Kölsch will release the final part of his album trilogy for Kompakt later this month.

With two albums and a run of solo installments in the label’s Speicher 12” series, Kompakt has proven the perfect home for the Danish native’s music over recent years. With 1989, this latest LP, Kölsch presents the final chapter of an elegant, anthemic album trilogy that started with an exploration of early childhood memories and influences on 1977 —the year of his birth—and continued on 1983, a vibrant and picturesque journey sound tracking the year he traveled through Europe aged six.

“With 1989, we have arrived in my early teens”, Kölsch explains, “a difficult time in my life, where I mostly just remember the grayness of it all—gray feelings, gray weather, and my own gray face.” Coinciding with the already challenging need to squeeze past the bottleneck of puberty, it was a time of seething family crisis—his parents were divorcing: “I would escape that gray world on my skateboard, listen to my Walkman as I explored the city around me. Music became my savior—the only way to overcome my family’s hard times. I found a soundtrack to my gray life, and suddenly there was color.” It’s why you’ll find several tracks on the album being named “gray” in different languages.

The LP also marks Kölsch’s intensified deployment of real-life orchestral sounds and the continuation of his collaboration with Gregor Schwellenbach, a composer, multi-instrumentalist and fellow Kompakt affiliate who appeared on 1983.

Tracklisting

01. 1989 feat. Gregor Schwellenbach & The Heritage Orchestra
02. Serji feat. Gregor Schwellenbach & The Heritage Orchestra
03. Grå
04. In Bottles feat. Aurora Aksnes
05. Grey
06. Grau
07. PUSH
08. Gris
09. 14
10. Khairo feat. Gregor Schwellenbach & The Heritage Orchestra
11. YKPI
12. Liath feat. Gregor Schwellenbach & The Heritage Orchestra
13. Goodbye

1989 is scheduled for September 22 release.