Three years after his debut solo album, Kick The Ladder, Kaktus Einarsson returns with a record that gives his prolific career a new start. Named Lobster Coda, the collection of eight tracks can be treated as a transition from one phase of life to another. “It’s me breaking out of a shell, a hard lobster shell,” says the artist. “It’s a visualisation of nowness that I have for this.”
Lobster Coda is Einarsson’s most personal work to date. The songs were written while the young musician was in the process of recovering from functional neurological disorder (FND), which suddenly impacted the artist’s life in September 2022.
“I was at my father’s exhibition [Miniature by Einar Örn] and everything was getting blurry,” Kaktus recalls. “I was meeting a lot of people there, it was in a dark room and I really couldn’t see them well. So I had to say, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t see you well enough.’ People started to suggest different things — go home to bed, go to the ER or go out for a fresh air… basically a lot of different opinions on how to make me feel better. I was saying, ‘I’ll just chill, let’s see how it goes.’ But when I relaxed, I started feeling a bit heavy, my legs started to be a bit careful of what they were doing. It was kind of a safety mechanism of the body.”
Connection to body
Having called the after hours clinic, Kaktus was advised to go to the ER immediately. A nurse said over the phone the symptoms sounded like a stroke. A panic attack followed. “My nervous system had an immediate response: Fuck, I might be fucked,” he recalls. “I came out of this panic attack rebooted so strangely. I had all these weird facial tics, I couldn’t control my legs, and it got worse and worse.” Diagnosed with FND, the artist embarked on a long healing process.
As time went by, Kaktus was gradually restoring his connection with his body. “My nervous system just went on a holiday. I had two months of pretty hardcore work on myself not walking correctly at all. Finally, when I was walking correctly, it was very slow.”
“Life was very slow-paced. It was beautiful, very beautiful. I took one of my calmest friends out for a walk, leading it at such a slow tempo. And I said, ‘Yeah, man, this is my new tempo.’ He said that was amazing. You see things differently when you walk that slowly.”
White burn
While a newfound embrace for deceleration might hint that Lobster Coda could be an ambient album, it is actually more dynamic than its predecessor. Starting with a lulling pace, bossa-nova-tinged “White Burn” speeds up, its keyboard arpeggios evoking shimmering water.
Although Lobster Coda does not aim to give an account of Kaktus’ recovery process, it has a few referential points. Coloured with serotinal melancholy, the opening title track begins with the line, “I found my tempo this year.”
Still, it is the conclusive thoughts and realisation rather than steps to overcome his condition that defines Kaktus’ record.
A few tracks, in particular — “Daze Gold” and “Heart Spell” — strike a balance between gossamer and pounding, finding the artist questioning his ability to love. “The lyrics for those two songs would come together,” the artist explains. “They sum up the effect that these things had on me. I just had to learn to receive the love surrounding me, to learn how to give love because, in the end, this whole thing is about myself, maybe not controlling my love. It was more all over the place instead of focusing on where it should be. Here I am, a loving partner and a loving father, and I can feel that I’m loved back. When I understood that, this all made sense to me. This is the album, this is the content. This is how I will write about this experience.”
It’s all a Blur
The appreciation of love and being loved go hand in hand with the appreciation of friendship. One of the contributors on Lobster Coda is Blur’s Damon Albarn, whose debut solo album Everyday Robots featured Kaktus as an assistant engineer. Inspired by Albarn’s work at the studio, Kaktus soon found himself back writing songs for Fufanu, an incarnation of his previous techno project Captain Fufanu.
“Damon and I have a history of collaboration,” admits Kaktus. “There is so much mutual understanding of each other’s musicality, which for me is something unique.”
Unlike Kick The Ladder, Kaktus’ second solo work is permeated by ideas from various sides. Among other contributors to Lobster Coda are Nanna, School of X, Thibault Gomez and Albert Finnbogason.
“For me, music is a dialogue,” says Kaktus. “To invite people to join these conversations is a way of dropping my ego. It doesn’t have to be all done by me.”
Hence, “Daze Gold” has a chorus co-written by Rasmus Littauer of School of X. “Rasmus sings in the chorus at the back,” Kaktus continues. “We wanted to celebrate our friendship with music that feels so personal to me. The track is a successful development of our friendship. It reaches out to various moments and connections in life.”
While certainly a testament to love and friendship, Lobster Coda has a certain therapeutic quality. One example where this shines through is on “Koddi,” a gentle lullaby featuring Einarsson playing the piano and singing. Talking from his studio, the artist recalls how he recorded the song (the first in his songwriting career to be written in Icelandic). “I think I just have too many references with many examples of Icelandic music that I don’t like. ‘Koddi’ brings this new element and the beauty about it is that it sounds like a lullaby for my kids but it’s actually a lullaby for myself. I’m just saying that I’ll sleep alright.”
Lobster Coda will be out on October 25 via One Little Independent. Two singles, “Be This Way”, featuring Nanna, and “White Burn” are out now.
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