Civilistjävel! – ‘Följd’ album review: an authentic traverse across stirring, ambient landscapes
THE SKINNY: Pared-down explorations of austere minimalism is an incredibly hard art to pin down, and unfortunately, Bandcamp is littered with volumes of releases that fancy their tedium dunked in tape-hiss as marvels in spacious ambient dub. Swedish artist Civilistjävel! can confidently count himself as one of the genre’s contrary examples, conjuring deeply affecting electronic landscapes with a masterful gift for evoking maximum evocation with the simplest arrangements.
His name’s approximate translation of ‘Civilian Bastard!’ gives a clue to the fraught, sonic terrain new album Följd precariously wanders, stirring introspection forever threatened by bristling undercurrents of disquiet and latent affrontery. Continuing last year’s Brödföda‘s Roman numerals track ordering, Civilistjävel!’s latest with Glasgow’s Rubadub label is a volume two of sorts, the next chapter in some strange, unknowable traverse. This sense of journey is expertly sculpted, crafting Följd‘s drone with floating artefacts of aural debris that mark each track’s weathered elements to the next across its weary, chilly expanse.
The spikes of abrasion that claw and scratch are wielded with expert restraint, a dissonant blast or a hollow rush of muffled gust organically puncture the swaddled inner-ambient sanctum like a wild threat rumbling in the distance, seeking to upend the album’s fragile balance. This is said in praise, a credit to Civilistjävel!’s capture of swirling notes and tones that intriguingly hover in and out of the album’s sonic harmony with quiet yet captivating drama.
As Följd comes to a close, Kidderminster singer Thomas Bush lends his staid, semi-spoken vocals and gentle guitar strums in an intriguing moment of musical familiarity, the slow materialising of conventional instruments and human voice at odds with the album’s barren ambient wander spells a fitting finale, a slow stagger back into reality from the hazy, electronic dream and finally making your way back home.
Följd isn’t a nocturnal album but rather inhabits a spectral realm where the sun never sets and time has lost meaning, an album that’s reached you from afar in a land bathed in snow and permanent daylight, teaming with wriggling subterranean rhythms, snaps of tense, brittle percussion, and the scant relics of a community that’s long abandoned the strange campfires Civilistjävel! has scored. Miles ahead of the many derivatives that crowd the experimental ambient tag, Civilistjävel! has unearthed a fascinating immersion into ambient’s heady arousal and takes us on a trip imbued with an effortless scope of drama and intrigue.
For fans of: Anybody in need of contemplating their solitude.
A concluding comment from your Nan: “Nothing happens?!”
Följd track by track
Release date: February 14th | Producer: Civilistjävel! | Label: Rubadub
‘XIII’: Perfect opener, a meditative exercise in haunting, electronic flutters which creep over you like descending fog. Something strange has arrived. [4/5]
‘XIV’: Cascading textures and darting synths palpitate like the radiations omitted from some metaphysical entity. Taut snaps of unease and growl deftly harnessed for a prickly listen. [4/5]
‘XV’: Entwining synths nebulously slither over each other in a piece filled with alien texture yet still possessed with cerebral serenity. [4/5]
‘XVI’: An exemplary slice of restless electronica, an excavation of pulsing beats and looping synths charged with a propulsive energy. ‘XVI’s dissonant end keenly demonstrates Civilistjävel!’s chisel of harsh sonics when it’s needed. [4/5]
‘XVII’: Perhaps a moment of pause and respite? If so, it goes on a little too long, never quite offering anything new to the experience. The album’s rare undercooked moment. [2.5/5]
‘XVIII’: Peak emotional stir wrought from minimal foundations. It’s hard to get right, but ‘XVIII’ reaches somewhere sombre and profound with its muted notes and austere envelop. [4.5/5]
‘XIX’: A perfect dissipating transition from dream to reality, Bush’s vocals and the aural corruptions that rumble in and out point to a satisfying standstill of ruminative closure. [4/5]
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