Into The Future | 2026.19

TMODM: You released Veil of Night only about a month after Overflow. Were these songs part of the same burst of creativity, or did the EP feel like the beginning of something different?

Shandri: I worked on mixing and arranging Overflow for a long time, and in that period of time I inevitably came up with more songs. The Veil of Night EP is a collection of mostly new songs that I recorded last fall in Berkeley.

However! The song “Veil of Night,” the title track, was one of the first songs I ever wrote, back in 2020 when I started this project. I was lucky enough to play it live several times, and it took many shapes. At some point it was a very Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd jam, with a big lap steel solo in the middle, which I sometimes still play!

TMODM: “There Was Never Anything You And I Could Really Do” is such a resigned title. Did that phrase come first and lead you into the song, or did it emerge from what the music was already expressing?

Shandri: That title, as well as the placement of the phrase, was one of the last things I added to the song. The vibe of the song itself, and the lyrics I was writing around it, led me to that, and it had such an overwhelming presence lyrically that I decided to make it the central piece of the song—both within the lyrics themselves, and also conceptually.

The last instrumental break and the treatment of the drums in the outro express that feeling of being in between resignation and acceptance… half involuntary and half voluntary, with a lot of melancholy but also a lot of release and reprieve, if that makes sense.

TMODM: Since we last talked, Sundog Sound has picked up Overflow for release. How did that connection come about, and what does having the album on a label change for Shandri at this point?

Shandri: We connected through Instagram and instantly formed a bond over music, but also over our work and life philosophies. Both Adam and Miranda, who lead the label, are very motivated to create a scene that’s not only sustainable, but based on cooperation and mutual support, and I can’t tell you enough how much I think we need that in this day and age.

So far it’s already been a very cool process of mutual growth with both the pressing of Overflow and the release of the live session (Live at Agua Blanca), and we’re preparing the release of a two-volume concept album in the coming months. Extremely excited about it.

TMODM: When we talked in 2024, you said your hip condition had forced you to completely change the way you made music. Now that the surgery and recovery have become part of Divination itself, how has your way of making music changed again?

Jake Blanchard: Divination was a pretty challenging album to make. My hip problem and chronic pain are still ongoing (currently recovering from leg rotation surgery!). Most of the recordings were made during the brief periods of relief I had from getting steroid injections. They were the only thing that really offered me significant help with the pain.

They meant I was able to play for a bit longer than I could on the previous record, so I wasn't as tied to using loops as on Fermentation.

TMODM: The medical language running through Divination (“Biomechanical Burden,” “Scan Divination,” “Bone Marrow”) gets combined up with something much more mystical/ritualistic. Did you start thinking about your medical experience in those terms while you were going through it, or did that idea emerge as the album took shape?

Jake Blanchard: I think it was when I had an MRI that I first started thinking of things in that way. It's such a strange experience, being stuck in a tube with this overwhelming noise all around you.

Most of my treatment has been in teaching hospitals and, as my condition is pretty unusual, there's often groups of medical students and consultants sitting in. During the MRI there were six or seven doctors and radiographers present, all dressed in similar clothing. I think that's where the sense of ritual really struck me.

TMODM: “Biomechanical Burden” captures both the physical struggle you were going through and the strain of dealing with the healthcare system. Did that title grow directly out of the experience, or did it come later?

Jake Blanchard: The track and title were very much a way of me expressing my frustration with living in constant pain and the mental toll of that, along with the battle of trying to get treatment on the NHS. So yes, it was the idea from the outset.

TMODM: Improvisation has always been at the heart of Kungens Män, and after more than a decade together you’ve developed a common musical language. When you’re playing something like “Kungliga biblioteket,” how much are you still surprising each other?

Kungens Män: First off, we didn’t know we were playing “Kungliga biblioteket” while we were playing it. Everything we play is strictly improvised, and we composed “Kungliga biblioteket” as we were playing it.

Of course, we play in a certain style, or musical genre—in our case “Psychedelic Rock” as opposed to, for example, “Free Improvisation.” The one thing we usually decide on before going on stage (although most often while we are on stage) is the main key of the next song. In that way, we know where everybody will converge when the groove finally has settled in.

All this being said, what we are most concerned with while we play an instant composition like “Kungliga biblioteket” is NOT to surprise each other too much. So many things can fall apart in an instant anyway—it’s a fine line between keeping the music raw, alive and interesting, and keeping everybody together and moving in somewhat the same direction until somebody takes the decision to END the song.

TMODM: You record every rehearsal and have built up a huge archive of improvised music. What makes a particular performance stand out later as something worth releasing rather than simply being one moment among many?

Kungens Män: Good question! In rehearsal, and listening back to what was recorded, the moment of surprise while listening back is the main thing. Have we done this exact thing before? Then it doesn’t qualify for a release, even if it is musically satisfying as a groovy piece that would be a bomb in a live performance.

I must say, Micke (Tuominen) is the man who does the lion’s share of “cutting the crap” off rehearsal tapes before all other members have their say on which tunes are valid for release. It’s a luxury to have this dedicated guy as mixer/producer/technician as well as band member (and band founder).

TMODM: “Kungliga biblioteket” was captured live at Roadburn, where the music had to unfold in front of an audience rather than in your rehearsal space. Does the presence of a crowd change the way an improvisation develops, or do you try to shut that out and stay inside the group?

Kungens Män: Another good question! Yeah, it’s very different, and I think I’ve touched upon the difference in the questions above. When we are doing a concert, we think about the overall experience—setting the mood, inviting the audience to be part of the evening, getting everybody (band AND audience) in a head-space to be HERE and NOW.

We try to make the live concerts have a progression. Usually it’s about creating an atmosphere, getting a groove, creating beautiful/disgusting/inspiring melodic lines that we weave together, and end it all in a climaxing finale. There is nothing new there, let’s call it classic rock—the difference being it might involve Tibetan prayer bells, jingle bells, maracas and samples of Swedish actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård.

And yeah, we don’t have any written riffs to fall back on! It’s very complicated. It’s a mess. No one is safe. Everyone is on their toes. It’s the most satisfying thing ever—when it works. I think “Kungliga biblioteket” works.

TMODM: “Cloud Cartography” has now become “Cloud Cartography - Extended,” with Kirstin’s additional vocals and a new coda built around Michael’s layered guitars. What made you want to return to that track and open it up further?

Cloud Studies: “Cloud Cartography” was one of our first songs and was conceptually very much a “statement of intent” track, not least because the band name morphed out of it. We released it as our second single, but I felt the original mix was rushed and there was more to explore—I just didn’t know how.

I sent the mix to Michael when he re-joined the band, and when he pinged it back to me, it was three minutes longer with about 10 more guitar parts on it. I knew that was the version that had to be on the EP.

TMODM: The lyric revolves around uncertainty and memory melting like clouds. Did the idea of cloud cartography come first and shape the music, or did that imagery emerge after the sound of the track had already started to take form?

Cloud Studies: I keep in the “notes” app on my phone a list of possible song titles and lyric ideas and once we’ve scratched out a basic song idea, I match the idea to the most suitable title and write the rest of the song around that.

The idea of cloud cartography literally came from standing beneath a mountain in Ireland, watching the rain come rolling in and wondering about the existential pointlessness of trying to map the clouds.

TMODM: The EP took shape over a fairly long period, with lineup changes and re-recording along the way. Did that extended process change what you ultimately wanted the record to sound like?

Cloud Studies: I don’t think the sound of the record really altered; obviously some of the parts changed because of our line-up changes and re-recording some elements, but I always had in my mind a fixed notion of how I wanted the EP to sound.

I wanted it to sound big, without being over-produced, to be very atmospheric with loads of reverb and to have moments of light and dark, rather than being a flat one-dimensional thing, and I hope people will think we’ve achieved that.

TMODM: When we talked earlier this year, you said each song on the new album was a chapter in a larger story. Now that Everywhen is complete, what became clearer to you about that story once you could hear the whole record together?

Sons of Zöku: It became clear that in that moment of writing the album I was searching for an answer on how to become truly connected with the present moment, to find the freedom of not wandering into the past or into the future. 90% of the album is literally, one way or another, about that.

TMODM: What does the idea of moving “into a new” mean within the larger arc of Everywhen?

Sons of Zöku: “Into a New” represents the “giving up” feeling of not being able to cope anymore. It’s a song on the album that says, “I’m leaving the past, present and future behind and I’m going into a new place” (the afterlife).

TMODM: The title Everywhen suggests that past, present and future are all happening at once. Was that idea already central when you began the record, or did the title emerge from the way the songs eventually fit together?

Sons of Zöku: Both. As the musical ideas started developing I was very heavily into Ram Dass’ Be Here Now, so every time I started wording the words for lyrics I always felt I was drawing from the same concept.

I called the album Everything Everywhen in the early stages, but talking to Jordan he suggested just Everywhen. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

TMODM: When we talked earlier this year, you said improvisation had become Spring Hill Post Tide’s main form of expression. On The City Portal Will Be Open, how did you decide which ideas should remain open and improvised, and which ones needed to become more fully composed pieces?

Tian yu · Sky Rain: It is rooted mostly in mystical intuition, yet also built upon deliberate, thoughtful composition. There is looseness and tension woven together. Recording in the studio is one thing, performing live on stage another, yet the two are not separate. A track may run fifteen minutes in its studio cut, but live, it can take flight and stretch to half an hour or more. The surroundings of the moment, the state of recording and live performance all drive our art to continuously evolve and grow. To live in the present is essential.

RanChan: In my view, there is no such thing as a “complete” work. All pieces exist in a state of continual change and growth.

Ying: In the process of improvisation, we will record the audio. During the production of the album, we will listen to it repeatedly. If the performance is already emotionally complete in the improvisation process, there will not be too many modifications. If it feels that it is not complete or interesting enough, it will be modified again.

TMODM: “Journey to the East, Pt. 2” sits on an album that brings together psychedelic rock with instruments like sitar, ney flute, bansuri, violin and saxophone. What did those different voices allow you to express that the core band alone could not?

Tian yu · Sky Rain: The Grand Vision of the Cosmos. Daguan, or Grand Vision, is a classic Chinese idea. It started from the ancient I Ching, meaning to observe the whole world with a fair, broad mind. Later writers used it for magnificent sweeping landscapes. Daguan is not only about beautiful scenery. It is an aesthetic: seeing space, time, nature and human life all at once.

Yuan: These cosmic, diverse and beautiful elements, in their varied combinations, grant us more ways to draw near to the universe. They allow us to form deeper bonds with the world, with humanity, and with our nation. It is much like a mode of speech.

RanChan: Ethnic, world, and more instinctual ideas.

Ying: The addition of more oriental wind instruments will make the performance expression more distant, vast, and a touch of oriental charm.

TMODM: The album notes move between cosmic imagery and more real-world concerns, like cities, technology, isolation, memory, and people becoming disconnected from one another. Has Spring Hill Post Tide’s idea of “space music” changed so that it now includes more of what is happening here on Earth?

Tian yu · Sky Rain: We are all within the cosmos, magnifying everything then shrinking it down, shrinking it then magnifying it again.

I cannot help but recall the line from Spiritualized: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space.”

Music keeps the people of Earth from feeling so alone amid the boundless universe.

The full album releases on October 16th. Together, we shall open the portal of the city.

Yuan: Our expressions are filled with more love, and love holds our lives closely together. If there is any change to speak of, I suppose it is that we understand love more deeply.

Between people, between cities, and among nature itself, love is always present. Even when we are alone, we ought to seek to grasp this truth. It is what binds humanity, the reason the world exists, and some fundamental truth of the universe. At least, that is how it seems to me.

RanChan: While looking up at the starry sky, we hope even more to feel the warmth of the earth itself.

Ying: Of course, this era is changing so fast, and there are often many new ideas and concepts. But the expression of music transcends language, is more ancient and immutable, and more contains the current feelings of the audience.