Black Sea Dahu – Everything

Eight years have passed since Black Sea Dahu released their single In Case I Fall for You, which was a genuine hit by Swiss indie music standards. This initial success was followed by their debut album White Creatures, and, four years later, by their second album I Am My Mother.

In addition, the band led by sisters Janine and Vera Cathrein has earned a reputation as tireless workers and DIY enthusiasts; they tour Europe practically nonstop on their mission to foster interpersonal relationships through music. No easy feat for a quintet.

On 20 February, Everything will be released, a groundbreaking third album that grew out of the grief over the passing of Janine and Vera’s father. You can hear the unbridled pain, the incomprehensibility of the void left behind. But at the same time, the songs offer warmth, closeness and comfort. Janine Cathrein says, „I wasn’t making an album. I was building a place to carry this grief.“

I wish it was you driving up in your van that has always been yellow
Never a day that I don't think of you
With your tools in one hand
Oh I'm not myself
Tend to blend into the background these days

A year has gone by and I struggle to stand
I wander through forests
You're gone and I don't understand

The album was not recorded in a professional studio, but over several weeks in a remote house on the edge of a forest in the Graubünden Alps. The living room became a space occupied by the band and shared with friends. That’s how Everything came about. And so, despite their heavy themes, the songs sound familiar, inviting and approachable. There’s that fire that comes when music is played live—and with Black Sea Dahu, it doesn’t just smoulder, it crackles in the brightest, most colourful hues.

At this point, I would normally dive into individual songs, but that hardly works with Everything. Obviously, among these eight songs (and one interlude), there are personal favourites such as the overwhelming One Day Will Be All I Have or the encouraging Superpower, and of course, there are also those that are less impressive on their own. But dividing this album into pieces and examining them does it no justice.

As a whole, Everything is an outstanding work that dances between folk, country, Mediterranean flair and cool mountain air. Sometimes Black Sea Dahu erupt like a volcano, exploding in cinematic opulence. Sometimes they sound like the soundtrack to a spy thriller. And sometimes Janine Cathrein sings unprotected and intimately in the room, accompanied only by a guitar. But whether expansive or reduced in composition, vulnerability and honesty run through the album, connecting the pieces and creating something breathtaking.

Everything is by no means an easy listen; the emotional background weighs too heavily. But it is a gem of craftsmanship, a treasure for anyone who appreciates human-made music.

There are albums you have to listen to. There are albums you have to move to. And then there are albums like Black Sea Dahu’s Everything, where you have to listen to your heart to fully appreciate their effect.