English musician Pete Barnes (based in Utrecht, The Netherlands) formed the cinematic post-rock project Thistle Sifter, after a serious cycling accident in November 2020, during his rehabilitation to express personal emotions and struggles.
Moving on from his first two previous albums A Spectral Moon (2022) and Circles (2024) which strongly focused on personal struggles with health, acceptance and letting go of the past, Pete says Forever The Optimist deals with existential issues caused by man’s neglect of our natural environment and fellow humans in the pursuit of never-ending growth. In the world of post rock, this new album stands on it’s own instrumental identity.
Instrumental social discourse Anthropocene during it’s sub three minutes lets the music do the talking, trying to impress on us that humanity has become a planetary force of change in biodiversity, disrupting ecosystems and accelerating geophysical and biochemical changes in the 20th and 21st centuries here on Earth.
The simple act of unwrapping a new product for example a smartphone, a cotton shirt, or a morning coffee feels isolated, a transaction contained entirely within the store or our home. That feeling of containment, however, is a sophisticated illusion. The term Ghost Acres describes the vast, unseen tracts of land and ocean that are effectively borrowed, exploited, or permanently degraded elsewhere on the planet to satisfy the consumption habits of a distant population. These acres exist outside the geographical boundaries of the consuming nation, yet they are functionally tied to its economic and material existence. The coffee beans in your cup, for instance, demand not only the physical plot of land where they grew but also the ‘ghost’ acreage required to produce the fertiliser, to absorb the carbon from shipping, and to manage the waste from the disposable cup. This unseen footprint represents a critical, externalised cost, one that never appears on a receipt.
This, the longest track on the album was inspired by the book ‘Regenesis’ by George Monbiot and also features a quote from Monbiot talking about the effects of modern day agriculture on our natural environment. The music flows and spreads, encompassing the vastness of the situation and laying it bare for us to ponder on how we reconcile the processes used in our increasing need for consumption.
We only need to stand Atop A Horrid Hill to view the way we are tearing our world little by little, into pieces to satiate our desires and demands. The music like a warm thermal, circulates around us carried on the wind, ruffling our hair and tugging gently at our clothes, like a child trying to gain our attention and show us in naivety the damage we are doing to their future. What kind of legacy do we wish to leave them?
One Fleeting Glance a single that circles around recovery, reassessment, and whatever comes after you’re thrown off course without warning. The single doesn’t dramatise that experience; instead, it sits with it, offering a brief window into what acceptance looks like when it’s still in progress.
An endling is the last known individual of a species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species disappear from this world as progress marches on. Like gentle raindrops falling to the ground, tinkling piano echoes and strings swell to rise the emotional impact, reminiscent in some ways of the soundtrack to ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’. An exquisite lament to the creatures who become extinct, that fades as the last breath of life exhales gently from this track of life. Only we can save them.
There are so many moments of beauty on this album, despite the earnest lessons throughout. This track carries you, Weightless, as if on the clouds. You float above strummed strings, allowing you to see all of human nature below and wonder will we ever learn from our mistakes and see the error of our ways. Can we be our own salvation?
Et In Arcadia Ego glistens and shines with pastoral melody, a literal translation to ‘I too was in Arcadia’, as this swirls around a lost world of idyllic bliss to be remembered in regretful chords and wistful symphonic strains.
Title and final track, Forever The Optimist enters on sorrowful refrain, in deference to serenading, heart-rending strings. It expands with reverential, angelic tones, lifting the heart, creating a lump in the throat and a moistness in the eye as it leads us gently into pared back threads. Strands drift as on a gentle, wafted breeze, meandering and seducing us into serene hope then fading into the distance.
Throughout the album Pete creates beautifully melancholic layers of delicate gossamer, involving ambient synthesisers, and lo-fi folk, with clips of dialogue to form his most enterprising, orchestral tunes to date.
He says the album subjects are heavily inspired by writers Jay Griffiths, George Monbiot, Omar El Akkad and Siddharth Kara, with the eight compositions referencing serious themes such as land use, animal rights, cobalt mining in the Congo, climate breakdown, neo-liberalism and the media’s complicity in genocide.
The music to me hints at bands such as Nordic Giants, and Down River Dead Men Go among others, the melancholy being tempered with breaths of hope.
It is difficult to convey emotion that allow wordless narration with a purely instrumental album, expressing your feelings regarding some serious subjects whilst making it enjoyable for the listener. I have mixed some fleeting explanations in with some tracks, as I have found this not only to be a delightful album musically but an education for me, which has opened my sometime naive eyes to topics I had been unaware of previously or not concerned myself with. For that I would like to thank Pete and I hope that when you listen to this you may gain something that enlightens your mind.
In recent years Thistle Sifter has been captivating audiences with with immersive audio-visual performances, such as AFAS Live in Amsterdam (with Sigur Rós) and Roadburn Festival (Tilburg). They have also shared a stage with Oh Hiroshima (Sweden), Midas Fall (UK), Törzs (Hungary) & Mother of Millions (Greece). Thistle Sifter have a number of European dates coming up in the next few months, details can be found HERE.
TRACK LISTING
01. Anthropocene (2:48)
02. Ghost Acres (8:42)
03. Atop A Horrid Hill (3:16)
04. One Fleeting Glance (3:16)
05. Endling (4:30)
06. Weightless (4:15)
07. Et In Arcadia Ego (6:57)
08. Forever The Optimist (4:00)
Total Time – 37:48
MUSICIANS
Pete Barnes – All Songs Written & Performed
Koen Klarenbeek – Drums
Mark Tersteeg – String Arrangements
Marta Jiménez Ramírez – Cello
Maria Garcia – Viola
Damián Cabedo Vicente – Violin
Begoña Hernández Gallardo – Violin
Nils Breunese – Additional Guitars
Tom Broshuis – Additional Guitars
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: Independent
Country of Origin: UK
Date of Release: 6th February 2026
LINKS
Thistle Sifter – Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube | Instagram
