The Third Sound - Most Perfect Solitude (2024) [Hi-Res]

‘Most Perfect Solitude’ is the sixth studio album from The Third Sound, due out May 17th on Fuzz Club. The follow-up to 2022' 'First Light' LP marks a new chapter, in terms of both sound and personnel, for the Berlin psych/post-punk band led by Icelandic musician and author Hakon Adalsteinsson. “After touring ‘First Light’ heavily and releasing our Fuzz Club Session LP last year – a career-spanning, retrospective document – this album feels like starting with a clean slate”, Haken says. Written and recorded in under two weeks, during a rare gap in his non-stop touring schedule as guitarist in The Brian Jonestown Massacre and new project Golden Hours at that time, ‘Most Perfect Solitude’ introduces a new Third Sound line-up: Hakon and long-time member Robin Hughes (Organ/Guitar) now joined by Frankie Broek (drums) and Wim Janssens (bass). As well as the line-up changes, Hakon reflects, “There is a certain warmth to some of the songs that has not been there before, but they still flicker between light and shadows, kind of like a slow motion audio version of Brion Gysin‘s Dreamachine.” On the one hand, jangly ‘60s 12-strings and breezy melodies shine on tracks like ‘Another Time, Another Place’ and ‘On Returning’, undoubtedly The Third Sound at their most radiant. Yet the record is not without its darker, heavier moments either – see the scuzzy psych-rock drone ‘Veiled’ or soon-to-be live favourite ‘Wasteland’, which sets a nightmarish vision of a city in ruins to the tune of heavy fuzz-guitar repetition and hypnotic drums. The album’s title is a phrase lifted from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and found by way of Werner Herzog’s journal writings in ‘Of Walking In Ice’, documenting the film-makers walk from Munich to Paris, which Hakon was reading whilst on the road himself: “Many of the songs touched on the theme of trips or some sort of travel, so I knew immediately that it was going to be the title. When you are travelling or touring you can find yourself in a weird sort of isolation, whilst also often looking for solitude to get away from everything. And, sometimes, it is best to listen to music in that most perfect solitude.”