About
Efterklang is a Danish band consisting of the 3 childhood friends Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen & Rasmus Stolberg.
In 2024 Efterklang will release new music and go on tour.
The documentary “Efterklang: The Makedonium Band” by director Andreas Johnsen will premiere at festivals worldwide.
Biography:
Efterklang – Windflowers
Bio written by Jen Long, 2021
Every year as spring arrives, a sea of tiny flowers blossom across the Danish forest floor. They’re an explosion of colour, a symbol of hope and change, disappearing as quickly as they arrived and exposing the constant cycle of nature. They are known colloquially as windflowers.
For over twenty years, Efterklang have been pushing the barriers of experimental, electronic, emotional chamber-pop. Announcing their sixth studio album Windflowers, their first for City Slang, the Danish trio of Mads Brauer, Rasmus Stolberg and Casper Clausen continue a creative journey that’s brought them closer together, even as their lives grow apart. Channelling the motifs of hope and change its namesake flora represents, the album sees their many years of collaboration and experimentation distilled into some of their most concise, most direct and confidently Efterklang-style pop songs to date.
As Efterklang, like most of the world, watched their 2020 summer schedule dissipate, they turned their attention to creating something new. With what felt like all the time in the world and nothing to prove, Casper and Mads set about sketching ideas for songs, just to see where it would take them.
With their ability to bring in guests and session musicians restricted, Efterklang had to challenge their usual creative process and accept their own limitations. The genesis of Windflowers was back to basics and became an exercise in putting their vast and dynamic experience to play. Self-producing the record, they reconnected with the playfulness and joy of making music together, embracing their distinct pop sensibilities and creating their finest melodic moments to date.
The album finds Casper singing in English again, for the most part. It’s rich and intimate, the sound of three friends finding each other at a time when the world around them felt unstable. The record is about existing, alone, together and in nature. It’s about reconnecting, and letting each other grow.
With no set deadline and no boundaries, they were able to create freely. Windflowers is inspired by the pure joy of music. Its creation was escapist playtime and the result was over seventy new song ideas, more demos than they’d ever started an album with. It took two days just to listen through to everything. “We never talked about what songs shouldn’t be on the album, we talked only about the songs that should be on the album, and that was the key,” says Rasmus.
Over the course of recording the band made five trips to residential studio Real Farm on the island of Møn, south of Copenhagen. They worked across all the seasons, experiencing everything from bright sunshine to freezing snowstorms. “You feel the elements much more when you’re not in the city, and it’s good to be reminded that we’re all a part of nature,” says Mads.
“Hold Me Close When You Can” marks a striking moment in the tracklist. Casper devised the chords and melody during a radio soundcheck in Brussels in January 2020, where Rasmus immediately heard its potential. The song was saved as a voice note and the band battled with structure and instrumentation in the studio, working with live band member Christian Balvig on the string arrangements, until it all unfolded before them. Beautiful, eloquent, and rousingly sentimental, Casper’s voice is both fragile and full of power. “It’s a really emotional song and it still can get to me” says Mads.
Conversely, “Living Other Lives” is a standout burst of playful pop. An admittedly fun track to work on, it meshes dizzying sound textures alongside infectious energy and a euphoric chorus. “House on a Feather'' is stunning with an edge of strange, one of the songs that came together effortlessly for the band. While on “Beautiful Eclipse”, Mads experimented in the studio, sampling instrumental loops from Altid Sammen, burning them to CD, and then scratching the disc to sample a weird and unrecognisable digitally distorted Efterklang of the past.
The slim list of collaborators on the record includes live band members, Bert Cools, Øyunn, Christian Balvig and Indre Jurgelevičiūtė. They also brought in one of Denmark's finest violinists, Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen. On “Dragonfly”, Casper is joined by Karen Beldring who adds a different texture to the vocals, and for album closer Åbent Sår, they joined forces with electronic musician The Field, who opened the track into a spiralling, ambient banger. “I’ve never really figured out how to do the four to the floor in a cool way. When we do it ourselves it just still sounds like us trying to do something else. He really nailed it,” says Mads.
Without the distractions of the city, the band found time to properly connect. They went on walks, swam, made food and went to the beach. The residential studio removed their chance for escape once the work day ended. “We spend a lot of time together on emails, on tour, but there’s always this strange balance between work and then being someone that made a band purely because we were friends. And to spend that time in Møn, I felt that was very, very important,” says Casper.
Friends from school, Efterklang released their debut album Tripper in 2004, a dynamic record of sparse electronica and rich harmony which won them international acclaim. Over the years they’ve grown a devout fan base, not only with their cinematic, spacious and captivating compositions, but with their enduring experimentation and inclusivity. After releasing 2012’s Piramida, the trio took time away from the traditional album cycle, forming Liima with Finnish percussionist Tatu Rönkkö, co-writing the immersive opera LEAVES: The Colour of Falling as part of the Copenhagen Opera Festival and participating in the Berlin-based PEOPLE festival. That journey culminated in 2019’s Altid Sammen, a collaboration with Belgian baroque ensemble B.O.X which grew into an Efterklang record.
Efterklang’s constant innovation and openness for collaborating extends past the band’s core members and into the world of the listener. Across their history, the group has engaged in ideas that break tradition, introducing their audience as part of the creative process. From encouraging DIY screenings of documentary An Island to championing musical education with their Efterkids initiative to forming audience choirs on their last tour, they’re constantly pursuing moments of connection. The essence of togetherness reverberates through the band’s past and present, and has never felt so vital.
Now sharing new music through their Developed platform, fans are invited to collaborate and respond as they listen to the new tracks for the first time. Collaboration and community has always been the compass of Efterklang, and the group keeps looking for new ways to build a meaningful correspondence with their audience, to be inventive and inclusive. “We don’t want to play to people, we want to perform and make music with people,” Rasmus explains.
After all their years together, Mads, Casper and Rasmus share the real intimacy of family. Windflowers is proof that connection and community can triumph over adversity, and the result is something truly beautiful.
Written by Jen Long.
Contact
Management
Rasmus Stolberg
rasmus.stolberg@gmail.com
Record label
Severin Most / City Slang
severin@cityslang.com
Booking Agents
Denmark
Tom Spray, Lift Off
tom@liftoff.dk
Europe
Kalle Lundgren, Pitch & Smith: kalle@pitchandsmith.com
North America
Todd Walker, Outer/Most: twalker@outermostagency.com
ROW
Rasmus Stolberg:
rasmus.stolberg@gmail.com
Publishing
Sony Music Publishing
Jonas.Bjorkbacka@sonyatv.com
General
Efterklang
hello.efterklang@gmail.com
Anti-harassment policy
The three core members of Efterklang (Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen & Rasmus Stolberg) want the work environment of Efterklang to be non-threatening, inclusive and respectful of everyone’s legal and personal rights and dignity.
Discrimination, bullying, sexual harassment, and abusive behaviuor in any form is not accepted.
Read the full policy here.
Specialensemble
For perioden 2021-2023 modtager Efterklang (Rumraket I/S) tilskud som specialensemble via en rammeaftale med Projektstøtteudvalget for musik under Statens Kunstfond.
Læs hele rammeaftalen inklusiv tilhørende strategi her
Relevante årsrapporter vil blive gjort tilgængelige her når de ligger klar.
Læs eller download årsrapporten for 2021 her og for 2022 her.