After All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea (2023) and Black Clouds Above The Bows (2022), Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the final entry of their album trilogy for Important Records (IMPREC). Conceived as a sonic reflection on the climate crisis and its devastating impact on coastal ecosystems, Ghosts Beneath The Brine (2026) addresses the mass deaths of fish, seabirds, crustaceans and countless other creatures that call these seas home, now rapidly being overfished, warming and acidifying.

Where antique cavalry trumpets played a central role on Black Clouds Above The Bows and a dying church organ shaped All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea, cymbals form the core of Ghosts Beneath The Brine. The instruments were submerged in seawater for extended periods of time and played with a bow at various stages of corrosion. As the bronze alloy gradually reacted with the saltwater, their sound transformed, becoming darker, more fragile and unstable. Over time, the metal began to sing in ghostly overtones, as if haunted by the waters that shaped it. Much like large groups of fish shimmering beneath the surface, the cymbals slowly lost their shine, both sonically and physically, as salt and time took hold.

Alongside its environmental narrative, the album draws from maritime mythology. Echoes of the sea bishop, the kraken, devil whales and sea serpents emerge throughout its soundscape. Once feared and revered, these creatures now exist only in the liminal space between folklore and memory, haunting the collective imagination like omens from a forgotten age.

Through immersive textures and submerged harmonies, Wanderwelle intertwines myth andmourning, inviting listeners to drift between the real and the spectral. If humanity continues on its current course, familiar species such as sharks, oysters and even gulls may soon share the same fate as their legendary predecessors, becoming ghosts beneath the brine.

Cymbals (submerged, corroded, played with bow and mallet), cello, voice, bowed guitar, Osmose synthesizer, modular synthesizer, field recordings.

“It immediately evokes images, scenes drifting past you like fragments of a film in which you roam through a spirit of desolation, through an immense skull that serves as the firmament of a windless, nocturnal ocean.’’

-Gonzo(circus)

“(…) rich in timbre, with drone-like harmonics chasing one another until they vanish into nothingness. The allure of its dreamlike and mysterious atmosphere makes the narrative even more compelling.’’

-Rockerilla

“(..) a fragile beauty.’’

-HHV Mag

‘Ghosts Beneath the Brine is hauntingly beautiful.’’

-Seismograf

“Provocative work for sure.’’

-Juno