Essential Albums: Carbon Based Lifeforms - Derelicts
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Derelicts, the comeback album that proved ambient music could chart while staying true to its hypnotic roots.
What happens when two Swedish synthesizer obsessives spend six years collecting vintage hardware, leave their record label, and decide to distill twenty years of sonic exploration into one album? They create something that hits #12 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic chart while sounding like music beamed in from a derelict space station.
Carbon Based Lifeforms, the Gothenburg duo of Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Vadestrid, had already established themselves as titans of the psybient scene with Hydroponic Garden, World of Sleepers, and Interloper. But Derelicts, released in October 2017, represented something different: a deliberate synthesis of everything they’d learned, filtered through rooms full of analog gear they’d spent years acquiring.
The result was their most commercially successful album and a masterclass in how to evolve without abandoning what made you essential in the first place.
The Story Behind Derelicts
In 2014, Carbon Based Lifeforms made a bold decision: after ten years with French label Ultimae Records, they left to go independent. They purchased back the rights to their earlier albums, established their own Leftfield Records imprint, and spent months remastering their entire catalog. Only then, in March 2015, did they begin work on what would become Derelicts.
The album’s direction emerged organically from their evolving studio setup. As Vadestrid explained in interviews, “In the years between making Twentythree and until we started work on Derelicts, we’ve been collecting instruments and our setup is now almost entirely based on hardware. This changed both the sound and especially our workflow quite a bit. There’s more grit to the sound but there’s also more depth and details in the sounds this time around.”
Initially, the duo aimed for what they described as “a forests and goblins sort of theme.” But as they swapped software synthesizers for hardware, including a Minimoog, Prophet 12, and various vintage units, the tracks drifted toward what they called “a lo-fi abandoned high-tech direction.” The hardware itself shaped the concept.
Their working process remained collaborative: one member would create an embryo of a track, and if both liked it, they’d develop it together over countless sessions. As Vadestrid noted, “We both like the embryo, we start working on it. One has creative angst and the other one is ‘Oh it’s finished, it’s OK.’ We kind of push each other and pull each other back at the same time.” This dynamic tension pushed them toward tracks with extraordinary depth, polished but not sterile, detailed but never cluttered.
The Sound of Lo-Fi Cosmic Ambience
Derelicts achieves something rare in electronic music: it sounds simultaneously ancient and futuristic. The shift to hardware production gave the album what the duo described as “more grit” while maintaining the crystalline clarity that defines their best work.
Hedberg handles sound design and harmonic architecture while Vadestrid focuses on rhythms and basslines. Their division of labor creates a distinctive push-pull between ethereal atmospheres and grounding pulses. Field recordings from Uddebo, Sweden and Melbourne, Australia add organic texture, while guest vocalist Ester Nannmark appears on four tracks, her voice floating through the mix like transmissions from another dimension.
Essential Tracks:
“Equilibrium” (8:56), The album’s emotional centerpiece builds from a simple melodic seed into an expansive eight-minute journey. It captures the dynamic interplay between Hedberg’s atmospheric pads and Vadestrid’s hypnotic sequencer patterns, demonstrating how CBL transforms repetition into transcendence.
“Dodecahedron” (8:43), Perhaps the heaviest track in the CBL catalog, this piece starts in familiar territory before building into powerful, almost tribal drumming. The drums eventually dissipate, leaving only the skeletal melody, a perfect encapsulation of the “derelict” concept.
“Everwave” (14:21), The closing track is a 14-minute ambient odyssey that Bandcamp Daily described as “a journey into headphone space, low-end pulses underpin swirling puffs of keyboard fog, like clouds of space dust eddying past the window of a capsule that’s broken orbit.” It’s the ultimate late-night headphone experience.
Cultural Context in 2017
Derelicts arrived during a curious moment for electronic music. Streaming had upended album sales, but vinyl was experiencing a renaissance. EDM dominated mainstream consciousness, yet underground scenes were thriving. The psybient community, built around festivals like Ozora in Hungary where CBL had performed memorable sets, remained devoted but niche.
Against this backdrop, Derelicts proved that ambient music could chart without compromising its essence. The album peaked at #12 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart and #11 on the UK Top Dance Albums chart, remarkable for 82 minutes of largely beatless, deeply atmospheric music. It was voted best album of 2017 on psybient-focused music sites.
The success validated CBL’s decision to leave Ultimae and go independent. Released through Blood Music for physical formats and their own Leftfield Records for digital, Derelicts demonstrated that two decades of scene-building had created a global audience hungry for precisely this kind of deep, immersive listening experience.
Why Derelicts Is Essential
First, Derelicts represents the rare successful synthesis of an artist’s entire career. Rather than chasing new directions or repeating themselves, Hedberg and Vadestrid deliberately extracted the best elements from Hydroponic Garden, World of Sleepers, and Interloper, then rebuilt them with superior tools and twenty years of additional craft. The result honors their legacy while pushing it forward.
Second, the album demonstrates how technological choices shape artistic outcomes. The switch from software to hardware wasn’t nostalgia, it was practical philosophy. As Hedberg explained, “The real Minimoog has character and it’s super obvious if you have used the real deal or not.” The hardware forced them to commit earlier in the creative process, resulting in tracks with more intentionality and organic flow.
Third, Derelicts proved that ambient electronic music could achieve commercial success on its own terms. No compromises toward radio formats, no featured guest rappers, no four-minute radio edits. Just 82 minutes of immersive, carefully crafted sonic architecture that found its audience through quality alone.
Essential Info:
• Release Date: October 6, 2017
• Label: Blood Music (physical), Leftfield Records (digital)
• Genre: Psybient, Ambient, Downtempo, Space Ambient
• Length: 12 tracks, 82 minutes
• Key Tracks: “Equilibrium,” “Dodecahedron,” “Everwave”
• If You Like: Solar Fields, AES Dana, Boards of Canada
Musicians:
• Johannes Hedberg - Synthesizers, harmonies, sound design
• Daniel Vadestrid - Synthesizers, rhythms, basslines
• Ester Nannmark - Vocals on “Derelicts,” “~42°,” “Rayleigh Scatterers,” and “Loss Aversion”
• Vincent Villuis (AES Dana) - Mastering at Ultimae Studio
• Matto Fredriksson - Album artwork and design
Where to Listen:
• Bandcamp (24-bit FLAC available)
• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Amazon Music
• Rate Your Music
• Discogs
• Artist’s Official Website
• Physical: 180g vinyl available in black, clear frosted, and splatter editions; CD with 16-page booklet
The Sound Vault Verdict
Derelicts is essential because it solves a problem every long-running artist faces: how do you honor your past without being trapped by it? Hedberg and Vadestrid answered by building a studio full of analog equipment and letting the hardware guide them toward sounds that felt both familiar and fresh.
In an era of algorithmic playlists and attention-deficit listening, Derelicts rewards commitment. This is music designed for the late night, for the long drive, for the moment when you need 82 minutes of sonic space to think. It doesn’t demand your attention, it earns it, slowly, through accumulating layers of beauty.
For listeners discovering CBL for the first time, Derelicts works as both entry point and destination. For longtime fans, it’s proof that ambient music can mature without losing its capacity to transport.
Explore Further:
If Derelicts resonates with you:
Solar Fields - Movements (fellow Swedish ambient pioneer at his most melodic)
AES Dana - Pollen (the mastering engineer’s own atmospheric explorations)
Fantastic piece on how leaving Ultimae forced them into a better album. The thing about hardware changing workflow realy clicked for me because I went through something similar when I ditched Ableton for modular stuff last year. Once you cant undo infinitely, decisions stick and tracks actually finish. That grittier soundhere feels like it actually came from making irreversable choices during tracking sessions, not post-production polish.