Marta Forsberg — TKAĆ

With TKAĆ Swedish-Polish composer and musician Marta Forsberg has released two of her older, long-form compositions in the form of a vinyl  LP  on Thanatosis. Both recorded in 2015, "Led And Love Sounds" and "Weave and Dream" seeing their droning, weaving layers on album for the first time. Composed as sound-and-light pieces, these long works capture the sound of an artist and musician at work.

"Led And Love Sounds" helms the A-Side of this LP, and its 22 minutes were captured at me Collectors Room, Berlin, 10 April 2015. Recorded live, one can hear the gallery in points, which helps to place the listener directly in the sound field. Composed with processed violin sounds, the near static oscillations drift in such a slight way to feel still, but their tel-tale waves cannot be contained. With layers playing off of and into each other, "Led And Love Sounds" unfolds wherever the listener puts his/her ear. An interesting mix of passive and active listening is required to take in this piece - one must sit and be enveloped, but only after the sound is scanned for a perfect place to rest. A strong and engaging piece even without the lights, "Led And Love Sounds" is a creative approach to minimalizing textural drones.

For the B-Side, "Weave and Dream" opens up with similar notes as "Devo Corporate Anthem." Composed on an OP-1 synthesizer, the deep, rich tones generated echo the darkness explored with Marta's 2015 LED piece. Thick and rich, the interplay of the layers is a bit more active than the A-Side, but it still relies on the listener to both chase and rest. There are a few interesting tonal shifts throughout the 22 minute runtime, and this helps to place the listener in different locations chosen by the artist.

TKAĆ means "to weave," and the way these two compositions are woven together (both as pieces and as an LP) shows how wonderfully apt that title is. With plenty of time for each piece to move and grow, the interaction of layers is given ample opportunity to mix and weave and create sounds of both constructive and destructive interference. Working on their own even without the displays, one can only imagine what it would be like to be wholly immersed in Marta Forsberg's art.