Blod - Missvaxt

New Blod after what feels like just a few minutes after the last Blod. Shame on everyone else's work ethic. First off, and as a crucial point of difference, this one is on Grapefruit, which means it's not as desperately limited as usual. Whether by accident or design (though i'd presume the former), with that wider availability comes a set of songs less lo-fi in their construction and presentation. This is positively crystal clear in comparison to some of the early Blod recordings. What does continue here from previous work is that Dicksson is delving deeper into the trad. folk commune/cult aesthetic, uniting with a host of players from the Nu Gothenburg scene - Elin Engström (Loopsel, Monokultur) on drums, Astrid Øster Mortensen on vocals and flute, Joakim Karlsson (Facit) on production and synth, and Magnus Jäverling on flute. The press release details Missväxt as 'exploring the myth of ancient Swedish being and misery', which is as good a place to start as any when making a record i suppose, though it's not a particularly miserable sounding record, certainly not in the traditional sense. Let's say it's a little more complex than that. More so, the use of folk standard melody has a kind of numbing, banal quality, in its way a parodying and tying together of Nordic cult worship cliches (ala Midsommar), and given Dicksson's debased paintings of pop culture iconography, modern consumerism. The idea, i'd guess, is that misery is an historically embedded universal experience that stretches as long and wide as time itself, manifest in all sorts of cultural expressions. Or maybe these are just pretty lullabies railing against existential malaise? I'll take it whatever way it comes. New Blod, then, and another killer.