Eftergift - Vatten Över Vatten LP (Discreet Music)

AOTY? 

Eftergift’s debut album ”Vatten över vatten” is a sonic exploration that transcends traditional listening, inviting us into a world where sound becomes both an act of contemplation and a critique of the modern condition. Rooted in the experimental, the album is an immersive journey through hypnotic tape loops, droning textures, and the deep stillness of remote landscapes. There is an elemental force in its compositions - a sense of water both as a physical and metaphysical entity, flowing over and within itself, echoing the cyclical and inescapable rhythms of nature.

Listening to ”Vatten över vatten” is not merely a passive experience; it demands a reorientation of the senses. The music unfolds like a slow, deliberate breath, where time seems to stretch and contract, pulling the listener into a liminal space between wakefulness and dream. In this space, the boundaries between self and environment blur, reflecting the album’s meditative exploration of solitude and the vast, often isolating expanses of nature. The remoteness evoked in the droning layers suggests not just physical isolation but a deeper estrangement - a withdrawal from the hyper-connected, hyper-consumed world driven by late capitalism. 

Indeed, there is an underlying critique of capitalist modernity embedded in the album’s texture. The repetitive, tape-driven sounds suggest a longing for the organic, the unmediated, the uncommodified. In a world dominated by the rapid consumption of digital music, where attention spans are fragmented by endless scrolling and the demand for constant novelty, ”Vatten över vatten” stands as a counterpoint. It is an invitation to slow down, to engage in deep listening, and to rediscover the subtle gradations of sound that are too often drowned out by the noise of modern life. Here, the music is not just heard but felt - an experience that lingers, like ripples on water, long after the final note has faded.

The album’s title, ”Vatten över vatten”, speaks to this layering of experience. Water is both the subject and the medium, symbolizing fluidity, change, and the impossibility of stasis. In Eftergift’s hands, this element becomes a metaphor for the elusive nature of meaning in a world that prioritizes speed and efficiency over depth and connection. The droning, almost geological pace of the album serves as a gentle resistance to the capitalist imperative of constant production and consumption. It asks us to embrace slowness, to engage with the subtleties of our surroundings, and to find meaning not in accumulation but in the quiet, persistent flow of time and thought.

In this way, ”Vatten över vatten” is more than music; it is an invocation, a quiet rebellion against the commodification of experience. It challenges us to listen differently, to attune ourselves to the world in a way that is at once ancient and urgently contemporary. In an era where even our most intimate moments are subject to the logic of capital, Eftergift offers a soundscape that is refreshingly unmediated, unhurried, and unafraid to dwell in the spaces between. It is a call to return to the raw, unfiltered experiences that remind us of our place within the broader, more-than-human world - a place where water flows over water, endlessly, without need for purpose or profit.