Vilde Releases New Album THUD, Available Now

Today is release day for Thud - the thundering, sprawling and downright incredible new album from Vilde!

Vilde is the Melbourne/Stockholm based project of Thomas Savage. The project was birthed via Savage's ploy to write, record & release one song per month for 12 months, which became the compilation album entitled 'Study/Dance'. Thud is a new turn for Vilde. The synths get eerie & chilly. The kick-snare heavy drum samples get abrasive. The time-signatures get disconcerting. The character gets potent. We're dragged into the bizarre structuring of Savage's musical landscapes, unavoidably pondering such possible parallels in his own life. Vilde came out guns blazing with first two singles 'Flash In The Pan' & 'Warm Milk' - having both received praise from the likes of The Guardian, Clash Music, The 405 and Indie Shuffle - which place as tracks 1 & 2 on Thud. However the album takes a rather different turn after this, moving through various moments of minimal rawness such as in 'Rabbit Hole' & 'Gawking Gaping Swallows', on to the trudging, thumping 'Salted' and finally into the cyclical hypnotic loopings of 13 minute album-closer 'Meadow'.

When recently asked to describe his music, Savage replied: "Unsatisfied. Raw. Unlikable." And ofThud, Savage explains:

"Making Thud was a new experience for me. I realised that it felt like years since I had really gone deep into music & buried myself in the process of it. I felt that I'd lost touch with the concept of self-disciplined work ethic in music. Eventually my self-application had become merely whimsical and I had come to believe inspiration was reliable. My productivity waned. I felt an urge to prove to myself that I could actually commit to something with serious work ethic & follow it through."

He continues: "I hadn't any idea for a theme in the beginning, I tend to babble out words over the music in order to come upon something. The conscious element in the process is quite limited, it's mostly reliant upon feeling resonance in the words rather than a specific line of thought. Sometimes I bring in some more conscious thinking, but If I really succeed, they somehow manage to fall into linear coherency. I'm in it for the feeling of experiencing what poured out of me afterwards, rather than attempting to express any sort of certainty. If I was certain about something I suppose it'd be better as a novel.

A persistent theme that eventuated was our relationship to technology & social media in 2017. I feel like the record almost became a plea for people to put down their phones and speak to each other, or even just to sit and think. But if this is the future for us, one should just accept it right?"

Taking his trademark penchant for intelligent art-rock with pop-sensibilities, Thud is perhaps the best distillation of Vilde's unique style to date.

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