I had a cassette recorder when I was a kid and I was the only one on the block that did. I used to record albums with it and we’d play them in my minivan as in-car entertainment as we drove to see (usually) prog rock bands around the country. We didn’t bother on the way back as our ears would still be ringing from an 110dB or more assault.
Daring and ahead of its time. But I never attempted to make music with it, even if I could.
Enter Wynd (Morten Larsen) who has gone and done just that, albeit with equipment somewhat more advanced than mine. His single ‘The Shores’ was recorded on a four-track TASCAM cassette recorder, in isolation in a remote corner of Zealand, Denmark.
But it isn’t so stripped-back that he couldn’t find room for harmonica, mandolin, acoustic guitar and violin to support the rising emotions of the song and his fragile vocal.
The substance of the story is that just as the pull of the tide reshapes the shoreline so his love was prised away from him.
But that tide will come back in again and his wish and hope is that it will one day bring her back even if his efforts to date have been inadequate:
“I wanted to write her a letter/but we’ve said everything and more/so I’ll write about nothing and forever/and how the waves eat away at the shore’.
Years go by and she’s “still inside” and Wynd debates in his head the ultimate outcome with lines like:
“She lives on the shores of my mind/and she’s not really sure how to find/the will to go swimming”
…and
“And one day I’ll wake up and find/she’s gone swimming”.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast as Alexander Pope said in 1733. But that hope can be as destructive as despair if applied irrationally.
It’s a simple song, simply put. But it says much in its four minutes and 20 seconds. In fact it is so well written that on the second hearing it occurred to me how well it would have fitted Arcade Fire’s Grammy award winning album ‘The Suburbs’ in which every song pertained to the loss of friendship and love. The writing is genuinely of that quality.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
Wynd marks both a musical and personal turning point for Morten Larsen. Over the past seven years, working in London he has been a producer, musician, and songwriter with a range of successful Afrobeat and rap artists, including Skepta, Rema, Headie One and Libianca. I would never have guessed that. And I hope he carries on in this direction.
‘The Shores’ is released independently via AWAL. More new music is on the way, with a debut EP set for release in 2026.
Find him on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_wynd__
