Search The Line of Best Fit
Search The Line of Best Fit

Denmark's EXEC delivers an emotional gut-punch on beautiful new single "Going Under" [Premiere]

08 January 2016, 10:30 | Written by Andrew Hannah
(Tracks)

"But I know where I am going / I am going under"

On "Going Under" Troels Abrahamsen, the Danish artist who records as EXEC, makes giving yourself over to the fates seem like the most appealing and beguiling thing one could ever do.

The song is a pure construct, with only piano and voice needed to convey Abrahamsen's thoughts and feelings about the futility of striving for the unattainable knowing that we're all more or less destined for the same place in the end - the "going under" of the title. While EXEC draws doleful chords from the keys of his piano, his voice is a shivering timbre which vaults between a deep, rich baritone and the airy high notes reached by someone like Antony Hegarty, a wavering and flickering counterpoint of light against the darkness of the major notes.

This is the third single taken from forthcoming album, inspired by the Nordic psalm tradition, The Limber Real out 12 February on fellow Danish imprint, the reliably excellent Tambourhinoceros. If you've not heard anything by EXEC before then have a listen to the incredible live take of "Life Is a Liquid" recorded at Abrahamsen's debut live show. That's after you've listened to the beauty of "Going Under", below.

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