Danish composer, songwriter and vocalist Emil Friis paints a compelling sonic portrait of a world that lives just beyond the edges of the one we know on his latest album Sand In Your Eyes. Sometimes dark and tinged with sadness, yet flickering with glimmering possibility, Friis’ songs glow faintly from within with the warmth of our shared humanity.
Copenhagen based Friis started work on Sand In Ygour Eyes with his right hand in a cast, broken in a freak accident. Originally conceived for a French Gangster film, the title track is the inspired first result of that break – a distinct, signature blend of taut, suspenseful cinematic sounds and traditional songwriting – one which holds the key to the album and the songs that follow. In his own words:
“When I first wrote that song for the movie, I didn’t know an album would come out of it; but completing it set a new way forward for me and I just kept going. I’ve always loved film, at one point I thought I’d be a filmmaker myself. I made it as far as the set of Eyes Wide Shut, which is kind of crazy I guess. The highlight of my movie career. It’s impossible to deny, that’s where some of these new sounds came from.”
Recorded over a three-year period at Jesper Folke Olsen’s massive studio in the remote, tiny village of Østbirk, as the album unfolds we drift into a lyrical dreamscape, woven through with tales of family, time and history. Sand In Your Eyes frames the life of the city, parenthood, and the timeless, universal struggle of the working man and all the anxieties that go with it, digging deep into things we might all recognize. Sonically Friis’ production and arrangements set the craft of the songwriter to a backdrop of dark, yet beautifully hewn, painterly sounds.
Glide Magazine is premiering the video for title track “Sand In Your Eyes,” which stars Danish actress Silja Eriksen in a moving episode of anguish. Friis commands the story though with his carefully chosen words and engaging vocal style that reminds listeners of David Gray and The National.
