It’s been a while! Between a chaotic period of work and various other Life Events, I haven’t had much time to put together any posts for Substack. While this won’t be a long post, I wanted to share an album that has been on almost non-stop repeat since it released and is one of my favorite finds this year: Daybreak from Sven Wunder.
Review
Sven’s fifth full-length release, ‘Daybreak’ is themed around an expedition at sea (which is reflected in song titles such as ‘Misty Shore’ and ‘Still Moorings’). The album is a difficult-to-classify mix of Jazz, funk, and soul with flavors of cinematic orchestral scoring, various global influences, and more.
The album starts with ‘Setting off,’ a wistful, dreamy, and slow depart from port in the early morning. ‘Daybreak’ manages to capture the feeling of watching the sunrise beautifully, with the first burst of light over the horizon at 00:35 illustrated with a cymbal crash and swelling strings. ‘Leeward’ is a gorgeous, layered, cinematic and pulsing track (best on headphones or a nice stereo) that leads into ‘Windward,’ repeating the same melodic motif as the track before but with a driving rhythm section and elevated tempo that makes me envision the wind picking up and pushing on the sails of a ship.
Later in the album, ‘Deep Sea’ captures the jarring, mysterious nature of the deep open sea - like a soundtrack to thalassophobia - before shifting into ‘Turning Tides’ with a more hopeful and lush tone. The album’s closer ‘Liquid Mountains’ starts with a great driving beat before cinematic strings and keyboard swoop in, building in layers and intensity up until the end, like the soundtrack to a credits roll as you see the ship sail off to meet the setting sun.
Listen to the full album below (and please support the artist by purchasing if you can)! The album is also on most, if not all, streaming services and YouTube, so check it out there as well!
For My Subscribers
Have you listened to ‘Daybreak’ yet yourself? Feel free to share your thoughts! What other recent album releases have you had on repeat lately? What drew you to them and kept you hooked?