re on the moon in a way, this big, dramatic powerful space. Secondly, I’m living in a really hardcore area in Copenhagen. It’s like the red light district kind of place. It can be dangerous, and, you know, it’s that pulse of the city that inspires me.”
One thing’s for sure, inspiration is not in short supply. ‘Into The Great Wide Yonder’ does exactly what it proposes with natural emotions and shades in abundance. Anders is ready to once again travel the world with a happy heart and a stack of sad songs traversing the deepest of human emotions. Come join the dark side.
Words by Thomas A Ward
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Clash Magazine Issue 51
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