Hans Appelqvist ~ Tonefilm
The music is bookended by the sound of a film projector accompanied by an acoustic piano playing a mournful melody. Parallels can be drawn between the dj’s turntable and the reels of a film projector:
- both casting images: the projector literally, the turntable through suggestion with the power to involve and conduct the listener on a journey
- both spinning rapidly, vinyl discs/acetate spools
- an almost inevitable sense of archeology, of discovery of things past (given that digital film is beginning to replace acetate, just as the cd has mostly replaced vinyl)
Closest reference point for me would be DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing,
both works share a hiphop rhythmic focus and a sense of pathos which in
the case of Tonefilm borders quite beautifully at times on melancholy. Appelqvist
is unafraid to use more innocent, less ‘cool’ sounds. Another
association conjured is Fourtet’s most recent release (Pause) perhaps
because of the prominence of acoustic instruments: guitar, piano, harp,
voices. The use of these different voices brings much variety and sincerity
to the music. I should point out that from the info on the cd cover the
language spoken is Swedish. The voices sound as though they’re taken
from films, though the cover states “all text read by Gusta Nydahl,
Ingegerd Pettersson” – whatever the fact, the impressions remains
of dramatic assemblages.
There’s a passage towards the end of this cd where voices speak in
bursts of syllables, echoed once and supported by an acoustic guitar and
partial piano. The voices might be backwards, there are a number of them,
there’s a halting sadness to them - it’s very affecting and
reminded me of oriental haiku-like music: I’m sure there are much
more appropriate comparisons, but the nearest I can get is the spoken word
section in John Zorn’s Forbidden Fruit (the last piece on Spillane).
The experience is of watching a foreign film where the subtitles have failed
to appear, you’re left to spy meaning and feeling in the inflections
of the actors’ voices, in the contexts of each scene, the structure
and the cuts. I don’t know whether fluency in Swedish would add or
detract from the experience of the album, I can say there’s no frustration
in not understanding what is being said.
Highly recommended.