Ea Sundström - Lethe I [Review]
About Ea Sundström
Ea Sundström is an uncompromising avant-garde musician, producer and visual artist from the north of Sweden, and no stranger to TSMM's blog. She's a classically trained cellist, who I imagine always felt a bit uncomfortable wearing a dress and playing in stuffy concert halls, preferring more alternative music and underground scenes, which have seen her powering punk bands with her bass playing, soundtracking computer games and generally pushing stylistic boundaries. I reviewed her deep jazz dive Primordial Confusion last year and then lost track of her for a bit, but it appears she's been busy, releasing an agitated, electro-industrial post-punkish (or something like that) album.
Review
Details are thin on the ground, but I'm guessing that now An Jo has been released, there is a new release on the horizon, and it appears she's returning to her classical roots, albeit in typical, quietly experimental, neoclassical form. Unusually, two separate singles were released on 16th October, Mnemosyne I and Lethe I, and they're both right up my twisted neoclassical street.
A deep, plucked string pulses to ignite 'Mnemosyne I' on its smouldering way, and whether via overdubbing or machine looping, it's the beating heart of the track. Sundström uses it as a guide to anchor her cinematic-noir bowing and subtle but perfectly complementary electronic augmentation which combine to vaguely worrying, low-lit form; oozing tension and suspense.
What sounds like distant waves fed through a machine, to strip the sounds of their natural joy, get 'Lethe 1' started as various acoustic refrains enter, then repeat, to hypnotic ambient effect. Eventually, a heel-clad woman walks deliberately across a wooden floor, providing a metronomic rhythm for Sundström's cello lament that is peppered by some precisely placed sonic details for those paying attention. It's a fine slice of quiet moment, neoclassical music for those solitary, late-night existential reflections.
For more compelling darker neoclassical sounds check out the music of Larum and their tribute to the pioneering female composer Hildegard Von Binegen.
Playlist Companion
Find Sundström in the Slow Neoclassical Playlist.
