Andre – Gymnasieåren

Another promising evolution from the Gothenburg orbit courtesy of the debut LP from the teenage Andre, an apparent regular of the Discreet shop. We need not have been told, for the influence of the locale and culture are writ large. For a while it did seem as if the abundance of activity emanting from that particular scene was essentially the work of just a handful of key players operating under different monikers, and with it the sense it might be a temporary phenomena soon to run out of road. Nothing lasts forever of course, but the recent output of Astrid Oster Mortensen, Incipientium and Franciska makes a fool of such concerns, a youthful contingent flying the flag for future possibilities, testement to both the open door policy of the older generation and the curiosity of these young artists that prompted them to walk through it. Andre continues that trend with Gymnasieåren, a record that manages to simultaneously sound teenage and not teenage at all, both brash and compositionally astute. There's certainly evidence of youthful brio, being a home-recorded set of sometimes lonesome, sometimes gnarled instrumentals painted in greyscale in private confines, the kind of thing you can make when you've plenty of time alone in your little room. Andre draws on a limited palette of guitar, blown out electronics and the ocassional field recording, but he makes it go a long way, the results anything but one note. It's essentially a record of two halves, the A side more contemplative and mournful, the spoken word samples offering an anchor of sorts, while the B side is shredded and ecstatic, leaning into Swedish ambient and noise music heritage with a compelling fearlessness. As such, Gymnasieåren is a record that feels like it could only come from this particular subsect of Gothenburg right now, a confluence of outsider aesthetics and likeminded community whereby even its teenage cohorts seem to be a few steps ahead of most. Edition of 300. Strictly one per customer.