arbitrary presents Terrain Vague II - the second album by Danish electro-acoustic trio MESMER. With this work, the trio creates a sensuous and reflective space to inhabit in a time marked by speed, noise, and digital fragmentation.

Terrain Vague II emerges from field recordings made in Læsø, Frederikshavn, and Aalborg in Denmark. Using environmental sounds from harbors, coastlines, and the outskirts of the city, MESMER explores the places where nature and culture intersect. These field recordings are not atmospheric background, but rather the architectural foundation of the work — carriers of social, historical, and sensory traces. Through improvisation, compositional structures, and an electro- acoustic setup featuring synthesizers, trumpet, percussion, and modular systems, these traces are transformed into personal and collective sonic journeys.

The title refers to the concept of terrain vague: indeterminate transitional zones with open potential. For MESMER, it becomes an image of a society in motion. Rather than offering definitive answers, the trio creates an open listening space in which the boundaries between the composed and the improvised, the controlled and the free, dissolve. Listening is activated here as a conscious act — an opportunity to reconnect with place, presence, and community.

In relation to their debut work Terrain Vague (arbitrary19, 2023), MESMER has developed their practice in a more consistently site-specific and spatial direction. While the first work established the trio’s shared language between field recording and electro-acoustic composition, Terrain Vague II allows the specific geographies to structure the music. Improvisation comes clearly to the fore, contrasts are sharpened, and the tension between the individual and the collective is pronounced. With this work, the format is also expanded — realized as an album, a concert-series, and an installation.

MESMER — Emil Jensen, Victor Dybbroe, and Anders Filipsen — have worked closely together for more than 15 years across music, film, radio, and installation. Their long-standing collaboration, recognized with two Danish Music Awards (DMA) and works created for renowned museums, lends the music a rare intuitive precision.

With Terrain Vague II, MESMER refines and deepens their artistic position. They offer a space for slowness and attentiveness within a complex present — and insist on sound’s capacity to open new ways of being in the world.

Recorded and produced by Mesmer at Huset i Aalborg, Maskinhallen i Frederikshavn, Læsø Kunsthal and Taverna Centrale i Vanløse, DK, 2025 & 2026. Mixed and mastered by Mads Emil Nielsen. Cover art, graphic design by Mesmer / Mads Emil Nielsen / Sinikka McKay.