Ordeal - Vätterns Pärla

Nu Gothenburg godfather/lynchpin, Dan Johansson, assumes a new alias for this latest exploration of destroyed electronics. Leaning ever-more confidently into his discipline, we're served three long form experiments that make reference to Johansson's earlier work by finding some previously untouched space between the harsh grey reality of Sewer Election and the noisier digressions of Amateur Hour. There's an industrial bleakness to much of Vätterns Pärla, the kind that suggests the same snowblind austere minimalism as those early Civilistjävel! recordings, the product of a wintery landscape where the daylight doesn't get much of a look in. What makes Johansson's work so compelling is his astute touch, employing a host of small textural flourishes amidst the slowly evolving storm of drone, static and white noise. Johannson himself has cited Maurizio Bianchi as an influence, an obscure reference that seems entirely obvious once you're aware of it, while those same post-industrial touchstones means it wouldn't have sounded out of place amongst the low-grade electronics of Korm Plastics. Like with much of his other output, all this once again serves to affirm Johansson's position in that great lineage of European underground electronic experimentation.