Instrumental, wordless vocals
International relevance: ***
Those expecting anything like Träd Gräs & Stenar or Thomas Mera Gartz's solo album ”Sånger” will possibly be disappointed and definitely surprised by ”Luftsånger” (or, if you prefer its English subtitle, ”Cloudsongs”). Mixed and constructed in 1983 and released the following year through Silence Records, it was recorded during the course of four years just prior to that. It's much more of a kaleidoscopic mood piece than a song oriented collection. Not divided into separate tracks, the two untitled album sides combine field recordings, ambient sections, chunks of percussion of unknown origin, humming drones... From the liner notes: ”You can hear stormwinds, sheet-metal tub with water, happy birds in a forest glade, wooden gardenchair, grass being eaten by sheep, wheel-barrow, crickets (both normal and speeded down), a dead pine-stem, the circular sawblade of a firewood cutter, tubes rolling at the floor, kerosene tank, 'play-it-yourself' music festivals, the sound of a cigarette being rolled, the song of retarded Lasse, the vast sky in which an airplane is disappearing and much more”. There's only one segment that resembles music in the traditional sense, a kraut-like section fading in (or rather, coming out of the storm) halfway through side 1, sounding like an unusually energetic Popol Vuh rehearsal.
”Luftsånger” is one of those albums that, much like Joakim Skogsberg's ”Jola Rota”, is so set apart from everything else that it's pointless to even try measuring it by any good/bad scales. It's an entity of its own, not music of harmonics, melodies or metres but more like a state of mind. Some parts are indeed enjoyable, others (particularly the percussion bits) are terribly annoying, but they're all part of the uncategorizable whole. If you take one bit out of it, it won't be the same anymore and there's a certain strength in that. Make what you will of it, but it's certainly worth hearing at least once.
Full album
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