This edition of Influences comes from Efterklang, the Danish pop band comprising childhood friends Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen, and Rasmus Stolberg. In September, they’re due to release Things We Have In Common, their seventh album, which was written in collaboration with pianist and composer Rune Mølgaard, who left the band in 2007 after the group’s Parades album. Mølgaard’s inspiration has been scattered over Efterklang’s music in the intervening years—one of his piano motifs became the hit song “Modern Drift” on 2010’s Magic Chairs—but it’s not until now that he’s been fully occupied by making a record. As with their previous two albums, Altid Sammen and Windflowers, Things We Have In Common embraces a “simpler, more inclusive, means of expression,” we’re told. Harmonic tensions are gentler, the tonal language more straightforward. This is music “open to longing souls and aching beings, offering the possibility of both enlightenment and relief,” we’re told. “This is music of arms reaching out and healing hands. The sound of giving, receiving and accepting that everything changes.” 2024 also marks 20 years since Efterklang debuted with the album Tripper, and in the years since they’ve defined themselves by freedom and open-mindedness. In this mix, they reflect on the last two decades with one hour of music that captures that same adventurous spirit.

“Our debut album, Tripper, came out in 2004, 20 years ago. The years leading up to that point were pretty fundamentally inspiring for our band. We were experimenting, figuring our sound, and writing.

“Mads and I were living in the same flat, working at the same phone company hotline for money and spending every possible hour awake in our studio on Amager, Copenhagen, where we were listening to music, while crafting our own simultaneously. The best time was late nights into early mornings, with our faces in the screen, chopping up recordings in Pro Tools, scratching cd-r’s to sample skipping sounds.

“We’re honored to offer you a mellow mix of some of those early sonic heroes of ours—pocket symphonies, glitching landscapes, and bedroom recordings that inspired us. These are a few tracks from The Leaf Label, who put out our Tripper album and other early Efterklang recordings, and also some music that we put out on our own label, Rumraket, plus some early native Danish heroes too.” — Casper Clausen

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Tracklisting

01. Colleen “Everyone Alive Wants Answers” (Thrill Jockey)
02. The Matinee Orchestra “Hide & Seek” (Overground Records)
03. Oval “Episodik” (Thrill Jockey / Marcus Popp)
04. Cacoy “Piracle Pa” (Rumraket)
05. Múm “Now There’s That Fear Again” (FatCat Records)
06. Erik Levander “Sekund” (Rumraket)
07. Opiate “Welcome!” (April Records)
08. Taylor Deupree “Temper” (12K)
09. Max de Wardener “Noises From A Small Planet” (Accidental Records)
10. Under Byen “Plantage” (Parlophone Music)
11. Murcof “Memorial” (The Leaf Label)
12. Artemiy Artemiev “Waiting for the Winter” (Creative Media)
13. Mira Calix “Le Jardin de Barbican” (Warp)
14. Lali Puna “Middle Curse” (Morr Music)
15. Asa-Chang & Junray “Hana” (Musicmine)