We’re back to the Pot Pourri style of short, sharp reviews for a while on account of many releases all at once again.
Vi (Denmark) – Gæsten går hjem (The Guest is Leaving) (single)
First up tonight is Copenhagen-based Vi, who have been here before while one half of the duo, Jens Hansen, has also featured with his experimental persona Ådselæder and also his solo children’s music spin off, Baby please stop Crying.
On their single ‘Gæsten går hjem’(‘The Guest is Leaving’), the lyrics had me thinking I’d stumbled on a script for an episode of Columbo at first, as the unkempt detective grills witnesses to a murder, or a sequel to Kafka’s novel The Trial, or to 1984.
“The Guest is Leaving/What is it you think you just saw?/What is it you think just happened?
Why are you eager to leave?/What is it you think is so important?
Why are you leaving now?/Where are you going now?”
There’s something mysterious, slightly threatening and other worldly about it, aided and abetted by a simple and repetitive guitar riff; mechanical and light industrial. Kraftwerk-lite perhaps, I’m struggling here.
Possibly the single means only a little as a standalone track but much more within a concept album. We’ll see. For now here’s your opportunity to try to get your head around it.
https://vikollektiv.bandcamp.com/track/g-sten-g-r-hjem
VI are:
Jens Hansen: guitars, bass, vocals
Aske Duedahl Bendtsen: drums, percussion, keys, vocals
Find them on: https://www.instagram.com/vimusikkollektiv/
LIGHTS OF SKADI (Sweden) – Lost in the Stars (single) feat. Alexander Borger & Stefan Löfstedt
I never miss an opportunity to feature LIGHTS OF SKADI, the studio project of Swedish producer, musician, and songwriter Jörgen André,which has a new single out. He is at the forefront of Swedish prog rock, one of the countries that hung onto the genre tenaciously while it floundered elsewhere.
He does that so well that LoS made it into NMC’s Top Songs of 2025 (at #4!) and return now with the new single ‘Lost in the Stars’. That title alone captured my attention, having paid so much to the recent visit of interstellar ‘comet’ 3I/Atlas, which seems to be just that – lost in space and searching for home.
The recording features guest appearances by musical colleagues Alexander Borger (guitar) and Stefan Löfstedt (keyboards), as well as “a very special (secret) guest singer” who has not been revealed to me. It isn’t Orville Peck unless his trousers are a very tight fit. I thought it might be Anette Olzon for a moment. It would be good to get the lowdown one day.
The synthesisers are so powerful in this track they might have emanated from the centre of the universe along with the Big Bang while the guitar solo will take you through a wormhole and back faster than you can say “Beam me up Scotty”.
Find Lights of Skadi on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightsOfSkadi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsofskadi/
