Album Review: Causa Sui, In Flux
Posted in Reviews on May 1st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
To no surprise, Causa Sui know what they’re about on In Flux. The Danish innovators of heavy psychedelic jazz crossover — the returning lineup of guitarist/synthesist Jonas Munk (who also engineered, mixed and mastered), drummer Jakob Skøtt, keyboardist Rasmus Rasmussen and bassist Jess Kahr — offer 50 minutes across seven songs on In Flux, and from the proggy rhythmic urging of “The Circus is Back,” the 1:49 intro ahead of the resonant guitar and organ raga of “Milkweed’s Pod” through to the blissful outer reaches of the 16-minute side-consuming “Astral Shores,” movement is central to the proceedings.
Within and between parts of songs, sure, but also in the overarching groove that carries through the album as a whole. “Milkweed’s Pod” builds tension as it goes and hints at a heavier-bottomed payoff without ever actually losing itself in the fuzz, while “Silver in the Gathering Light” takes the All Them Witches-y pastoralia of the initial guitar line and pushes deeper into airy wistfulness. There are a series of short builds, but instead of the standard crescendo, Rasmussen‘s keys run a melodic drone over much of the second half of the song, giving it a shimmer and moving to the forefront as the guitar, bass and drums step back.
On the most superficial level, this isn’t anything new for Causa Sui in terms of methodology — they’ve been an exploratory instrumental band for a long time now, and In Flux does not radically altar these principles — but the band has posited it as a looser companion to their 2024 studio album, From the Source (review here), and 20 years on from their debut, one’s inclination is to take them at their word.
That said, I’m not sure I agree with the suggestion for two reasons. First, it implies From the Source and In Flux are related somehow, and yeah, they are, because the same band made them, but I don’t think the latest is a sequel to the last and I don’t think they were recorded at the same time (not that they’d necessarily have to be), and second, while they’ve got some shake in “The Circus is Back,” “Milkweed’s Pod” and “Boogie Lord’s Revenge,” they’re not sloppy about it.
Even in the post-script “Spree” after the epic “Astral Shores,” as it builds to its finish with keys out front and drums kind of marching behind; it sounds like it’s about to come apart, and maybe it was in the studio, but there’s no real danger there as Causa Sui are either going to hold it together or end it altogether. One gets Dead Meadow-y mellowness from the 11-minute “Moledo,” but as it follows the energy of Munk‘s wah going into its second half, the energy pickup is palpable and feels impromptu in a way that makes it all the more special.
Perhaps an uptick in the improvisational aspect of their approach is the source of some of that ‘looseness’ discussed in the release info, or at least part of it, but relating In Flux to the album before it gives it a kind of baggage I’m not sure it needs. That is to say, however it may ultimately lie on the broader timeline of Causa Sui‘s stylistic progression — because surely it’s part of that story as well; I’m not saying it isn’t — its own merits give it plenty to stand on, be it the hypnotic, drifty psych rock in the first half of “Moledo” or the solidified push that takes hold for a while in the second. Munk on guitar leads the way into much of the material captured, and the mood is vibrant and spontaneous.
Unsurprisingly, Causa Sui thrive in this context, and if what they’re reveling in and/or celebrating is the raw chemistry between the four of them and the kinds of musical conversations that can happen when you’re these people, in that room, at that time, then fair enough. The basic fact of the matter is that their chemistry can carry them through a record if it needs to; it just doesn’t need to on In Flux.
There’s enough going on in the songs — even “Boogie Lord’s Revenge,” which winds itself a round a relatively straight-ahead progression, somewhere between garage psych and Morricone and a reminder that Summer Sessions was a whole thing with this band before it fades out in medias res ’60s-style — from the jammed-out to the plotted that even fickle attention spans can be fed, and when they dedicate a side of the double-10″ release to “Moledo” or “Astral Shores,” the presence in that material holds up to the vaunted position. “Astral Shores” isn’t without its intended direction — that is, it’s headed somewhere from the start — but the way in which In Flux‘s most extended track is given the space it needs to unfold is perhaps emblematic of precisely what Causa Sui mean in terms of this as a ‘looser’ record.
Maybe it’s about the balance between holding firm and letting go of what one thinks of as control over one’s own creative plots. This can be more of a challenge than hammering out every minute detail for some artists, while others are perfectly happy to claim themselves as mere vessels through which a song, a riff, whatever, is realized. I don’t know where Causa Sui stand in terms of their own creativity — why the hell not? why have I never interviewed this band? — but whether it’s the spacey push later in that longest inclusion or the more subdued manner in which “Spree” unfolds afterward, both songs being defined in no small part by the live feel in the recording, they don’t sound like passive participants in their craft, and honestly, they never have.
Rather, In Flux presents Causa Sui as they are: unwilling to rest on their significant laurels in the face of continuing stylistic growth and a constantly changing goal ahead of them. Whatever their specific goal for each or any of these tracks, I don’t know, but In Flux shows Causa Sui finding new places for their music to go, and in that, it is as accurate a portrayal of who they as a band as one could possibly hope. Such honesty is rare, but so are Causa Sui.
