Marcus Fjellström - Epilogue M

by Adrian Janes

published: 13 / 6 / 2013

Label: Aagoo Records
Format: CDS

Evocative instrumental EP from Swedish composer and multimedia artist, Marcus Fjellstrom

Review

Marcus Fjellstrom is a Swedish composer and multimedia artist, and fittingly the music on this EP is highly effective at conjuring atmospheres and visions, as if for the soundtrack of an unmade film. A vinyl-like hiss pervades each piece, as though the whole is an old record Fjellstrom has unearthed and set playing in a dark, abandoned mansion as he moves from one vast room to another, the music often seeming tantalisingly distant. Opener ‘Dance Music’ is dominated by an almost musical box melody that evokes a sort of Western gamelan, as eerie sounds spiral in the background. ‘Sinnesloeschen’ and ‘Puretos’ are more atmosphere than music, at different times employing simple piano phrases, waves of strings and trumpet, reverberating drums and touches of cymbal. The latter piece is especially effective: Bernard Hermann is an acknowledged influence, and this is like something for a present-day Hitchcock. Although there is a common feel to the pieces, there is also a subtle variety in the instrumentation and textures Fjellstrom deploys. Probably the majority are generated by electronic keyboards, but suggest more traditional instruments. Thus ‘Penrosum’ uses a gentle harpsichord-like tone set against bells and a slow descending keyboard, while the sound of the pianoharp on ‘Explicator’ resembles a vibraphone, its percussive notes contrasting with mournfully beautiful orchestration. Concluding the EP, ‘Pristine”’ very slowly pulsates as strings rise and fall, reaching probably the most intense point on the EP, before the music drifts away, to be almost submerged in the ever-present hiss by the end. This music has a strange power, at once self-effacing yet gripping. Fjellstrom and his collaborator, graphic artist Bas Mantel, apparently intend Epilogue M’ to evoke the immensity of outer space. This listener hears (and sees) it rather differently. But it seems beyond dispute that, if heard attentively, it will reverberate in inner space.