Swedish instrumental stoner/post-rockers Valley return with their new four-track EP »Sky Burial«; out on November 6th in digital format!
Stockholm, Sweden based instrumental stoner/post-rockers Valley return with their new four-track EP, »Sky Burial«, which will be released on November 6th, 2026 in digital format.
Tracklist:
01. Endless Summer
02. Heavy Bodies Fall
03. Wormwood
04. The Exploding Kind
Courtesy of Viral Propaganda PR:
Eleven years can change a band in countless ways. Members come and go, influences shift and songs evolve alongside them. For Stockholm instrumental quartet Valley, however, time has never been something to rush.
On November 6, 2026, the Swedish band will return with »Sky Burial«, a four-track EP arriving more than a decade after their well-received 2015 debut, »Sunburst«. Rather than a sudden comeback, however, the record captures a creative process that has quietly remained in motion throughout those years.
Valley were five musicians when »Sunburst« appeared. Today they are a four-piece comprising Joakim Stefanides on guitars, Erik Sirelius on bass, Daniel Pettersson on drums and Erik Svallingson on synthesiser and percussion. All four write together, allowing ideas to develop organically without imposing deadlines on when a song needs to be finished.
That philosophy runs throughout »Sky Burial«.
The four compositions span remarkably different periods in Valley’s history. The foundations of »Heavy Bodies Fall« stretch back to 2010, while »The Exploding Kind« was one of the first pieces written after »Sunburst« and has remained largely unchanged since.
By contrast, the sprawling nine-minute »Wormwood« has been evolving since 2017, passing through numerous versions before reaching its final form. Opening track »Endless Summer« is the newest of the four, first taking shape in 2025.
For Valley, recording becomes less about putting a definitive end to that process and more about capturing a particular moment. As the band explain, recording a song when it finally feels finished is “like taking a snapshot of what we sound like in that moment.”
In early May 2026, Valley entered Roth Händle Studio in Sollentuna with recording engineer Mattias Olsson, known for his work with Änglagård, White Willow and numerous other projects. The entire EP was recorded during one inspired weekend, with much of the material captured live in the studio.
The band then mixed »Sky Burial« themselves, preserving the openness, dynamics and immediacy of those sessions, before handing the finished mixes to Karl Daniel Lidén for mastering.
Musically, »Sky Burial« is equally resistant to easy categorisation. Across four tracks and more than 26 minutes, Valley draws from post-rock, drone, shoegaze, jazz, Scandinavian folk, psychedelia and progressive rock, moving between hypnotic repetition, sprawling atmosphere and improvisational interplay.
Listeners might hear echoes of Mogwai, Do Make Say Think, 1 Mile North, Tristeza, Pink Floyd and Kyuss, alongside the cinematic compositions of Angelo Badalamenti. Yet that unusual combination ultimately reflects Valley’s own approach: four musicians drawing from different corners of music and finding common ground between them.
Eleven years after »Sunburst«, »Sky Burial« isn’t the sound of Valley trying to pick up exactly where they left off, nor is it the product of a carefully planned comeback.
Instead, it captures a band that never stopped creating together, allowing songs to exist for years until they finally found the form they were looking for.
Valley will release »Sky Burial« digitally on November 6, 2026.
Credits:
All songs written and produced by Valley.
Recorded by Mattias Olsson at Roth Händle Studio, Sollentuna.
Mixed by Valley.
Mastered by Karl Daniel Lidén.
Cover photography and design by Erik Svallingson.
Line-up:
Jocke Stefanides – Guitars
Erik Sirelius – Bass
Daniel Pettersson – Drums
Erik Svallingson – Synthesiser and Percussion
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well