Fredrik
Flora
The Kora Records
Blossoming past the confines of traditional songwriting, Fredrik's newest album "Flora" is a melancholy outing carpeted with of horns, bells, and guitars. Sure, it's what we've come to expect from the Swedish experimental trio (two members who also perform as the criminally underrated band, The LK) -- but it's also more than most fringe-folk acts could hope deliver.
A lo-key, densely arranged cacophony, theirs is a brand of hypnotic chanting and melodic repetition that could easily grow stale or downright grating in lesser, or less restrained hands. Instead, we're offered remarkable variance, from the clattering urgency of "Vattenfront" to the haunting, never-quite-peaking crescendo of "Inventress of ill (and everything)". Though perhaps it's the driving, narrative-heavy track "The shape and colour of things gone blind" (a reference to member Ola Lindefelt's reported synesthesia) that offers the best context in which to discuss/dissect the album. Armed with a world-view turned some 180-degrees from current trends, Fredrik doesn't just make music to hear, but to get lost in.
- Laura Studarus
