Home » Wavewulf on His Inspiration and Ideas behind the New Album, “The North and the Sea”

Wavewulf on His Inspiration and Ideas behind the New Album, “The North and the Sea”

by Senior Editor
The North and the Sea

Wavewulf has recently had a culminating run in the electronic music scene. Originating from New York City, the artist enjoys the emphatic success of another groundbreaking album, “The North and the Sea,” a metaphor for truth and freedom, released on State of Bass Records (out of the UK) on the 25th of March.

This is Wavewulf’s fourth album, where he explores mystical themes imbued with a Scandinavian touch. These mystical themes have pretty much always been a part of the musician’s output, even in his early albums. Fans of “The North and the Sea” are glued to their music devices, raking in streaming hours daily as the album surges in popularity.

Those who picked up on the records appeal continue to ask questions about what drove the artist to take this route. We had the privilege of hearing Wavewulf explain his inspiration for the album. He primarily made the record around the ideas of Northern, arctic, oceanic, and Scandinavian themes and his major source of inspiration was a recent trip to Iceland.

The artist had an up-close and personal experience with the mystical Scandinavian island and how the oceanic climate affects that part of the world. Iceland had always been on his bucket list, and he took it upon himself to visit and connect with the powerful geographical forces making Iceland such an exotic land.

He shares that he sought the trip as a retreat, an escape from the mundane and embraced nature at its best. It was a quest for freedom and change that he set out for, and he returned with the inspiration for the whole album in his head. The concept of freedom was the major factor in driving his inspiration for The North and the Sea. The freedom he found was in opposition to the feeling of oppression and mundane circumstances, which weighed down his spirit and which he felt were taking his freedom. Only when one seeks to cut from their everyday environment can one be truly free and build a broader perspective of life.

On the other hand, Wavewulf also focused on building connections, which most of the world fairly failed at in the past two years due to the ongoing global pandemic. This depraved, desolate, empty space that halted human interaction worked against our instincts as species. As an artist, he found himself taking leaps toward rekindling and finding the connection back with people in his life. He encapsulates these ideas in tracks including “Luft,” “The Sea and the Glacier,” “Open the Gate,” and “The Power of Water.”

He further explored the social context, talking about personal losses suffered by people in the song “New Amsterdam.” The track vividly explores what it’s like being without your loved one and processing the loss. Among his other reflections from his Scandinavian retreat, he realized how far we as a global society function as cogs in the wheel in our ordinary lives inundated with capitalist ideas and hyper-consumerism; how increasingly we got lost in the race of worldly pursuits that we lost meaning in life. The track, “Understand Me,” having the right blend of anti-capitalist and leftist ideas, further investigates these ideas.

If you thought this was deep, wait till you explore the next muse: “Permafrost,” which is centered on an environmentally conscious theme as well as the power of music to connect people in the world. And “Through the Wires” basically focuses on global conflicts that bring governments to wage wars. The song further explores the tragic invasion of Ukraine and the plight of its people.

“I guess the whole record is about that dichotomy – being alone, being together, being connected with others and disconnected from them. And the other big theme is, like I said before, freedom. Being oppressed vs. feeling and being free, by this I mean the freedom to understand, the freedom to be one’s self and express our uniqueness to others,” he writes.

Wavewulf has long been an avid user of analog synthesizers. In terms of The North and the Sea’s production and recording, it brings out a personality that would not be achievable with only software synthesizers. He collaborated with Jason Weinheimer, who mixed it on his vintage hardware gear. He also had Christopher John Donato play drums and percussion on most of the tracks (both electronically and by hand). Even though it is a very electronic album, analog synths and drums add a human feel to the overall product. The contrast between analog and digital, as well as the interaction between the two in terms of sound and emotion, gives the album a perfect balance.

More songs on The North and the Sea feature vocals than from Wavewulf’s previous albums. It’s quite evident that Wavewulf managed to put a great deal of focus on the vocals. He also brought in great singers like Nala Spark, Maxx Silver, Martin James, Dasha Larks, Matt Jensen, and Christopher John Donato to enchant with their vocal prowess.

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