LP released: Feb 25, 2022
180g black vinyl, gatefold sleeve, printed inner-sleeves. Arriving seven years on from their 2014 debut album ‘Ships Will Come’. This seven-year gestation between the two albums brings with it a transformation in the creative process of Warm Graves, much like the human body exchanges its cells every seven years – our human bodies being both the same and wholly other. 'For me, ‘Ease’ always comes back to the idea of transformation', Wehner says: 'In this case, from struggle to ease, choirs to whispers, rush to patience, light to dark. Those 7 years didn’t pass lightly. Life took a lot of turns and I had a lot to learn. It’s all in there compressed in 9 tracks.' Where 2014’s ‘Ships Will Come’ dealt in ethereal, dream-like atmospherics guided by an operatic choir, ‘Ease’ offers a collection of harsher, more experimental electronic works touching on dark ambient drone, austere coldwave and synthesised kosmische musik. The transitions in this new album are more violent than before, expressing the difficult personal and social upheavals of its composition period. The choir is now absent and Wehner’s own voice assumes a more central, hypnotic stance. The soundscapes of the first album make way for something darker and a concentration of melody into a single voice – a voice no longer collective, but embodying both isolation and intimacy. "I've lit my own fate", Wehner sings in ‘Sun Escape’. A fate which he firmly places under the microscope across this album. |
