I got sent this a while back and it keeps popping up on my stereo and I to go look up what it is. It keeps reminding me of other things but is clearly not any one of them. Mostly sustained chords, slightly wheezy, like a faded memory of lost mediaeval music as played on a hurdy gurdy or reed organ. A more sedate version of the latest Pancrace release or a more sombre work by Viola Torros. Despite the more restricted palette, it gets weirder when I remember how it’s made. Vilhelm Bromander plays double bass while Fredrik Rasten plays guitar, both usually bowed in some fashion. Harmonics and overtones combine in strange ways to colour what would otherwise be thin harmonies, usually confined to the middle range. Both sing as well, just faintly, which adds a glassy hum of beating frequencies.
...for some reason that escapes us presents two brief chorales, each followed by a longer work. It all seems carefully worked out, rather than a purely improvised experience. This comes off well, both in the restraint in their playing and the concision of each musical statement: the longest work is in three movements yet doesn’t crack twenty minutes. The scale and the pacing make you take on board each small detail as a compositional element, instead of simply immerse yourself in drone.
[…] album on Insub Svevning, where what sounds like an electric guitar is not. When previously heard in his collaboration with Vilhelm Bromander, Rasten’s guitar was mostly bowed to produce complex overtones. Here, everything is plucked […]