Ljudbilden & Piloten - One Hundred Fifty-Five

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Brian on Thu 28 Feb, 2008.

I've been digging a bizarre new CD on Nosordo, a Swedish affair by Ljudbilden and Piloten. The sleeve is a right old Rene Magritte homage which wins points. Flicking around to get a sense of this (in) coherence, i'm blessed with an album of accessibly abstract shimmering avant-folk/post rock & blissed neo classical chamber pop! With sketches building into hypnotic structures of sound, very organic & percussive with yearning lounge piano & rythymical jazzy touches. Bits remind me of TNT era Tortoise, others Terry Riley. Others are brief Chauveux/Tiersen style minimal piano interludes. Moving on, you'll feel some lonely atmospheric acoustic guitar. For instance, 'N Vaerlinge' is just totally absorbing & moving ambience laced with haunting suspended piano keys. By far my favourite track, like Brian Eno on Absinthe!! On second flick i'd say with the pure classical flourishes, this is definately somewhere up there in orbit with the Bersarin Quartett CD (in spirit, occasionally style) , lovingly arranged, compulsively varied and very graceful, this CD deserves your attention!!! 'One Hundred Fifty-five' is Digipak only!!

Tracks:
1. You Know You?re Doing Ok
2. Plokk
3. Pianosong Two No. 2
4. A. Klingtmann
5. N. Vaerlinge
6. Flock
7. Wedding
8. I Will Turn You Down To The Stage
9. Arms And Legs Together
10. Care Of
11. Three Tacht
12. Pianosong Two
13. (Bjorn) One More Year
14. Pen On Paper
15. Wednesday

Composed and performed by Kristofer Ström. Recorded and mixed between 2005?07 in Malmö, Sweden. We are thrilled to present "One hundred fifty-five", the latest release from award-winning illustrator, animator, and musician Kristofer Ström (Ljudbilden & Piloten). After several highly-acclaimed limited edition singles and EPs (paired with such names as Kama Aina and Gregg Kowalsky/Osso Bucco) "One hundred fifty-five" is essentially Ljudbilden & Piloten's first full length album. The deluxe digipack CD cover comes replete with a special full-colour collage for each track, and YouTube is already heaving with special videos made for this release (one video per track). With echoes of Greg Davis, John Fahey and, dare we say it, Pink Floyd in the mix, "One hundred fifty-five" will surely make people sit up and take notice of this extraordinary musical talent.

The unique sound of Ljudbilden & Piloten (pron. "yude-bill-den oak pee-loe-ten") is the result of Kristofer?s relentless search for new sounds. He has used a range of objects in the creation of loops and rhythms. On any one of the 15 new tracks on "One hundred fifty-five" you may hear sounds as diverse as those of Elmo (Kristofer's dog), a glass, a zither, a handclap or two, an egg slicer, a guitar, a bass and a trumpet.
Based in Malmö, Sweden, Kristofer has worked with a variety of different bands over the past decade, yet it is his solo work as Ljudbilden & Piloten where he can really flex his creative muscles, which combines video work, illustration and his trademark use of unusual percussion objects. He says he is inspired by everything and everyone. "I can't put my finger on just one thing that inspires me the most. It depends from time to time. One day it could be an e-mail from someone, another day the silence. Movies, photos, art, friends, music. I can't decide what inspires me the most. It wouldn't be fair to the tree with no leaves if I turned around and said I got more inspiration from looking at its friend who has leaves."

Kristofer has composed music for theatre, dance-theatre and for short film productions. Last summer he also worked as a music pedagogue at NEON Gallery space in Malmö, Sweden, alongside Lisa Nordström from Midaircondo. He has toured Sweden with David Balula, Domotic and O.lamm, Dead Texan, and has performed in Denmark and Spain. 2008 will see more live performances, in support of "One hundred fifty-five".
His animation work has earned him such awards as the Gold Award for "Best Budget Video" at the Cads Music Vision Awards (London, UK), an award for "Best Video" at the Kolla Awards (Stockholm, Sweden). His work has been presented on Swedish national television (notably on Kobra and Musikbyrån/SVT) and to celebrate the success of his stop-motion video for the band Minilogue (over 2 million views on YouTube so far) the producers Son Kite made and special presentation a over an hour of Ljudbilden material (released, unreleased, live, upcoming and sketches).

"Ljudbilden & Piloten says everything I've ever wanted to say about how magnificent life is, in much better ways than my measly words could ever express." - Eden Hemming Rose, Foxy Digitals (USA)

With support from The Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs.