Virak’s debut album Threads was reissued on May 29 via Forward Backwards Recordings, available digitally and on vinyl. The release is now posthumous for frontman, guitarist, and songwriter Martin Ejlertsen, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2022 and died on May 23, 2026, at 49. Threads was his final musical project. Ejlertsen lived in Lund, Sweden, and is survived by his wife and two children.
He founded Black Light White Light in 2009 and released four studio albums between 2011 and 2022. The band toured the UK and US, received coverage in CLASH Magazine, Louder Than War, Drowned in Sound, Guitar World, and Artrocker, and had airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music with Lauren Laverne, Absolute Radio, and DR.DK. On their latest album The Admirer, the track ‘Epilepsy’ stands out as Ejlertsen wrote it for his daughter, who has the condition, and it is supported by a powerful music video. The album was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Kennie Takahashi (The Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley, Broken Bells), mastered by Matt Colton (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Thom Yorke), and features composer Davide Rossi (Coldplay, The Verve).
Between 2002 and 2009, Virak’s original lineup featured Martin Ejlertsen on vocals, guitar, and keys, Christian Kühne on bass and keys, and Peter Dyring Olsen on drums. Influenced by Mogwai, Spiritualized, Low, Elbow, and Sophia, the trio developed a sound that merged instrumental post-rock, slowcore, progressive rock, and seventies acid rock.
Beneath the surface, ‘Where It All Begins,’ pulses with a quiet, hard-won resilience, channeling a profound personal intensity that turns every jagged guitar line and soaring vocal into a testament to creativity forged in the midst of overwhelming darkness. The music carries an undercurrent of finality and catharsis, as if each note is an act of defiance and reclamation, making the most of fleeting time by pouring light into what could easily have remained unresolved. Those unconventional guitars twist and fracture like fragmented memories, while the haunting vocals rise with a fragile beauty that speaks to the ache of confronting life’s limits, transforming private struggles into something universally moving and luminous.
Critics have praised how Threads (and its companion EP) captures Virak at their most emotionally naked, blending alt-rock introspection with cinematic swells that feel both nostalgic and urgently alive. The result is a stirring, deeply human message: music that doesn’t just echo influences but transcends them, offering listeners a shared sense of solace.
Martin Ejlertsen had this to say: “I have been very private about my illness… it has been like a long waking nightmare. But now I probably only have a few months left to live, so it’s about making the best of the last. Having this album project has given me some light in an otherwise completely dark and very depressing time.”
Stream Threads:
Threads Album Tracklist:
1. Little Creeps
2. Souls
3. Who I Am = You
4. Something Strange Happened As We Stood By The Lake
5. Arms Raised
6. Desert Storm
7. Butterfly
8. Violence
9. Melancholia
10. Song Of Everything
11. Where It All Begins
Follow Virak:
Bandcamp – Facebook – Soundcloud
