“Always, I have believed that artist albums need a purpose” says Johan Gielen

‘Always, I have believed that artist albums need a purpose’ says Johan Gielen, ‘and that purpose can’t simply be feeding the industry machine or the bi-annual expectations of a fanbase’. Nonetheless, it’s been nigh on twenty years since ‘Revelations’ appeared, making ‘Etherflow’ less of a ‘return’ to the Johan Gielen longplayer, and more a musical reckoning for it.

Fair to say then that expectations have been raised, and its taken the Belgium-born/Dutch-based legend three earth cycles of production to meet them. An album forged in grief, resilience, and a raw creative truth, ‘Etherflow’ isn’t just a long-awaited ‘next chapter’. It’s part an epic celebration of life, and part an existential excavation of it – one that’s been written from the inside out and charged by the weight of lived experience.

As Johan himself puts it: ‘there’s the Beauty of Si