Blod & Shadow Pattern - Midnite Blues

It's been a few weeks, so it surely must be time for a new Blod record. And this one's a real stand out make no mistake, Gustaf Dicksson teaming up with Hamilton Tapes affiliate Shadow Pattern (aka Nathan Ivanco) for what the label reckons is an 'impossible match', but for me makes a whole lot of sense. Granted, Midnite Blues doesn't possess a great deal of resemblance to Blod's most recent long players, but if you journey back to the 2018 collaboration with Jerker Yarold and Emelie Thulin on Livets Ord, you might spot some relevant through-lines. That record was steeped in a sinister new age ambiance, a kind of glassy ethereality that rears its head here, too. You'd certainly describe this one as more 'ambient' than 'folk', Ivanco building some of that trademark Canadian darklands dissonance around the skeletal & lonesome melodicism Dicksson seems to have the monopoly on. It's not unlike recent records we might have heard from, say, Arv & Miljo, Korea Undok Group or that first Incipientium release, a little messy, overtly lo-fi, entirely in command of its own internal universe. What's most interesting however, is how clearly it presents as a product of both contemporary Ontario and Gothenburg, both locales feeding off and responding to the other yet maintaining their discrete (no pun intended) identities. It's the kind of secret world experimentation that comes from only the most confident of artistic voices, of those who know who they are, what they bring to the table and how that might dovetail with another. It's testament to the DIY networks and overseas dialogues Hamilton and Discreet have built. The sound of the new international tape underground, except on vinyl (if you're quick enough - really not many of these at all, sorry).