Franciska Og Emilie - s/t

The Gothenburg Underground Re-Gen continues apace with this second long player from young Danish emigree Franciska, joined here also by Camille Helt Herder as they compose a sonic tribute to their shared hometown of Odense. And it's somewhat funny that this should be dedicated to any city other than GTB. The debut LP from early 2023 was notable for many reasons, not least because it signalled the emergence of a third generation within the real-time evolution of Discreet, fresh sproutlings born of its mutant soil. If this new record isn't quite dyanistical, it's at least evidence of pan-generational grafting - you can hear a flattening of the Swedish underground's recent history, the splicing of DNA that runs back through the past ten-15 years. Side A opens with the kind of harsh white noise that suggests someone has heard a few Sewer Election records in their time, before transitioning into some highly emotive piano-based, field recording shaded decayed tape loop ambience, the contrast of the sounds a telling indication of not only the story of this record, but the musical environment from which it was derived. The ugly and the beautiful in symbiosis. Though the looping and splicing techniques remain raw, wider comparisons to the likes of Basinski, The Caretaker and Fennesz are not entirely unmerited either, eliciting a same sense of atrophic drift that feels pregnant with some not quite reachable meaning. Specifics remain unimportant when it feels this way. It's ambitious business from young, enquiring minds, clearly blessed to find the environment into which they can become fecund.