Mikael Lind is a Swedish composer based in Reykjavik, Iceland who has released on labels including Archives, Time Released Sound, Dronarivm and Polar Seas. In 2020 we released his solo album Give Shape To Space and also a collaborative EP called RAMMI, with Sævar Johannsson. Johanna Sjunnesson is a cellist based in Sweden, who performs as part of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and as a soloist too, with shows at Konserthuset and Berwaldhallen in Stockholm, the Grammy Gala, the Polar Music Prize Banquet, and more. In 2021 she released the EP Celistial, a collection of her interpretations of works by Bach, Purcell, Marais, Vivaldi, and Dowland, creatively mixed with electronic effects by Mikael Lind to create classical music for the 21st century.

Their collaboration began in Reykjavik, as Mikael established a bedrock of sound through piano, synths, electronics and effect treatments, before Johanna added the cellos from Sweden, through several remote file sharing exchanges. They intended to create a balance of slow, majestic beauty in their work, alongside more upbeat, rhythmically interesting parts, all the while underpinned by their shared love for modern classical music. The themes they explored and felt attached to were waves, flow and parallels; weaving linguistic metaphors into their music, without ever resting on anything clear and tangible. This allows the music to express itself, with the artwork and track titles serving only to enhance its impact.

This short album is named Wave Cycles and is in part inspired by the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus who travelled to Iceland in 1772 to investigate the botanical specimens of the island. The delicate textures and timbres of Lind and Sjunesson’s music reflect the finely-balanced natural world; there is an inter-dependence between each sound, allowed to thrive in its own eco-system and building to be greater than the sum of its parts. There is a dynamism and wealth of expression in these pieces, which will bring about stirring, life-affirming waves of emotion within its listener.