Compunctio
The recent collaboration between vocalist Andreas Eklof and electronic artist David Ahlen has resulted in the 1921 album In My Veins, a thing of rare delicacy that inhabits a hushed, candle-lit space set-back from the rigours of the world. The two first collaborated back in 2009 on one track of David’s Compunctio release We Sprout In Thy Soil, so somewhat belatedly, they have decided to stretch their collective efforts over a tasteful full length, originally released on LP and now being made available for download too.
Opener “Bells” is a vinyl-only track that sets the scene with the sound of bells produced through what sounds like a tone generator and brings to mind something that
Charlemagne Palestine would be happy with. It lends a low-key and somewhat sepulchral air to proceedings that really take a surprising turn when David’s falsetto is introduced on “Holy”. There is a new folk sweetness to the track which
gently ripples in sun-dappled calm, but it feels as though you are just receiving the faintest of glimpses. The backing is so sparse as to be almost translucent, which allows David’s voice to float like so much gossamer throughout the soundscape. The voice is incredibly fragile at times and the languid pools created by Andreas’s keyboards seem to reflect a shimmering vision of its sound. The soft delivery has a heartbroken feel on “Always”, and the refrain “You’ve always been there” feels as though the words dare not be uttered aloud.
Beats are introduced at times, but they are far from insistent and don’t do anything to dissuade the Nordic melancholy of “New Worlds”. If anything, their torpor has a kind of sullen quality, unwilling to inject any momentum and to allow the track to run its course as the subtly layered keyboards eventually overwhelm the voice. There is some sense of
reticence in the delivery of both voice and music, as if they are unwilling to force their delicacy onto the listener. However, this is over-ridden with the addition of second vocalist
Marie Bergling, who joins David on “In My Veins” and “The Clear Fount”. Here the band inhabits a similar space to that from which the first
xx album came, as if we were listening from behind a door to a band that were unaware of our presence.
There is quite an audacious amount of space elsewhere as the electronic sounds ebb and flow, to a point that on the ebb they almost disappear and you are unsure as to whether they really want to return. The recounted litany of the traditional “Psalm 115” is a case in point, where the backdrop is so spare, it is barely there, and the pregnant pauses between passages on “No One” are pretty daring. The repeated proclamation “There’s no one like you” seeming to drift in the air, seemingly released by the absence of the slow-motion backdrop.
“Arteries II” sees the album out and that feels literal, as if there is a machine registering the lifelessness of a body and all the other final activities are somehow being recorded before all life ceases. It is a muted and mysterious end to
an album that withholds as much as it gives, and that juxtaposition makes it all the more interesting. The comparisons that have been made to
Arvo Pärt are intriguing, but I think
In My Veins inhabits its very own sound world.
-Mr Olivetti-
The recent collaboration between vocalist Andreas Eklof and electronic artist David Ahlen has resulted in the 1921 album In My Veins, a thing of rare delicacy that inhabits a hushed, candle-lit space set-back from the rigours of the world. The two first collaborated back in 2009 on one track of David’s Compunctio release We Sprout In Thy Soil, so somewhat belatedly, they have decided to stretch their collective efforts over a tasteful full length, originally released on LP and now being made available for download too.
