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Edena Gardens — Dispossessed
(El Paraiso EPR081, 2025, LP / CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-08-30

Dispossessed Cover art

With many labels of yore — Harvest, Vertigo Swirl, Egg, early Virgin, and so many more — one could just blindly buy product from them and know that the results would be excellent. And so it is today with the Danish label El Paraiso. I can’t think of a single recording on the label that hasn’t exceeded my expectations; mostly they work with the instrumental jam-band artists from across Denmark, the UK, and even the United States, but there is a consistency to all the music they release, and if it works for one, one can be assured it will work for all the others. Edena Gardens started life in 2022, an El Paraiso supergroup if there could be such a thing, featuring Jakob Skøtt from Causa Sui on drums, Nicklas Sørensen from Papir on guitar, and Martin Rude from London Odense Ensemble and Sun River on baritone guitar and bass. It’s been a couple years since the trio released anything new, but with Dispossessed they seem to have picked up right where they left off in 2023 without missing a single beat — more heavy, more cosmic, more psychedelic than ever, maintaining their previous impressive trajectory and upping the ante some beyond that. When one hears the thunderous opener “Hiraeth,” the heart is right at home, in a mix of super-heavy slow-bluesy-groove with swirling psychedelic guitar that’s guaranteed to make you think of Jimi Hendrix at least a few times across its seven minute duration. Each of the album’s eight tracks will create an immersive, dreamy environment for the mind to get lost within. The delicate introduction to “Vanishing Point” slowly builds in intensity — it’s around three or four minutes in when you turn around and realize you’re halfway up the mountain and the cosmic power is full-on. The primary foundation is borne of free improvisation in a deep bluesy groove, with all three members giving it all; one can hear Sørensen’s guitar crying on “Heim” as it flows through the structures set up by Rude and Skøtt, absolutely beautiful. Appropriately, the ten minute closer “Aftenstjerne” (“Evening Star”) is another slow builder, with every single note carefully placed into an ambient swirling macrocosm that opens the sky wide, nothing goes to waste. A wondrous 48-minute ride.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Edena Gardens

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