| Artist: Tor Lundvall Album: Empty City Released: 29 July 2006 | 
|
|
The irony in the title Empty City (40'20") by Tor Lundvall besets its 12 brief tracks. As in a noirish fable or surrealistic nightmare, Lundvall's sonic domain operates under strange rules. With ominous grace he pares away the complexities of arrangement until only the mechanics remain. During the more desolate parts, this album wends its way on a fog of doubt and suspicion - summoning imaginative variations of starless ambient music from thoughts of vacant buildings and inactive streets. When the mood strikes, a Rhodes piano colors in the sullen scene as its warm tones work in opposition to the otherwise cold electronic rumblings. Elsewhere, a whispered ghost voice turns a minimalistic expanse of edificial scenery into a haunted allegorical landscape. A few tracks on Empty City add some rhythm to the symbolic narrative as pitched down shuffling drum samples and drowsy ticks and clicks evoke the lost pulse of now deserted avenues. In the span of just a few minutes these small works conjure up a detailed, however shadowy atmosphere - each speaking so as to imply something other.
- Chuck van Zyl 30 August 2006 | |
| Reviews |