Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Vallmo - Ruin Walls [Northern Electronics - 2019]

Here Jonas Rönnberg (Varg) puts out the solo debut of his FLORA band mate Melina Åkerman Kvie on his Northern Electronics label. She has also previously collaborated with the Swedish producer on last year's Welcoming Elegance record. Like those collaborations Ruin Walls mixes Scandinavian ambient sounds and dead eyed techno with melancholic pop sensibilities.

It’s a short album clocking in at just over 30mins, though each of the eight tracks display an intention and craft that makes each second carry weight. And like her more prolific collaborator, Kvie shows a taste for eclecticism and variation. Opener f u mixes widescreen ambient pads and light techno percussion with a repeated violin motif which hovers somewhere in the distance. Dive on the other hand is a sombre elegy to isolationism and immersion in nature built from minimal drones and processed strings. Vallmo means Poppy in Swedish, and there is an undoubtedly opiated feel to many of the songs presented.

It's worth noting that though the overall feel of the album is decidedly downbeat, it never gets morose or defeatist. Redemptive shafts of light pierce through the gloom, particularly on the more techno orientated Prison and Not even memories last forever_survivor. There’s a sense of striving and overcoming in the sweeping cinematic arrangements and driving kick drums. Elsewhere Dødt udstiller levende mines a seam of pure Bladerunner synth exuberance while Time is measured by the moss_dust of u collapses queasy synth and drone gestures into smoky dubwise ambience.

The final two tracks exemplify Kvie’s interplay of light and shade. Young girls surrender to powder, like Dive, is a minimal ambient piece, almost confessional, where Kvie – her voice modulated – sings and speaks on themes of longing, loss and medicated states. Whether she is speaking of her own experiences or of someone else’s isn’t clear, though the fragments of speech hint at a struggle coping with a lover’s drug problem. This is certainly the album’s darkest moment but thankfully Kvie leads us out with one final hopeful slab of ambient techno on Blind, all sweeping synth pans and marching percussion. It's a positive end to a highly accomplished and resolutely cathartic musical expression.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Duncan Simpson
Latest Reviews

Vallmo - Ruin Walls
Here Jonas Rönnberg (Varg) puts out the solo debut of his FLORA band mate Melina Åkerman Kvie on his Northern Electronics label. She has also previously coll...
260424   Snapshot - Snapshot(Blu Ray)
260424   Black Files - Black Files( VOD)
260424   Marco Baldini/Apartment House...
250424   Intruder - Psycho Savant
250424   Hot Spur - Hot Spur( Blu Ray)
250424   Happy End - Happy End( Blu Ray)
250424   Electronicat - Saturation
240424   Soma - Me Dais Mucho Asco
240424   Koobaatoo Asparagus - Onna-musha
240424   Magda - And Suddenly, Just L...
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom