Efterklang

Efterklang emerged from Denmark as an experimental post-rock outfit whose sound fuses atmospheric pop with richly orchestrated rock textures. Building a following across Europe during the 2000s, the group issued its initial pair of albums through England’s the Leaf Label, an association that secured a subsequent contract with 4AD. The 2012 release Piramida, captured inside a deserted Russian mining town on a distant Norwegian island, represented both an artistic summit and a commercial breakthrough, prompting later ventures such as the 2015 opera Leaves: The Colour of Falling. While on hiatus the core members formed Liima, which delivered two albums in 2016 and 2017, before the original project resumed with the loosely connected trilogy comprising 2019’s Altid Sammen, 2021’s Windflowers, and 2024’s Things We Have in Common.

Childhood companions Casper Clausen on vocals, Mads Brauer on computer, and Rasmus Stolberg on guitar—all having relocated from the small Danish island of Als to Copenhagen—established the band in December 2000 and soon enlisted pianist Rune Mølgaard along with drummer and trumpeter Thomas Husmer. From the outset the musicians adopted a self-sufficient method, composing, tracking, and mixing everything inside their Copenhagen rehearsal room. Their debut EP Springer appeared in 2003 on the self-founded Rumraket imprint in an edition of 500 copies housed in faux fur; that same year video artist Karim Ghahwagi became a permanent collaborator, merging his visual collages with the group’s performances.

Signing with Yorkshire’s the Leaf Label, Efterklang unveiled the orchestral Tripper in 2004, which quickly registered as the label’s fastest-selling debut ever. Domestic recognition intensified when “Under Giant Trees” entered Denmark’s singles chart at number one. Additional limited releases followed, including the reissued Springer, the One-Sided LP on Philadelphia’s Burnt Toast Vinyl, and the five-track Under Giant Trees, before the third album Parades arrived in October 2007. Two years of intensive touring culminated in an invitation to join 4AD’s roster in September 2009. Maintaining ties to its original indie home, the band issued Performing Parades the next month on the Leaf Label, documenting a complete live rendering of Parades alongside the Danish National Chamber Orchestra in Copenhagen.

Magic Chairs, the 2010 4AD debut, found Clausen, Brauer, Stolberg, and Husmer pursuing a more conventional rock approach by laying down basic tracks live as a quartet before layering their signature expansive arrangements. In August 2011 the musicians journeyed to Spitsbergen, an Arctic island near the North Pole that once housed an abandoned Russian settlement. There they captured field recordings inside decaying industrial structures whose vast silos functioned as natural reverb chambers and performed on the world’s northernmost piano, gathering distinctive sonic elements that shaped the isolated, luminous Piramida of 2012.

Piramida closed one chapter; after the symbolically titled Last Concert in the hometown of Sønderborg the project paused in favor of open-ended collaboration. Having co-written and staged the opera LEAVES: The Colour of Falling at the Copenhagen Opera Festival during summer 2015, the members reunited with touring drummer Tatu Rönkkö to develop fresh material. Operating as Liima they embraced an accelerated workflow, shaping the 2016 debut ii and the 2017 follow-up 1982 through successive improvisation sessions. Once Rönkkö resumed solo activity, the remaining trio teamed with Baroque ensemble B.O.X. to premiere new pieces at the mixMass festival.

Energized by those sessions, the three musicians revived Efterklang and commenced recording a new album. Partnering again with B.O.X. and performers encountered at Berlin’s PEOPLE Festival, they conducted studio work throughout Europe, incorporating a pronounced European sensibility and featuring Clausen’s vocals in Danish. From the resulting abundance of material the trio assembled their fifth studio album, Altid Sammen, issued in September 2019. Extended isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic left the members to shape their sixth album largely unassisted, yielding 2021’s Windflowers, a record that reaffirmed their bond with one another and the natural world while still including the Field on the closing track “Åbent Sår.”

Turning to their seventh album, Efterklang once more enlisted longtime associate Rune Mølgaard, who had departed after Parades yet continued contributing to every subsequent project. On Things We Have in Common, released by City Slang in 2024, Mølgaard co-wrote seven of the nine songs exploring spirituality and collective experience; the band regards the record as the concluding installment of the trilogy initiated by Altid Sammen.