Jarl — Reception Radiation

Reception Radiation is a new four-track album from Swedish electronica project Jarl. As the release titles hint the theme here is radiation- each of the four beatless/synth tone wash-based tracks puts the intensity of radiation in sonic form, starting at 25 % and ending at 100%. Each of the tracks runs between eight and twenty-one minutes

The release comes as either a CD ( 300 copies) or cassette ( 30 copies ) release- each featuring cover artwork of a green wiry/spiralling shape/ lines set against a black background. The album can be ordered directly from here 

 The sound here is somewhere between ambience and drifting/ beatless electronica. We open with the eight-minute and forty-three seconds of “Radiation Scale 1-25%”. Here we find a fairly urgent, at points shrill mix of constantly rattling/ jingling tonality weaved with glowing and waving pitch ebbs- all creating a feeling of steady hover 'n' glide.

Next, we have the “Radiation Scale 2- 50%".This twenty-one-minute and fifteen-minute track is built around a mixture of warning sweep, rattling flow, and gentle buzzing glints. The track manages to retain a feeling of both urgent weave and restful drift- with the whole thing seeming to grow depth and density.

For track three we have “Radiation Scale 3- 75%” which comes as the longest track here at Twenty-one minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Here we find a fairly rapid-flowing and tightly woven blend of tolling, cascading, and warningly warbling tones. The tones seem to shift around you like a growing denser shoal of fish. By around the midway point, it seems to crescendo/plateau- and after this point, the tones turn very twittering, spacily swirling, and reverberation- feel akin to what a spacecraft might sound like as it slowly lands- before resolving on more paired by twinkle and hover.

Finally, we have “Radiation Scale 4- 100%”- this comes in at the nine-minute and forty-two-minute mark. Here we find swirling seesawing meet vivid cascading tonailty- as it progresses the elements seemingly get more jingling and ringing in their attack- reaching a crescendo with grey tonal shift ‘n’ shunt occurring- before the whole thing fades out with haunting mid to high rage rattle ‘n’ revibrate.

Reception Radiation is another sonically compelling and interestingly themed record from Jarl- which I’ve found myself replaying a fair bit over the last few weeks, getting well and truly lost gliding and dense flow of the whole thing.