Track By Track: Hydropsyche – Exhumed & Forgiven

Departing from the club-focused output made previously as Boska – an alias with releases on Studio Barnhus and Permanent Vacation, which seemingly entered a period of hiatus in 2014 – Jon Eirik re-emerged with his first material as Hydropsyche in 2018, appearing on the ‘DAGIAN’ compilation released by Paris-based label High Heal.

More recently, Jon Eirik has linked up with the Berlin-based imprint Unguarded and released the project’s debut album ‘Exhumed & Forgiven’, a record that abides by the sense of poignancy and existential grandeur that seems to underpin the project.

Assembled in the wake of an adverse period of personal struggle, the album’s vast, otherworldly soundscapes soar with drama and submerge the listener, yet the eight tracks that make up the album never seem to lose sight of the human experience that has shaped them. Evoking modular practitioners like Alessandro Cortini and Caterina Barbieri – whose ‘cold, clean’ sound Jon Eirik cites as an influence – as well as composers like Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ben Frost, ‘Exhumed & Forgiven’ is a well-crafted, cinematic and powerful debut of angst, turmoil, catharsis, and perseverance.

Here, Jon Eirik guides us through the revelatory highs and lows of making the album, sharing tales of rebirth, rave nostalgia and elegies to affluence, influenced by gaming, Burial, Tiesto and more.

1. God Rays

I was blessed to have the contributions of three friends playing the strings for this piece. There’s so much hope and light in these melodies and the exaggerated climax that it somehow felt right to make it a bit of a community effort. I was heavy into game development, and in particular I was consumed by how light works to create strong atmospheres in scenes. That’s how I came across the term “god rays”, which inspired the title. Definitely a bright summer vibe.

2. Redemption

There were so many thoughts going around my head of forgiveness, pity, transformation, healing. The piece has a soothing quality to it, like water on dry rock. It’s one of very few melodies that I’ve been able to flip into a second “B” part; it undergoes a change and comes out different on the other side; the rebirth of spring. There’s also two sections that were generated by Rim Mustafin using GANs (Generative adversarial networks), which was an incredibly fun and inspiring process.

3. No Mercy

This one comes from a much darker place. Like most of my music on the Scree EP, this one represents despair and pain to me. I used additive sequencing, which is when you add one melody on top of another to introduce new notes, and switching between sequences as well to give the impression of a harmonic progression. I wasn’t doing well at the time, so I poured all my passion into nerdy pursuits like that on my modular.

4. (5 7 7)

It was May, the sun was out and it was hot as hell in our apartment. I was working with the windows open, so I decided to let the ambience of the street become a part of the recording, since I was anyways hearing that the whole time while writing. I used to work a lot with club music, and I think this melody and sound might be a callback to Burial style rave nostalgia.

5. Spirit Mesh

I was learning how to play some Bach chorales on the piano, and at the same time made a couple of pieces on my Prophet 08 where I’m trying to think more intently about the harmonic progression. It sounds like some kind of classical meets trance, like DJ Tiesto’s Adagio For Strings. When I did the final take for this piece, me and my wife had set up skulls, flowers, lots of candles, and deep pink lights to record a video of it in our kitchen.

6. YDIMA

Another one with traces of rave or trance. At the same time there’s the cold clean synth sounds of the contemporary Italians; Caterina Barbieri and Alessandro Cortini. Technically it was composed in a very cold and calculated manner, and yet it represents a lot of hope to me. A blank slate, a fresh start.

7. Elements

One of the first tracks I made as Hydropsyche, that defined a lot of what I have loved doing musically. Yet I never made a good recording of it until this album. Brooding, passionate, angry.

8. Switzerland

There’s some duality in making Switzerland into a symbol of hope tinged with sadness. What did those poor mountain folk do to deserve this? I don’t know. But I find it beautiful to associate that exclusive club of wealth and privilege with such melancholy. I’m from Norway, and my relationship to my home country is much the same – if I was to write a song about my motherland, it would not be a happy song.

‘Exhumed & Forgiven’ is out now via Unguarded, info / listen HERE.

Photos by Kasia Kim-Zacharko.