These tracks are the soundtrack of a restless mind, an overactive imagination attempting to reign in bouts of insomnia and master moments of inspiration. The style offered is that of a soundtrack. Bold melodies and built from stark sounds.
Brimming with content and a crystalline fragility
When people come around my flat they’re generally disinterested in my barista skills, balk at my cocktail making abilities, and outright mock my cleaning methods. What sparks immediate comment is the record collection. There is amazement at seeing vinyl and a modicum of confusion. “But, like with your phone now why do ya have…” and “Sure is Spotify not…” I’m sure anyone into records has received the same furrow brows and failed attempts to comprehend.
There are infinite reasons why I continue to stick to the physical release. However, the main one is more than likely the memories caught up in the sleeve, the 12”, the music. Certain members of my collection never fail to conjure up the past. Accelera Deck on Morr Music, bought in Dublin in the long closed Reverb. Reload’s “Peschiv,” which tormented the neighbours. Gescom’s “This and That” which I bought from Pelicanneck alongside Skanfrom and Bakterielle Infecktion’s split EP. Such memories don’t exist for a YouTube video. And these recollections create new links, the last of the above list being merged when Suction announced a new album from Roger Semsroth (aka Skanfrom and half of Bakterielle Infektion). “Think Tangerine Dream as reinterpreted by Incunabula-era Autechre, and you might be getting somewhere close,” reads the press notes for Nordvest’s Grøndal. Textual catnip for a nostalgic man such as myself.
This eleven track album is a curio in the Semsroth discography. To some, the German musician is best known for his charming electro pop reductions as Skanfrom, to most he is the man behind the minimal techno machinations Sleeparchive. The music of Grøndal was first put out on Sleeparchive’s Bandcamp to a less than warm reception. To Jason Amm, Solvent and boss of Suction Records, this was audio mana from heaven.
The compositions on offer come from the same fount. Track titles follow a theme, “Rooftops and Chaotic Streets,” “Sleepless,” “Scribbles,” with numbers being added e.g. “Rooftops and Chaotic Streets Six.” These tracks are the soundtrack of a restless mind, an overactive imagination attempting to reign in bouts of insomnia and master moments of inspiration. The style offered is that of a soundtrack. Bold melodies and built from stark sounds with Semsroth using his enviable abilities to mould and shape pieces of incandescent brilliance. Although pieces are short they are brimming with content, as in the crystalline fragility of “Scribbles Nine” or the echoing warmth of its sibling “Scribbles Seven.” At times the real world enters these twilight thoughts, cars and rain splashing the aquatic notes of “Rooftops and Chaotic Streets Eight.” Echoes of fellow German talent can be heard across the LP, the influence of Conrad Schnitzler, Edgar Frosse and, of course, Tangerine Dream bubbling to the surface in “Rooftops and Chaotic Streets Five,” “Sleepless One” and across the album.
These tracks are the soundtrack of a restless mind, an overactive imagination attempting to reign in bouts of insomnia and master moments of inspiration.
Returning to the press release, Incunabula is not so present but there are moments of Aleksi Perälä and his organic electronics on Grøndal. The calypso scented keys of “Sleepless Six” calling to mind the daring immersions of the Finnish great with other pieces like the rhythmic ambience of “Rooftops and Chaotic Streets Seven.” Despite such comparisons, this collection is all about Semsroth and his incredible breadth of ability that is summed up in works like “Scribbles Two” and throughout.
It’s disappointing that Nordvest’s music was first met with little interest. Nevertheless, this can happen. Internet audiences can be quite fixed in their tastes, the algorithm dictating a certain pattern that allows for fractions of deviation. Grøndal will be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone truly interested in the wide scope of electronic music. This collection allows the past to wash over it, it permits the present to guide and shows another side to an artist of serious talent. An album born between night and day, of hours that are frustratingly long yet amazingly ephemeral, hours that, when harnessed, can produce something magical. A new record in my collection, one with new memories attached and one which will be enjoyed for many years to come.
Grøndal is available on Suction. [Release page | Bandcamp]
