Joachim Nordwall of Ideal Records fame is a highly productive fellow also when it comes to his own musicmaking. Although predominantly busy with the band Skull Defekts, his solo oeuvres pop up frequently and contain different kinds of aural expressions. This one, ”Ignition”, is a record filled with warm, fuzzy ambient music. Atmospheric, minimalistic, non-demanding and quite often beautiful in its simplicity.
The best parts are the long, droning segments, with very small nuances floating in the sonic spheres, like evanescent clouds on a really hot summer’s day. It’s mysterious enough to keep the attention alert yet relaxing enough to not become scholastically boring.
Occasionally the sounds impose themselves on a sacral space in a more traditional sense – sounds of organs of different kinds evoke old churches and sinister goings on. This also leads on to other possible associations, with one being horror films. Much of the ”Ignition” CD would work wonderfully well in some Mario Bava giallo thriller from the 1960s, complete with saturated technicolor pastels, demonic possessions, slasher violence and hitchcockian nymphs screaming away as some mad monk lustfully puts an end to all their sinning.
Echoes of John Carpenter also lurk beneath the surface, with warm electronic sweeps that build up and gradually take over. Most of this music seems performed on vintage analogues, so the Carpenterian resonance is not difficult to trace (or imagine).
”Ignition” is highly pleasant to listen to and to keep playing ambiently in one’s quite often busy background. In this day and age of fragmented listening, I really want to put across that this is a very good and very slow record. It’s a new kind of sacral music floating on top of waves of warm, fuzzy electricity. Buy it and listen to it.
Joachim Nordwall
Ignition
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