First, a note about math. Copenhagen mellowpsych instrumentalists Papir were last heard from with 2022’s 7 (review here), which, intuitively, was put forth as their seventh album. Three years later, here come the seven songs and 75 minutes of IX. What happened to VIII? Did I miss an eighth Papir record? Now, before 7, in 2021, the trio released the 2LP collection Jams (review here), which very much was what it purported to be: jams.

But if they were going to count that instead of a numbered release, wouldn’t the bump have been before 7? So that would’ve been 8 or VIII or however they decided to write it? Or, alternatively, maybe there’s a lost Papir record. Maybe VIII exists on a hard drive somewhere. Maybe they skipped it out of some Danish superstition I don’t know. Maybe it got lost on the way to mastering and they’re so creative they decided to make a whole new record instead of just resending files.

I don’t know.

And does it matter when you’re dug into the pastoralist sprawl in “IX.IIII” (9:34), after Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen drums drop out (they come back, cymbals and light hits, don’t worry) when it’s just guitarist Nicklas Sørensen and bassist Christian Becher Clausen out there searching? No, to be sure, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Papir could call their curiously-named eighth full-length anything else and it would still sound as sweet. The wash that’s created in opener “IX.I” (9:23) and the subtle, spacey movement in “IX.II” (10:33) that gives over later to more drift — name the record whatever, they remain. Papir have always been about exploration in a space, whether that’s a live setting, a studio, presumably a rehearsal room, etc. Their sound feels out the boundaries of the walls, bounces here and there, and coming through headphones, modern psychedelia holds few delights as comforting as having that beamed directly into your head. There’s sooth and surf in “IX.III” (10:06), and it comes through gorgeously with the organic tones, effects flourish, and patient delivery that have become staple elements of Papir‘s approach over the last 15 years.

A nuanced conversation between the guitar and bass in “IX.III” as the second half plays out sounds more structured than improvised, but IX wouldn’t be the first instance of Papir toying with the lines between making it up on the spot and composing. I’m not sure if it’s lap steel or an effect, but “IX.III” gives itself over to sentimentality in its later reaches, giving over to “IX.IIII” as the jazzier centerpiece with additional percussion, shakers and such, for extra motor-conveyance, some genuine Earthless-style solo shred in the first half and the aforementioned blissery in the second. That lead is abut as energetic as Papir get on the album, though 21-minute finale “IX.IIIIIII” (hey, I don’t name ’em, I just make run-on sentences about ’em) has its bursts as well as one might expect. One doesn’t generally think of Papir as trying to be heavy for heaviness’ sake, as they’ve never needed that to bring a sense of presence to their material, but their dynamic has grown broader, and especially on an offering that has so much palpable space, so much room in the sound, to hear them fill it in such a manner is thrilling, even just for a time.

Actually, I’ll say especially just for a time, because the truth is that Papir wouldn’t be half as immersive or comforting as they are if they were just unipolar in going all-in. They’ve learned in their years to follow where their whims take them, and the result is a vast and expansive sound, brought into emphasis as “IX.IIIII” (5:20) takes hold following the residual echo of the song before, fading in with a welcoming swirl of, I don’t know, magic? Did I just beat a dungeon boss? Maybe. Sørensen‘s guitar dares a strum and some notes, and every single one of them sends out ripples as on water through the background of shimmering, sun-reflecting drone. “IX.IIIII” is the shortest inclusion on IX, and fair enough to call it an interlude, but the later low frequency — could be bass, could be cello or keys — stands out all the more for the focused backdrop, and the song ends fluidly to move into the penultimate “IX.IIIIII” (8:47).

“IX.IIIIII” almost can’t help but feel more active, what with drums and bass and all. Clausen reminds that there’s serenity to be found in the low end too, and while the guitar floats overhead in a kind of following-along meander, and the drums provide emphasis and punctuation to the procession as it unfolds, it’s the bass at the center of the track and it’s one more dynamic turn ahead of the extended closer “IX.IIIIIII” to come, which invariably would do well in capturing much of the album’s scope considering unless it was going to make some kind of dramatic shift, which, I mean, it’s a universe of infinite possibility, but Papir do an awful lot of work to establish the atmosphere on IX, and they’re veterans at this point enough to know whether something is going to fit. Bigger though it is, “IX.IIIIIII” still very much fits here.

Admittedly, I’m writing from the perspective of someone for whom Papir are a known quantity, though surely if it’s your first encounter with the band — not gatekeeping or criticizing; they’ve been around for a minute but nobody expects you to hear everything; yes I’m half talking to myself there — they’ll come across as no less welcoming. The difference between IX and some of what they’ve done in the past is that the exploration in this material feels like it already knows where it is and it is where it wants to be. That is to say, in their maturity, Papir aren’t necessarily concerning themselves overmuch with where their flights take them, the point is going, and the way they go is by enacting the chemistry one can hear rampant throughout IX. If there’s escapism to hear, as there often is in something so evocative and pastoral, for the band the escape seems to be in the process of playing and creating itself, rather than something specifically evoked by the music.

This means their command is absolute — it’s not a leap at this point to say, wherever VIII went, that Papir are masters at what they do, and that’s not an opinion I form lightly — and while they obviously delight in sometimes just hitting record and seeing where they end up in a jam, going hard or not, that too is a conscious decision made on the part of the band, whose passion and revelry, even at the most subdued stretches, is carried across with vibrant resonance.

Papir, IX (2025)

Papir on Bandcamp

Papir on Instagram

Papir on Facebook

Stickman Records website

Stickman Records on Bandcamp

Stickman Records on Facebook

The fourth installment in a trilogy? When Edena Gardens came along, the instrumentalist jam-psych trio comprised of Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt, Papir guitarist Nicklas Sørensen, and Martin Rude of the London Odense Ensemble — all acts within the sphere of Causa Sui‘s El Paraiso Records, which has of course released the albums — the word was that the project intended to release a trilogy of improv-based offerings, and that’s exactly what happened. Dispossessed, the fourth Edena Gardens full-length, was then not part of the original plan. This is the hazard of things working out when players get together to jam. All of a sudden, oops, it’s another record. That was reportedly the situation earlier this year when the band assembled at Jonas Munk‘s studio.

As with past studio outings — late 2023’s Dens (review here), earlier ’23’s Agar (review here) and 2022’s self-titled debut (review here), quietly half-renamed Eden retrospectively so that the three spell out the name of the band, as if to say, “these are who we are” — the methodology is still rooted in live performance. Edena Gardens did do a live record as well, Live Momentum (review here), during the 2023 that might turn out to be project’s busiest year, but it’s the live-in-studio aspect that typifies the work. Edena Gardens has never been about being loud, or being heavy, or riffs riffs riffs, or even an effects-laced wash of noise. None of that. The material across Dispossessed, with songs like “Cantor Dew,” “Heim” and the 10-minute dream-drifter-droner finale “Aftenstjerne,” is telling the story of its own creation as it happened.

Well, mostly. The eight songs and 47 minutes of Dispossessed — a more foreboding title perhaps for more foreboding times; note the gulls on the cover; are they migrating? fleeing? — were tracked live, including anything that wound up as overdubs, as Skøtt worked with what he had to tie the pieces together. I won’t call the process seamless, because it’s not that and it’s not intended to be, but as opener “Hiraeth” sees the three-piece align around crashes and then draw concentric instrumental circles between, the chemistry is what most comes through. It is comfort at its foundation — the awareness of the three players of each other in space and the seeming ease of the musical conversation between them — and nobody here was a stranger when the band started, let alone the development of the project over the three records prior, so that’s no surprise.

But they’re in their element in the meditative repetitions of “Hiraeth,” even if the initial crashes are somewhat jarring in their heft compared to what the band did on Eden-Agar-Dens, and improvisation remains the priority. Second cut “Fills the Well” bumbles charmingly through its five minutes with a pastoral post-grunge sway, lightly immersive, and sees Sørensen leading on guitar in a way that handily coincides with the growth narrative. They’re dug in, to be sure, but as they have up to this point, Edena Gardens leave room for the listener in the spaciousness of the material, and the guitar-driven evocations continue on “Cantor Dew,” sweet in tone and classic in its flow, and the A-side capper “Vanishing Point” provides due culmination in its sprawl of low frequencies and the cirrus wisps of guitar floating above them.

A steady building rumble across “Vanishing Point” gives it extra weight-in-sound, but the abiding feel is still peaceful if not serene or calm. Audio therapy. A salve. “Vanishing Point” reaches up and lets go right around six minutes in, and with Rude‘s bassline urging subtle movement, the song’s final section resonates internal more than external. The bass underscores side B opener “Light in August” as well, picking up from the fluidity of the drum progression early and carrying the second half of the track to its finish and into the also-four-minute “Heim,” which in combination with “Light in August” is about as straightforward as Edena Gardens have ever been. “Heim” follows a linear trajectory and is slow in the tempo but welcoming and unpretentious in its drawing the listener deeper, which makes it well placed ahead of “Dispossessed” and “Aftenstjerne,” which perhaps represent the ‘going’ and the ‘gone’ implied by the album’s title.

Dispossession of what, whether material, existential, emotional, I don’t know, but if you want to dare to look around the world right now you’ll see a lot of all of it, so it’s a relevant notion regardless of the specific purpose behind it. The song, “Dispossessed,” has more reach than “Heim” or “Light in August.” It’s consistent enough in mood not to be out of place, but the steady roll of drums and just an edge of urgency mark a shift to the ending section of the record. After the three-minute mark, the course they’re following becomes more lush, and brighter in the guitar, and as it moves through a sort of inadvertent payoff, they’re the heaviest they’ve been since “Hiraeth,” which makes for a fitting bookend to the first seven tracks, and lets “Aftenstjerne” stand more on its own, which it does anyway, starting from silence, waking up, and finding its own path across Dispossessed‘s longest runtime.

That’s not to say the shift into it is disjointed. Once you’re in it, there’s nothing throughout Dispossessed that’s likely to pull you from its ambience, and “Aftenstjerne” isn’t out of place in being the most ready example of that. Rather, it encapsulates the procession before it and reshapes the movement to its own course. That is, soft psychedelic guitar, backmasking, drones, drums far off in the distance and a gradual change to a more solid form as the instruments come forward across the span are all part of Edena Gardens‘ pastiche before the closer, but if you ever find yourself in need of a handy summary for the appeal of this project, “Aftenstjerne” awaits. By extension, I guess it all does. They’re not keeping it secret, in any case.

Unexpected but not unwelcome, Dispossessed brings further complexity and growth to the story of Edena Gardens. And if you want to know what might’ve motivated the three-piece to come together again and make another album, listen to the songs. Creation is the reason, beauty is the result. Art making your life better if you let it. Most of all, Dispossessed puts light to the fact that there’s no reason Rude, Sørensen and Skøtt had to cut short the communion they’d discovered, and there’s no reason Edena Gardens can’t continue into years-to-come perpetuity. It’s not like they’re going to run out of infinity to explore.

Edena Gardens, “Fills the Well”

Edena Gardens on Instagram

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El Paraiso Records website

El Paraiso Records on Instagram

El Paraiso Records on Facebook

Did I miss something? Specifically a Papir album? I can’t find anything about a VIII — or just an 8, since the album before was early 2022’s 7 (review here). Before that, they had the 2LP collection Jams (review here), so there’s something outside the sequence, but I’m paranoid now that they put out a record sometime between 2022 and now and I missed it. It’s not on their Bandcamp. It’s not on Stickman Records‘s site that I could see. What’s up?

There’s no audio yet from IX, but I trust Stickman, and if they’re telling you it’s gonna be an adventure, the easy bet is that’s how it’s going to go. No specific release date either, just ‘Fall,’ but we’re in October/November territory for promo cycles anyway, so it’ll be somewhere in there. Maybe by then I’ll have figured out where the missing Papir record went.

The following came from Stickman‘s newsletter, which if you haven’t yet taken my recommendation to sign up for, you should. Here you go:

Papir – IX

Copenhagen’s aural travellers are back and bearing new music. True to their distinct sound, Papir return with another chapter in their ongoing sonic journey. Terms like post-rock, ambient rock, psychedelia, and krautrock may circle their sound, but none quite capture its shimmering, elusive magic.

IX is a wide-open record in every sense. From the flowing compositions – which linger but never overstay, jam and unfold organically – to the wonderful airy production, you get the sense of being both in studio with the band and simultaneously on the beach with wind blowing through your hair. In addition to the ever free-flowing nature of the band’s live recordings, additions such as synthesizer or extra percussion appear always tastefully right when needed, adding the perfect seasoning on top.

If you’re only now discovering this band, and you’re into post-rock, psychedelia, krautrock, or ambient sounds, this is one to keep on your radar.

IX arrives in fall 2025—more details coming soon.

Papir will perform in Hamburg together with Angad Berar (featuring members of Weite) this September 18th at Hafenklang. The performance is our very own Stickman Showcase at Treffen Hamburg 2025. Join us if you can and you’re sure to hear some brand new tunes for the first time ever live.

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Papir, 7 (2022)

So, the good news here is that in late-2023 when Edena Gardens completed what was then purported to be a trilogy with their third LP, Dens (review here), that wasn’t actually their last studio record. Dispossessed is the name of the fourth album from the trio featuring members of Causa Sui, London Odense Ensemble and Papir, and the first single from it is the mellow-immersive “Fills the Well,” which you’ll find streaming below. I wasn’t expecting another Edena Gardens, necessarily, but I’m awfully glad such a thing exists.

Edited down from raw jams tracked this past February, Dispossessed begins a new phase for Edena Gardens as an ongoing project. I look forward to the adventure to come, and pretty soon since the release is only a month out.

A no-brainer to dig in, courtesy of the PR wire:

Edena Gardens – Dispossessed

“Fills the Well” – First single from LP Dispossessed, out Aug. 22nd 2025.

Preorder link: https://elparaisorecords.com/product/edena-gardens-dispossessed/

Stripping away excess layers, Dispossessed lives up to its title. The band went into Causa Sui’s Jonas Munk’s studio on the last day of February 2025. In an a priori session, the first note played together since 2023’s Dens – the conclusion of a trilogy and a live album all in less than a year. Has something shifted during the silence? Added aggression? Faster tempo? Darker ambiance? The feeling of losing time? Or is it simply the listener who’s world has tilted? In a fast paced world, Edena Gardens shows us how to resist and tune to our own inner chord.

Edena Gardens deals in subtle shifts that can only be summoned from something played for the first time. From the sludgy blasts of opener Hiraeth to the droning ambience of 10-minute ender Aftenstjerne. As always, the band travels far yet stays in the same internal realm. The band’s own Jakob Skøtt has made minor edits to cut a record from hours of free improvisation, and every dubbed ambience has been culled directly from the material recorded that day, bringing into play the band’s gestalt in a way that shows their both outer and inner workings: Dispossessed.

Edena Gardens is:
Jakob Skøtt: Drums (Causa Sui)
Nicklas Sørensen: Guitar (Papir)
Martin Rude: Baritone guitar & Bass (London Odense Ensemble)

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Edena Gardens, “Fills the Well”

When it was announced by El Paraiso Records earlier this Fall, it was suggested that Dens might be the final release from Danish instrumentalist trio Edena Gardens, who feature in their ranks drummer Jakob Skøtt and bassist/baritone guitarist Martin Rude and Nicklas Sørensen of Papir. The project is one of a slew in the orbit of Causa Sui and El Paraiso, which has become an ecosystem of sometimes-jazzy psych and heavy psych, with exploration as a core value uniting the works released under its banner no less than the themed layouts of the albums being issued.

That said, Edena Gardens has stood out both for quick turnarounds — their self-titled debut (review here) came out in Oct. 2022, and they followed with Agar (review here) earlier this year and still had room to put out the Live Momentum (review here) concert-capture LP, which if this is really it for them one will be glad to have for the documentation — and Dens brings seven pieces spread gracefully across 47 minutes brimming with mellow-psych meander. In Edena Gardens and in his own band, Sørensen has demonstrated again and again an ability to keep solid footing in a molten and shifting context, and whether it’s the brief drone-laced pastoral drift of “Vini’s Lament” (titled in honor of Vini Reilly of The Durutti Column) or the way “Morgensol” takes a conceptual cue from raga and sets itself not toward conveying the energy of the day but the slow-motion manner in which the sun hoists itself above the horizon.

If the first album was Eden — and it wasn’t at the time, but we’re all friends here, you and I, and we’re just talking, and maybe sometimes you want to make a revision so you can someday do a special 4LP box set or some such — and the second Agar, then Dens is the missing syllable to complete the band’s name spelled across their titles: EdenAgarDens. As the third in a maybe-trilogy, then, its shimmering resonance is leant that much more gravitas, but gravity doesn’t really apply here. “Morgensol” runs nine minutes long and is serene throughout, and while the organ and more active drumming in the crescendo of the 14-minute penultimate cut “Sienita” fuels a movement that is vibrant and energetic, Edena Gardens aren’t aiming for impact so much as ambience in terms of the general balance of what they do. Through opener “Wald” (‘forest,’ in Danish) and breeze that seems to blow “Dusted” along its light tumble, seeming to build some tension around three minutes in but resisting the impulse to break out volume-wise, the trio hypnotize in a way that feels multi-tiered, like they’re in it as much as the listener — the very epitome of ‘dug in’ — but if they ever actually get lost at any point, I can’t find where.

Causa Sui‘s Jonas Munk engineered the recording and Skøtt produced — careful hands, is what that tells you — and it’s pretty clear there’s been some level of editing done, which is to say there are fades in and out and pieces like “Vini’s Lament” or the slightly-fuzzier-in-its-leads “An Uaimh Bhinn” (referencing a cave in Scotland) that separates “Morgensol” and “Sienita” were likely carved out of larger improvisations, whereas “Sienita,” reportedly, is the front-to-back live jam with only the aforementioned organ overdubbed.

It’s academic, ultimately, to most who will take on Dens or any other of Edena Gardens‘ output past or right-timeline future, but not at all irrelevant to the vibe, which it doesn’t take long to figure out is high on the priority list here, generally speaking. “Sienita,” named for a type of volcanic rock, unfolds with casual wistfulness early, the drums at a slow march, but takes off gradually as it goes and builds to a first head before the halfway point and recedes again to let the second build start from the ground as it meanders into a payoff that feels like it’s maybe speaking to more than just this record but the cycle of three of which this is part.

And maybe, if Edena Gardens do manage to put a batch of jams/songs-carved-therefrom together after Dens it will inherently feel different just because of some imaginary border between what’s their third and fourth full-lengths. I don’t know and when you’re locked into “Sienita,” it hardly matters. It is a worthy moment for mindful hearing, not the least because it isn’t perfect and isn’t trying to convince anyone it is. It is simply that 14 minutes of playing, represented.

Which of course is nothing so simple. Involved in that, and one might argue emphasized here in terms of the position ahead of closer “Dawn Daydreams,” which is nine minutes shorter than “Sienita” and the second inclusion to reference sunrise behind “Morgensol,” is the chemistry shared between Rude and Skøtt and Sørensen and the organic nature of the jam itself. It’s heady stuff, and one must perhaps be willing to grant that jazz- and krautrock-informed light-touch psychedelic instrumentals might not be a universal appeal — rest assured, it’s the universe’s problem — but Edena Gardens in about the span of a year went from being nothing to having an identifiable sonic persona distinct from both Causa Sui and Papir, the two acts from whom its membership draws.

One such record was not a minor achievement. Two felt like a bonus. The live record, well shit, if they’re gonna be on stage, then yeah. And this? I don’t want to call it a victory lap, because it’s too classy to rub your face in its own achievement, but maybe a celebration of the core collab that makes it up, at least, or a potential project sendoff — and nobody’s saying ‘never again’ here to start with — as well as a completion to the arc that was set out by the band. At the very, very least, it is a collection of thoughtful, malleable and immersive tracks put together by artists whose joy for the process(es) of its making resonates as clearly as Sørensen‘s lead lines in the dappled shimmer of “Wald.” If it’s to be a culmination, then yes, it is.

Edena Gardens, “Dusted” official video

Edena Gardens on Facebook

Edena Gardens on Instagram

El Paraiso Records on Instagram

El Paraiso Records on Facebook

El Paraiso Records website

I like that Edena Gardens basically go, “Yeah, maybe this’ll be the last record or maybe not.” If I’d already put out a self-titled debut (review here) and the follow-up, Agar (review here) and put together a third LP for release — that’s Dens, out Dec. 1 as per the headline above — between 2022 and 2023, I might be somewhat cautious too. If they’re thinking of these three records as a trilogy — they might want to rename the first one Eden for subsequent pressings if they’re using the four-letter-words-from-the-band’s-name as a uniting theme — that’s fine, but they’ve already also done a live album (review here), so they’re not necessarily limited by anything other than what they themselves impose.

Dens is the third Edena Gardens LP. If it’s the last one, well, the collaborative outfit formed by Jakob Skøtt (drums) and Martin Rude (baritone and bass guitar) of Causa Sui and Papir guitarist Nicklas Sørensen didn’t owe anyone anything when they started and they certainly don’t now. If it’s not the last one, and maybe a fourth surfaces sometime in the vast unknowable future, be it six months, six years or whatever, I have no doubt the explorations will continue to resonate as they have through their efforts to-date.

“Veil” in the video below comes from Agar. I haven’t found any a/v from Dens yet but I’m sure both that and preorders are coming. El Paraiso Records knows what’s up, so keep an eye out.

From the PR wire:

Edena Gardens: Dens

Members of Papir & Causa Sui finalise Edena Gardens trilogy.

Formats: CD/LP (600 copies) / Digital Download
Release date: December 1st, 2023

True to El Paraiso fashion, Dens concludes a trilogy of albums, aptly spelling out the last third of the group’s name. And true to form, the band turns inwards rather than outwards, drawing on deep shades of ambient, slowcore, and the ghost of Mark Hollis. While maintaining their psychedelic edge, the trio weaves the lines between genres in a way that’s becoming a signature of its own. Never in a hurry, but always moving somewhere.

Causa Sui drummer Jakob Skøtt & Martin Rude’s bass and baritone guitar lay out a robust yet fleeting foundation. Papir’s Nicklas Sørensen’s glistening guitar lines never felt more free and explorative. While The Durutti Column tribute Vini’s Lament is drenched in nostalgia, a cut like Morgensol (Morning Sun in Danish) explodes in Popol Vuh-esque gloomy euphoria.

Engineered by Jonas Munk & produced by Jakob Skøtt, the album culls hours of free improvisation into a coherent size. Seamless edits and studio wizardry enhance the feeling of an almost narrative nature as the album progresses. Invoking anything from a crackling campfire, rattling bones, and the singing of sand dunes. The culmination lies in the 14-minute track Sienita. A fully formed blistering improvisation, abandoning any studio trickery, besides a singly dubbed organ, rising and falling like the tide.

Is Dens the final chapter of Edena Gardens? Who knows, and who cares… Edena Gardens is all about the present anyway.

Stay at Edena Gardens.

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Edena Gardens, “Veil” official video

Yeah, this is a good one. A lot of this comes from stuff that’s been and is being covered around here over the last couple weeks, and suffice it to say I’ve got no regrets about choosing any of these tracks. I was worried about White Manna getting lost in the Quarterly Review shuffle, so consider this an extra nod to check that out, and celebrating the new Big Scenic Nowhere, Lamp of the Universe, Weedpecker and Pia Isa records feels about right, as well as the Electric Moon collection, Phase, which put “The Loop” right back in my head like it had never left.

Upcoming stuff from Seremonia, Obsidian Sea, Fostermother, and SÖNUS give a glimpse of things to be released over the next month-plus, and the hardest part about including an Author & Punisher track is not rambling incoherently for 20 minutes about how great the rest of the record from which it comes is. I suppose there will be time for such things.

For now, I thank you for listening as always if you do and I’m grateful you see these words either way.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

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The Obelisk Show – 01.21.22

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[Click play above to stream Papir’s 7 in full. Album is out Friday on Stickman Records.]

What if, instead of psychedelia being thought of as a means toward escapism, it could be a way to be present in the moment? To put yourself in existence and thus transform it instead of leaving it behind? Papir‘s latest work, 7, follows behind the Copenhagen trio’s 2021 sidestep Jams (review here) and 2019’s VI (review here) and brings the instrumentalist unit to a particularly soothing place in terms of sound. And it would be easy, given the confused and often terrified state of the world in which it arrives, to think of 7 as a vehicle for the listener to at least close their eyes and imagine something else, some version of the escapism noted above, whatever it may be. But across the four extended tracks — the first of which is the longest (immediate points) with “7.1 (Part I-III)” at 19:52, more than 10 minutes longer than anything else — guitarist Nicklas Sørensen, bassist Christian Becher Clausen and drummer Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen could just as easily be looking for a way to exist in the present moment as to leave it behind. Mindfulness as manifest through psychedelic exploration of sound.

I don’t know that that’s the case and I don’t know that it isn’t. Papir‘s trajectory has grown mellower and more informed by post-rock with time — Sørensen‘s guitar taking on various jazzy impulses here with a gentle feel even as the album’s most active, which is unquestionably the second cut, “7.2” — and even the language one might use to describe their tonality, whether the depth of Clausen‘s bass or the drift in the lead guitar notes, the ethereality of the keyboard lines that emerge after two minutes into the track’s total 6:17, all conjures visions of something other than the reality of a band in a room, creating it, or a listener in a room (or wherever), hearing it. I’m not meaning to argue against psychedelia or heavy psychedelia — and Papir have largely left the pressure to be heavy behind them at this point; they’re no worse off for it — as a transformative experience. It can change you, and it can put you someplace other than where you started out, figuratively or literally. But with 7, I find I’m just as much drawn into the course of the record, from the first graceful awakening of “7.1” to Christensen‘s tom work some six minutes in and the longform drone that ensues over the final two of the piece’s three parts, and it’s as much evocative of itself as of any other atmosphere I might want to put it to.

Perhaps ‘grace’ is the defining feature throughout 7. If one thinks of it in the religious context, the sudden act of being ‘saved,’ then there’s another layer entirely to appreciate along with the smooth fluidity of the material throughout the album, but again, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. 7 is never brash, Papir never tip into the bombastic even as much as they did on Jams, and it doesn’t lose its sense of flow when “7.2” brings the drums in after a long absence in the ending sections of “7.1 (Part I-III)” and bids them farewell once more for the eight-minute “7.3” only to have far-off toms punctuate “7.4” in a shifted priority from the ready hi-hat of the opener.

The material throughout is uniformly gorgeous and spontaneous feeling, but each piece has its own life and its own impression to make within the overarching serenity of the whole, whether it’s “7.1 (Part I-III)” seeming to let go as it transitions from its first movement into the second and more synth-driven third, the regrounding effect of “7.2” after all that spaciousness has been cast — a soft, pastoralist jam with keyboard layered over, resulting in a vibrant wash of melody — the seeming standalone-guitar minimalism that builds upward in “7.3” and the long and winding echoes of “7.4” that are all the more resonant for the reaches they leave open, unpopulated.

Take a deep breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. I’m not going to sit here on my couch in front of my laptop, needing a shower, coffee on my breath — present in my moment, for better and worse — and tell you how to listen to Papir‘s 7. Or that, if you want to put your headphones on and use Sørensen‘s weaving drones on “7.3” as a means to divorce yourself from whatever negativity, baggage or tumult you’re living through either on a micro or macro level, that you’re wrong to do so. Shit, I don’t know. You might’ve got the plague. These are traumatic, uncertain times. But to me, the comfort bring offered by Papir doesn’t seem to forget that, or to ignore it. Maybe I’m reading into the proceedings — scratch that, I definitely am — but the creativity so much on display throughout 7, and even the chemistry between the members of the band, the sense of arrangement and subtlety they bring to one track and then another is empathetic more than escapist. They’re here too.

While I’m establishing a great list of things I don’t know — there are so many! — I also don’t know when these tracks were recorded. Maybe it was three years ago, maybe it was in the height of pandemic lockdown. What matters more in the end are the feelings they elicit in the audience now that they’re seeing release, and the fact that they seem to offer a place to be that isn’t separate from the world around so much as working to reshape that into something more quiescent. It’s not about numbing out, but about being there for each other and coming to a kind of aural understanding even just of yourself and your place amid all the chaos. What is it that they’re ultimately saying? I don’t know; there are no words. Maybe it’s okay not to know, and to just be, without knowing. What if the argument Papir are making with these songs is a case for the world that is as much as a world that could be? What if the letting go and the escape are a distraction and the thing to do is hold on tighter to right now because it and each other are all we have and so much is lost so easily?

Papir, “7.2” official video

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