If you’re a fan of Causa Sui, then you’ll know the featured photo is not an up to date shot of the Danish psych/prog/post/fuzz rockers. That’s because these cats have better things to do than update promo photos.
What are those better things? I don’t know, like run one of the most prestigious and musically progressive independent record labels to come along in nearly two decades. Yes, that would be El Paraiso Records which is run by Causa Sui members Jonas Munk and Jakob Skott. Besides Causa Sui these two sound wizards work in many other projects and collaborations making music that runs the gamut from Krautrock, jazz-inflected psych, pristine ambient, desert stoner rock, and sci fi-adjacent drum n synth freakouts. And they do all of these while running a label, producing other artists, and have home lives just like the rest of us normies.
Last we heard from Causa Sui was 2020’s excellent Szabodelico, a tropical-flavored stomp into jazzier, ethereal territory. It was a bold musical statement that painted dreamier landscapes, lush arrangements, and left the fuzzier rock territory at the studio door.
The Danish 4-piece has returned with the heady, proggy From The Source. A tour-de-force in 70s album side jams, complete with an album side multiple part masterpiece that will have you cranking the basement Hi Fi and restuffing your bean bag chair for optimal zone out. I talked to Jonas and Jakob about all things From The Source, so give it a read below.
J Hubner : It’s been 4 years since the release of Causa Sui’s last studio album, the excellent Szabodelico. It was the end of 2020 and the world was looking pretty bleak, but Szabodelico was a sonic escape from all of that. Besides the Loppen 2021 release the band has been quiet.
But it seems the quiet period is over as the band is readying the all new From The Source. Can you tell me how long the writing and recording process for the new record was?
Jakob Skott : Thanks, yeah, good to be back! We finished recording Szabodelico in 2019, so we had a long period with not much going on, besides the odd live show once or twice a year. So we made a conscious effort to get a good work routine going, which really paid off this time around. Me and Rasmus would go from Copenhagen to Odense on the train and we’d have about 5-6 hours in our studio before going back on the last train, so that sort of set the template, which is the perfect span of time to get warmed up, drink a few beers & listen to a bit of music and do 1 or 2 really productive things. Then repeat that a few weeks later, so I think we ended up working for about 3-4 months before the basic tracks were all there.
Jonas Munk : I feel like we were quite efficient, but looking back it actually did take quite a bit of work. We started in September last year and had 2-3 sessions a month until January 2024. On top of that I had a couple of individual sessions with Jess and Rasmus, working out a few bass and keyboard parts. Then guitar and key overdubs, as well as mixing and mastering throughout February and March. And a lot of the basic ideas for these tracks actually came from an improv session all the way back from 2022. So all in all we put in the hours!
J Hubner : Going in to write and record, were there any ideas or concepts that the band wanted to explore? Any sonic touchstones Causa Sui wanted to add in to flavor the record? It has a very 70s vibe to it. Very exploratory, especially with the album side “Visions of a New Horizon” at close to 25 minutes long.
Jonas Munk : With Szabodelico we were quite intentional about making a different kinda record, where we dug deeply into this other side of the band. With “From The Source” I felt totally comfortable leaning into the ‘Causa Sui sound’. I think you can hear all our records in this one, and there are traces of a lot of El Paraiso releases. We definitely play around with a few new flavors as well, but more than anything I think it’s about wholeheartedly embracing the sound we’ve cultivated and refined over the years.
J Hubner : In general, does Causa Sui like to come to the studio with a blank slate and just see where the session takes the band? Are there ever any specific ideas going in to write an album, or is it always a more improvisational situation? I feel like Szabodelico was a very intentional record with a specific vibe to it, inspired especially by the great Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó.
There’s a proggy vibe with From The Source, and the song titles suggest an almost fantasy, dystopian quality with track titles like “Sorcerer’s Disciple” and “Dusk Dwellers”. Is there something to that, or am I just reading too much into it?
Jonas Munk : We haven’t discussed any narrative or album concept in any way, but the beauty of doing quite abstract, instrumental music is that it’s open to whatever the listener projects into it. That’s always quite important to us – to not overpower the listener with a specific message, and keep the music open to a multitude of meanings. As for the prog: hell yeah! There’s proggy vibes on this record! We’ve been listening to lots of Frank Zappa as well during these sessions, which I’m sure has rubbed off on the new music, one way or another.
Jakob Skott : Szabodelico was very much an ad hoc approach, going with the flow from start to finish. But on From the Source we really worked on the songs – most basic ideas came from an improv session we did a year before starting the refinement sessions, so maybe the time worked for us, in the sense that we could hear different directions in the early concepts and create more of a structure around them.
Jonas Munk : We definitely put more effort into the songwriting and the architecture of the whole thing this time around, whereas Szabodelico was more the result of a “zen” kinda strategy. Creating interesting song structures – with changes, bridges, breakdowns and so on – does require a whole lot of effort. You meet problems all the time that need to be solved, and you need to do so in a way that doesn’t ruin the natural flow of the song – you wanna fulfill the potential of the material to the max without sacrificing the initial spark that gives the thing energy. Even though we do plan most things out in advance, we always leave room for improvisation and for the unexpected to happen – those happy accidents, or weird telepathic moments where we somehow go slightly beyond our abilities. I’d say at least 20% of any given track is unplanned.
Jakob Skott : Sometimes you can really suffocate a good idea by over-rehearsing it. We struggled with some tempo problems with The Spot, and I remember that Jonas had noted down which versions worked the best & measured their BPM, and we found out it was because the tempo climbed along the way in a certain way. So we had to start pretty slow and then rise and fall down a specific level again for each part of the song to really work. Which can be pretty daring, because it’s all dependent on these micro factors, like if it’s hot or you just ate or had a few beers you perceive the tempo differently…
J Hubner : I was wondering if you could break down “Dusk Dwellers” for me. It’s the quietest of the four tracks. Almost a melancholy psychedelia, and Rasmus really gives the song a soulful feel with his electric piano part. Very Ray Manzarek-like.
Jakob Skott : What we learned from Szabodelico and very intently brought into these sessions, is the fact that the more we record live, the better the vibe. It’s very hard to just record drums and bass and then add everything else afterwards when you want a dynamic ebb and flow. So it means that Jonas & Rasmus had to have their things dialed in as well, so it’s much more harrowing doing takes where everything has to click. Especially on a track like Dusk Dwellers, where the keys and guitars are sort of leading the way and everybody is responding to the dynamics. It’s much more different than in the past, where especially the keys were more of an afterthought, a spice added on top of a power trio. So Rasmus really brought it on keys every session, and the album is our most dynamic because of it.
Jonas Munk : Rasmus’ playing is amazing on each of these tracks. I definitely think he’s done some of his best work on this record. As for Dusk Dwellers, it’s a good example of how we keep 20% of the track open for improvisation. We had prepared some key and guitar modules for this track – various patterns – but the way we’d sequence these modules would be different every time we’d play it. In the end we had three usable takes that were all a bit different in structure, length and dynamics. The take we ended up using on the album just seemed to have an extra magic moment or two.
J Hubner : And can we talk about the epic “Visions of a New Horizon”? I’m not sure if Causa Sui has recorded something as epic as this since Summer Sessions and “Visions of Summer”. Was this several sessions patchworked together in the editing process?
Jonas Munk : It was actually written part for part, starting with the first one. And each section was recorded in separate sessions. The second part was the hardest to get completely right – that took us two full recording sessions and 14-15 takes totally. We recorded parts 4, 5 and 6 as one continuous track, but ended up splicing two different takes of it together. Then we had a few overdub sessions as well. So quite a bit of work and editing went into this one! At some point I’d love to play it live and see if we could pull it off. It would be quite a challenge for sure.
J Hubner : Where do you see Causa Sui going in the future? Or do you as a band just take things one album at a time?
Jonas Munk : It’s interesting, you can’t really predict how it’ll evolve – it’s like a garden, it has to grow at its own pace. The best you can do is cultivate it and tend the soil, then see what it’ll grow into.
J Hubner : With From The Source here and released into the wild, what’s next for each of you? Are there solo projects in the works? Any live appearances this summer? What’s the schedule look like for El Paraiso Records for the remainder of 2024?
Jonas Munk : We actually have a handful of shows planned, which is more than usual! We’ll be spending a bit of time in the studio as well over summer.
From The Source is out now. Grab a vinyl or CD copy over at El Paraiso Records now.
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