-from Vital Weekly #523-
The english version of the website for this label is not yet online, and my swedish isn't what it never was, so I just go by what I (barely) read on the cover. Mittelsfär is Matthias Nihlen on prepared electric guitar and Henrik Kihlberg on a small portable gramophone. They offer six short tracks of really lo-fi improvised music of themselves scraping the guitar, some field recordings. It's all a bit too lo-fi and easy for me. No instruments are listed for Ved. Not even a name. Just Ved as the artist and 'Demis Roussos Internal' as the title. This one is a bit harder to describe really: I think it's made of samples and sounds, certainly at the beginning, a bit lo-fi pop like. But then it moves into a lengthy drone like piece with piano playing. It's a kind of curious release that is not bad at all. Behind Prakt is Henrik Kihlberg, who runs the Mussigganger label. His 'Ginipiggu' (that probably translates as guinea pig) release is a 'reworking of various field recordings'. The funny thing is that he doesn't transform the usual blend of water and rain sounds, like so many other do, but he stuck his microphone in a birdcage and works his way around with the birdcalls. Somewhere along the line he feeds his birds into a wall of droning electronics and scraps along the metal of the cage. Not exactly a peaceful affair, but it sounds quite intense and dense. Pär Thörn offers a conceptual work. The title means 'concept of randomness and dice throwing'. Lots of layered voices, feeding through an echo unit, or perhaps natural in the process of phase shifting. I was going to write a bit like blackhumour, but is there anyone out-there who has a clue what I am talking about? Let's say, a bit like Steve Reich's 'Come Out', but with a lesser intensity. As far as concepts go, it's alright.