Arv & Miljö – Jorden Först

First released in 2021 on CD-r, Arv & Miljö's avant garde protest song collage is finally offered the chance of the wider audience it requires with this first time vinyl reissue. These guys rarely get it wrong, but Jorden Först really does hit a high bar with its emotionally charged re-configuring of spoken word, found sound, folk song and minimal synth into a powerful comment on environmental action and societal change. A lot of the sampled material here dates back to the Earth First and Earth Liberation Front activism of the early 90s, their voices echoing concerns we're still nowhere near close to properly addressing. It's hard to not be moved by such subject matter, the anger and energy of the campaigners thoughtfully contrasted with bucolic electronics and pastoral ambience, beauty and violence operating in tandem as if to make clear what's really at stake. The cut n paste aesthetic bears some resemblance to the layered compositions of Christian Schoppik via his work in both Brannten Schnure and Lauten der Seele, while it's not too much of a stretch to hear this as a Negativland-style reassembling of Popul Vuh new ageisms (or maybe that's just because I couldn't help but think of 'Smile On Your Brother' from The Simpsons). Overall, it's perhaps best understood as a companion piece to Blöd's recent Ondskans Frö, another loaded comment on environmental destruction built from similar ghostly components. Radicalism of such kind has probably never been as necessary, and it's certainly rarely sounded so evocative. Edition of 500.