After recently announcing the new full-band studio album, Mute Swan Empire, out 5th February 2027, Dutch artist CHARLOTTE WESSELS today unveils the record’s first single, entitled ‘Incubus’. Together with her band, now dubbed The Obsession, Charlotte has crafted a character-driven concept album in which each of its 15 songs embodies a different archetype, a personified response to the crises of our world and the perceived end of the Anthropocene. Together, these characters form a fractured portrait of humanity, revealing the ways we confront collapse, all woven into a sonic multiverse that defies genre-categorization.
Enter ‘Incubus,’ a journey through choral soundscapes and heavy instrumentals, inspired by Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” painting. The song gives a face to archetype the Insomniac: it’s about lying awake at night, and about discovering that endurance itself can become a form of power.
CHARLOTTE WESSELS comments on ‘Incubus’: “‘Incubus’is about the things that keep us awake at night, both literally and figuratively. It introduces the Insomniac, one of the archetypes that inhabit Mute Swan Empire: a character lying awake beneath the weight of an incubus, wearing a mask made up of her fears, worries and the many crises unfolding around her. Inspired in part by Henry Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare, the song explores that peculiar space where our inner anxieties and the horrors of the outside world begin to blur. But there is also a certain strength in this character and the very act of perseverance. As the song puts it: ‘You can’t break what’s already broken. You can’t burn what is made of fire.’
“I’m so excited to finally share this piece of Mute Swan Empire with the world. This album has grown into a universe of its own, and I can’t wait for people to start meeting the characters that inhabit it, starting with this sleepless soul.”
CHARLOTTE WESSELS comments the new album, Mute Swan Empire: “I didn’t set out to write a concept record from the start, but somewhere along the way, I began to realise that all the latest songs I’d written were connected. Each of them seemed to embody a different response to the world we’re living in: denial, complicity, withdrawal, blind obedience, selective empathy, but also hope and connection, and so on. I started to recognise these recurring themes and archetypes, and eventually realised they were all part of a much bigger story. I found myself wanting to follow this thread as far as it would take me, exploring the concept through the music first, and eventually through the artwork and imagery too.
“That discovery became the foundation for Mute Swan Empire. What fascinates me is how easy it is to recognise these responses in others, and how much harder it can be to recognise them in ourselves. I didn’t want an album that simply points fingers or offers easy answers. I wanted to explore the contradictions, the uncomfortable grey areas, and the possibility that we can change.
“Musically, the same freedom to follow wherever a song leads has resulted in a record that moves between some of the heaviest music we’ve made and moments of vulnerability. Despite how varied the record is, I think we’ve never sounded more together like a band. Everyone brings something distinct to the music, and I’m really proud of what happens when all those elements come together.”
Pre-order Mute Swan Empire here: http://lnk.to/CharlotteWessels-MuteSwanEmpire/napalmrecords
Photo Credit: Tim Tronckoe