A deft hand with a long history within the brooding realms of ambient, electronic, and electroacoustic music, since emerging on the Swedish scene during the 1990s, Joachim Nordwall has cut a wide path, not only with a stunning body of solo work and collaborative efforts with Mika Vainio, John Duncan, Mats Gustafsson, and numerous others, but also through his highly regarded label iDEAL Recordings.
Nordwall’s contribution to the MMXX series, Before It Gets Better, It Will Get Worse, is a remarkably singular gesture built around captured vocalizations. The work’s title, spoken by a number of voices, stands as doubling mantra and raw material, increasingly repeated layered, processed, and fed with further tonal and textural interventions over its duration. Riding a line between the sinister and comedic, the artist’s immediate intention is shadowy and slow to unfold; each emersion revealing new depths of abstract possibilities as the humanity of the speaker and spoken are displaced by Nordwall’s interventions.
Falling somewhere between musique concrète, sound-art, and experimental electroacoustic music, Joachim Nordwall’s Before It Gets Better, It Will Get Worse is yet another illustration of how the MMXX series has emboldened its artists to push the boundaries of their own practice, giving them the support and safety to push into new realms. Absolutely fantastic and a thrilling listen from start to finish.
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Matière Mémoire presents the MMXX Series. In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 great artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Throughout this year, each quarter will see the release of 5 new vinyls, available individually or as a bundle. Each record is limited at 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each contained in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, and each coming with a print of the artist artwork.
