What kind of society would we build if we were given a blank page? It is the question to which Mirek Coutigny offers a dazzling musical answer with the album ‘Through Empty Landscapes And New Beginnings’. Inspired by Emily St John Mandel’s book ‘Station Eleven’ and the world around us during the lockdown in 2020, Mirek Coutigny started writing new music. Our current society is characterised by fragmentation and polarisation, the apocalypse is just around the corner and fear rules the world. Coutigny responds musically against that dystopia with a story of connection and resilience in which he contrasts hope as a positive force with fear. He sought that connection himself with his band members, with whom he spent months together in the studio, even more than on his previous records, honing both songs and sound. Jolien Deley, Jonathan Bonny and Klaas Tomme are musicians who have been part of Mirek Coutigny’s live band for more than 10 years, so they intuitively sensed perfectly the bigger story Mirek was looking for. ‘Through Empty Landscapes and New Beginnings’ thus became a true group record that literally screams to connect with the listener through a grander and more electronic sound with room for drums, guitars and even voice. Coutigny breaks out of himself, shifting the focus from his world, the piano, to the group, bringing a record that goes beyond his previous work. Bolstered by his group, Coutigny comes off more confident than ever.