'Last Light'

Available from Strange Fortune, P.O. Box 440383, Somerville, MA 02144, USA.

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T HE second troubadour to appear on Michael J. Salo’s Strange Fortune label comes in the shape of ex-World Serpent musician and Sol Invictus collaborator, Tor Lundvall, a New York artist renowned for his colourful sunsets, autumn landscapes and beautifully contemplative expressions of loneliness and alienation. And very prolific he is too, with a quartet of twilight fields, blustery skies, vacated bedrooms and even a self-portrait in the style of Vilhelm Hamershoi decorating this latest release.

But his albums – in this case limited to 955 copies - also serve as a canvas for his wonderful music, too, well-known for their distinctly minimalist feel. ‘Rust’ laps at your ears like an aimless tide, sharp pitches of sound carving out lightly-dissonant swathes of ambient fuel for the melancholic brain. Somehow, ‘The Pond’ seems to assume the form of a gentle dreamscape, electronic breaths creating synthetic ripples and nostalgic vocals about childhood games and images of a blurred past. ‘It’s All Over Now’ is more complex, still minimalist but with a bass-filled ambience that contains echoed vocals and a tendency to combine hotel lobby musak with something vaguely resembling The Legendary Pink Dots.

It’s hard to tell whether the ‘dead and gone’ lyrics represent a genuine lament or a celebratory transcendence of a vanished past. ‘Silver Wash’ continues in the same Ka-Spellian vein, fluctuating between long, drawn-out synths and rough-edged bursts of electronica that sound as though they’re crashing against the pebbles of a forgotten shore. ‘Last Light’, meanwhile, flows like a lonely seagull drifting above calm seas. Listening to this song is similar to experiencing the final effects of LSD, the ‘come down’ moment when you feel like spreading your arms and letting the music take over your whole body. An irrational succumbing that seems to announce the ecstasy of the diminishing will. But with striking similarities to Allerseelen, however, the sweet repetitive beat of ‘Storm’ soon brings you to your senses.

This song virtually borders on Lounge, in fact, a veritable hip-shunter with a mellow, laid-back atmosphere that makes you want to close your eyes and submit. ‘Soft Bipolarity’ is quite different. Metallic swirls chase displaced ring-tones through fields of measured vocals, taps and frequencies. There is a distinctly 80s feel at work here, too, drifting harmonies that slightly remind me of Ultravox. On the other hand, ‘Blue Room’ is more energetic. Ironically, perhaps, it’s also depressing and portentous. A journey through the mind of someone with an inability to cope with everyday life. Observant, perhaps, but ultimately pessimistic. The words of ‘Sunday Evening’ return to the open-door theme depicted in Lundvall’s self-portrait, like a portrayal of indecisiveness, uncertainly and a fear of the unknown. Does an open door lead to new opportunities, or to fruitless risk-taking and unexpected heartache. And once again, of course, the lyrics are filled with references to the world of nature. This is certainly the best track so far.

‘Cold’ adopts a slightly more populist tone, although the lyrics continue to reveal the artist’s obsession with attention to detail whilst weird samples and percussion occupy the final third. ‘Still’ is a buzzing drone of sustained ambience, deafening clunks and words that dwell on loss and loneliness.

The final track, ‘Lost At Sea’, towards which the whole album appears to have been gravitating like driftwood on the tide, takes the form of a sorrowful piano and one can imagine parched sailors, their faces covered with salt, crammed into lifeboats in a final contemplation of their fate. If you’re expecting background music, forget it. Lundvall’s inspiring album is for late-summer evenings, when the sun is going down in the sky. Get lost in it and forget yourself for a while. I did.