Reviewed by Nathan Ford
Swedish duo Lejonsläktet first came to our attention with their Trouble in Mind 7" "Väderkvarn", although they've been recording together since 2008, with their quirky psych-pop / acid-folk debut "In och ut" also freely downloadable on their Soundcloud page. But before you head off there, you should really check out their most recent EP which is really the place to start.
"Den Enda Historien" was recorded especially for the opening ceremony of the 2015 Urkult festival in Näsåker, Sweden, and is also available as a free download, although it's begging for a physical release.
Where earlier releases have been characterised by the duo's fragile Swedish-language vocals, the three tracks that make up "Den Enda Historien" comprise an instrumental suite of sweeping kosmische, designed to be listened to in wide-eyed wonder. Solar winds are effortlessly summoned by waves of vintage synths, while sequencers emulate the twinkling of stars in a way that conjure half-forgotten, nostalgic images of shoddy spacecraft from 1970s BBC productions.
The ambient Radiophonic washes of the first track give way to a propulsive Krautrock groove for the EP's main section, before those stars are reawakened for the closer's hypnotic calm.
It's a lovely, short EP, brimming with ideas, and a perfectly executed example of a lot of the things that we LOVE about the seventies here at the Active Listener. Aperfect synthesis of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, vintage Krautrock and "Force Majeure" era Tangerine Dream, without ever sounding like it's borrowing too heavily from any one source. Wonderful.
Free download / stream here:
No comments:
Post a Comment