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Recommended by us on 18th February 2011
...according to our Business Lady on Thu 17 Feb, 2011.
Don't know anything about the two artists featured on this split so please excuse my ignorance and try enjoy my vague observations on said musicians. Viking Jews kick things off with a steadily evolving piece made up of three untitled compositions. This is really tranquil stuff in the vein of Dolphins Into The Future, James Ferraro's Clear/Discovery LP's or the Ducktails side of that Dracula Lewis split out on No Fun. Very uplifting New Age-style tones looped and sequenced to create a warm ambient feel that can't help but satisfy the dope smoking, ultra laid-back crowd. The Smycken side contains five tracks that begins in a similar fashion to the Viking Jews side before veering of into a sound akin to 'Ghoststep' or 'Witch House' or one of them modern terms used to describe a goth-infused variation on dance music. There are some great tracks here especially the chilling groove of 'Marble Slabz' and the kalimba looped doom of 'Mega House'. This is a mysterious yet highly recommendable slab of wax. Blue wax too. You should check it out.
VIKING JEWS/SMYCKEN LP (RTB#62)
Hailing from Gothenburg, Viking Jews is the brainchild of Hannes Norrvide (also a member of bleak rascal duo Lust For Youth), which after a few selfreleased cassettes here offers up 20 shimmering minutes for his vinyl debut. Melancholic and rhythmic stuff melted through cheap keyboards, distinguished vocals and some serious cassette-flippin', somewhat covered under layers of dust, delay and piles of trashed skateboard decks. Twisted west coast ambience and Scandinavian heat all over. Think of Monopoly Child Star Searchers, early Dolphins Into The Future and Innercity and maybe you are halfways. All new material, except the inclusion of the beautiful ambient-closer from the Boneless cassette which we just couldn't resist to put on vinyl.
Smycken resides in Gothenburg/Malmö/Copenhagen and consists of Rasmus Svensson and Hanna Nilsson. Just as with Viking Jews, this is the first vinyl-apperance from Smycken after most notably a cassette on Night People and a CD-R on Psychic Malmö (both released in 2009). 4 tracks of hazy and dreamy music, pushing forward everything towards a more refined pop-sound but without loosing it's initial Fonal-esque psychedelic blurs and almost folky undertones. Current popular culture is being demolished and embraced at the same time. Tracks like Marble Slabz will have you, with a big smile, asking yourself what the fuck just happened and the closer Mysterious Moonlight is the closest thing we have come to a ballad in the RTB discography since... well, ever.
Mastered by Viktor Ottosson. 275 copies. Blue vinyl.
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Norman Records,
Unit 20, Croydon House,
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Email: phil@normanrecords.com
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