Civilistjävel! - Följd

2025 feels as if it's been evening all year long, and what better way to mark such greyscale murk than with a new Civilistjävel! long player? Well, not quite this time. While Följd, something like the eighth long player Tomas Bodén has released under the moniker, isn't exactly a sunshine affair, i'd contend it's his most Spring like offering to date, and certainly less weighed down in the snowblind minimalist dub doldrums than much of the other LPs. We remain at half-speed, and the arrangements are characteristically sparse, but there's also something gently radiant at work here, too, a subtle sunrise thaw in place of a reckoning with the prospect of the evig midvinternatten. Civilistjävel! output is at its best when it loiters in the in-between spaces, and that's most certainly true of these seven tracks, edging between dub phantasms, ambient drift and the bucolic chirrups of IDM at its most rural - I'm specifically thinking of Pub's Do You Ever Regret Pantomime?. Last year's Brödföda was notable for its number of features, but there's just one this time out. The appearance of Thomas Bush's dolorous vocal and guitar filigrees on closing track, 'XIX', is perhaps the best anyone has sounded on a Bodén production, and it adds another dimension to the Civilistjävel! sound, a broadening of palette and emotion that's as appropriate for the next day as it is after hours.