The spa-pop duo GENTS are ready with their sophomore album, HUMAN CONNECTION. It hits the shelves of shops, both on- and offline, as LP, CD and 1’s and 0’s, on Friday 11 October.
”HUMAN CONNECTION is a comment on the divide between ubiquitous technology and being present. Without romanticising the past, we wanted to remind ourselves and others not to get lost in the jungle of technology and the optimisation race that permeates our time,” say Niels Fejrskov Juhl and Theis Vesterløkke AKA GENTS. ”We have to remember ourselves and each other.”
This call be present in a technologically rooted world serves as the thematic red thread across the eight songs of the album, HUMAN CONNECTION.
On lead single Right On Time this is reflected in a manner that is at once light as a feather and full of gravity. Where the verse is relaxed and laidback, like a spa visit, the chorus feels like jumping from epsom-saltwater into a lowrider kitted out with massive speakers and a subwoofer, as if in a scene from Grand Theft Auto.
On Emotional Facelift, championed by tastemaker magazine the 405, vocalist Niels Fejrskov Juhl’s voice is heavily modulated, so a semi-robotic version of him sings of needing an ‘emotional facelift’: “It is a race against the deadlines in my head / and the countdown in my chest” – an android of sorts tells us to pay heed to the signals of our mind and body, and to be present.
Set to Jan Hammer-esque steadiness, the album title tracks, Human Connection pt. 1 and 2, encapsulate the overall theme, choosing a human connection over social media-induced doubt and individualism: “I’m only a person / I’ve got flaws and imperfections / Life is a compromise / I choose the human connection”.
HUMAN CONNECTION was slated to be released in the spring of 2019, but GENTS had so many things to see to that they, well, lost sight of them. While making HUMAN CONNECTION, they played their biggest show to date, headlining the famous VEGA venue in their native Copenhagen, Denmark. Around the same time, they were shooting music videos in the US, and designed a clothing collection with Indian/American company BISKIT. All of these were things that they really wanted to do, but it was too many things at once:
“When you’re moving too fast, things around you start to blur. We could feel it happening to us and it seemed ironic, given the album we had just made and its theme of being present and connected. So we took a break, chose to postpone the release, and let things come into focus once more.”
