The 2meetu title -correctly- suggests the influence from Prince and his style of writing song titles. It serves as a small ode to commemorate the late artist from Minneapolis who always had such a major influence on Ewald’s music.
The lyrical theme of the album’s title song 2meetu is about the process of saying farewell to the pillars of one’s youth and the somewhat unbearable thought that any interaction or contact with these people will be secluded forever. The whole album breathes an atmosphere of this sadness augmented by the loss and detachment from events unfolding in the real world where freedom and progressive thinking is becoming increasingly under pressure. The music almost becomes a way to escape from these harsh realities.
Originally the goal of the album was to collect a string of compositional sketches, mainly in the domain of electronic music, that had been composed and recorded between late 2015 and May 2016. But while in the process of making that compilation new songs were composed, recorded, finished and a number of these new songs made their way into this album. The album 2meetu has an outspoken electronic character: the Roland TR-8 drum computer is omnipresent in the tracks and there is little to no room for guitars or acoustic instruments. The album is instrumental with the exception of the vocal title track.
Despite the more dark atmosphere throughout the album 2meetu starts with a rather light hearted, almost frivole track: From Silence…to Sound followed by the album’s main and most prominent track 2meetu, a melodic and catchy 3 minute statement.
It’s Getting Late sounds dark, fast and mysterious, while next track Festival of Light has a more conventional and melodic approach. Syntheblues is exactly what the song title suggests: the mix of a blues inspired chord scheme with synthesizer music: the Moog bass fulfils a prominent role in this track.
Next comes an ambitious yet peacefully arranged track Whitestar. The composition started its life with the intention to become a vocal track, yet the version on this album is an instrumental one. The song was composed as the anti pole of Bowie’s Blackstar. Whitestar tells the tale of the people who must cope with the loss of the Blackstars, the deceased ones.The songs ends in a heavily synthesized ethereal segment that serves as the outro of the song. This outro is strongly reminiscent of 1970s synthesizer music, like for example you can find on Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle.
The final song Au Revoir was inspired and written around the time of the terrorist assaults in Paris in November 2015. It serves as a memory to an era of freedom and (the feeling of) progress coming to an end. Yet Au Revoir is not the album’s final track as it is followed by two more, hidden instrumental tracks, Hidden and Where both songs finished right in time before the album’s release. Hidden has some similarities with the music that Stevie Wonder produced in the 1970s, while Where is exploring ambient musical textures. These hiddentracks brings the running time of Au Revoir to almost 10 minutes and the album itself to 30 minutes.
2meetu will be available from July 2nd 2016 on all major music streaming and download services.