Sven Wunder Summons The Sublime On 'Daybreak'

"Each album by Swedish composer Sven Wunder masterfully opens a door into a different sonic mise-en-scene, from the East-meets-West psychedelia of Eastern Flowers, to the painterly restraint of Wabi Sabi or the midnight-jazz hush of Late Again. Daybreak could be his most radiant yet: a slow-blooming, analog-toned instrumental voyage that charts the emotional arc of a single day from pre-dawn shimmer to golden hour contemplation. Throughout, recurring musical themes appear in multiple instrumental, rhythmic and textural guises, almost like sunlight refracted through the waters of Lake Vänern."

"But Daybreak is funkier and more sensual than past efforts, with excitable, David Axelrod-style bass lines, wah-wah guitar and syncopated drums adding muscle to the elegance. That this music comes from Joel Danell - a shy aesthete who rarely performs on his own records and could easily pass for a university lecturer - only adds to its mystique."

"One of Daybreak 's signatures is its recycling of melody. A single theme, introduced via flute on opener "Setting Off," reappears again and again throughout, reshaped each time. Sometimes it's handed to strings or translated into mallet percussion or electric piano; others, it floats atop a groove or dissolves into a gorgeous countermelody ("Scenic Byway"). Rather than feeling repetitive, this technique binds the music together, like the subtle shifts of light across a familiar landscape."

Daybreak maps the emotional arc of a single day through slow-blooming, analog-toned instrumental pieces. The album uses a global palette—woodwinds, strings, hand drums, fingerpicked acoustic guitar and brass—arranged with both deep digging taste and precise orchestration. Funkier elements appear via David Axelrod-style bass lines, wah-wah guitar and syncopated drums, lending muscle to gentle elegance. Joel Danell produces the music with a reserved, behind-the-scenes sensibility, rarely foregrounding himself. A single theme introduced on flute recurs in varied instrumental and textural guises, creating cohesion while evoking vintage library and film-score moods without standard verse-chorus forms.

Read at SPIN