Every now and then, an album drops that feels less like a collection of songs and more like someone handing you their personal journal, page by page, track by track. Forever Is Mine, the new full-length debut from Belfast-born, Berlin-based songwriter Mahuna, is exactly that.

Released May 30, 2025, and over 25 years in the making, this record doesn’t try to impress you with flash. It wins you over with depth, texture, and storytelling that cuts through the noise. Mahuna isn’t rushing to catch a trend—he’s more interested in capturing a feeling, a place, a ghost of a moment—and somehow making it linger in your chest long after the song ends.

The lead single “Shimmering Light” sets the tone. It’s quietly luminous, as the name suggests. Mahuna paints a memory of early mornings around Kinsale Bay, the kind of stillness only found when the world hasn’t quite woken up yet. There’s warmth in the guitar lines, a kind of gentle ache in his voice, and the sense that something fragile is being preserved, almost reverently.

That feeling of memory-as-music runs through the whole album. Each track is like a timestamp, a place marker in time. Mahuna himself calls them “map pins” dropped across Berlin, Kerry, Paris, and his native Belfast—and the songs feel just as rooted. They’re not just inspired by place—they sound like them. You can feel the damp streets of Monaghan in “Far-Off Summer’s Night,” or the sleepy snowfall in “Dream Winter’s Day.”

His voice—deep, husky, weathered—is less about range and more about resonance. It’s the kind of voice that carries history in it. Like someone who’s spent time listening to Leonard Cohen, Mark Lanegan, or even Nick Cave—but filtered through the soul of an Irish poet who’s watched the sea more times than he can count.

There are highlights all across this record. “Tear Down the Sails” is defiant and raw, born from burnout but pulsing with a kind of weary hope. “Underneath A Hazel Tree” slows everything down to a meditative crawl, letting you sit with the quietness of nature and the feeling of being rooted. And “Where the Dark River Meets the Sea” might be the sleeper hit—joyful on the surface, but haunted just underneath, a snapshot of a family escape that carries the weight of what isn’t said.

“They Won’t Be Coming Home” leaves the deepest mark. It’s haunting—Mahuna at his most minimal and poetic, conjuring imagery that feels like a lost folk tale, possibly inspired by a Walter Macken novel. It’s the sound of absence, of grief frozen in time, and it hits hard in the best way.

If you're someone who misses albums that mean something—albums you can actually get lost in—Forever Is Mine is a welcome return to that world. It’s the kind of record you listen to front to back, preferably on vinyl (there’s a special edition release for exactly this reason), with no distractions and maybe a cup of tea or something stronger nearby.

Mahuna might’ve taken his time getting to this point, but the result is something rare: a debut album that already feels like a legacy piece. A quiet triumph of memory and melody, love and loss, nature and nostalgia. With Forever Is Mine, Mahuna doesn't just make music—he invites you into his world, and leaves you better for it.

“Forever Is Mine” is available now on all major streaming platforms

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