Loopsel - Öga för Öga / Eye for an Eye

Is Öga for Öga Gothenburg’s Dorothy movement? Loopsel’s second album might just make an argument for being the masterwork of the current constellation of artists that populate its underground community, yet it was made after its creator, Elin Engström, retreated from the city to the north of Sweden, while it's being released not by one of GTB's many great labels but New York’s DFA. Become who you are and all that... And still, Öga for Öga had to leave to come back, a distilling of odd-pop sensibilities and experimental digression in a manner that recalls nothing so much as 'the Gothenburg sound'. For the most part, Öga for Öga is more 'song-led' than 2020 debut, The Spiral, much of the dissonance of that great LP substituted for a warped, hall of mirrors folk sound, split somewhere between a translucent rendering of early Leonard Cohen, the abandoned fairground hauntings of sister band Monokultur (Spit Three Times sounds like a direct continuation of Ormens Vag closer, Manniskor Och Trad) and local peers Treasury of Puppies, and the sensual dreamworld of imperial era 4AD. It's an immaculately conceived collection, born of Gothenburg one way or another, but richer sounding than its predecessor, and though still subtle and refined, noticeably more confident and - *whisper it* - ambitious. All things being fair, this record should travel far and wide, but since they're generally not, at least there's still no place like home.