The area of Sweden we were traveling through wasn't exactly densely populated. It also was already late in the day, when our car broke down. And mobile phones of course weren't a thing back then. So just calling for help wasn't an option, while - judging from the lack of traffic we had experienced before - waiting for someone to stop and assist us didn't seem very promising either.
SMÅLAND - Oro Och Ältande (LP) (2026)
We folded out our map, figured out our current position and decided to go on a little hike westward to the next village. Which meant to leave the road in favour of a shortcut leading us past a narrow lake and through a small strip of woodland. Hard to say how long that would take us, but since as long as we could see it in the slightly dimming light a clean path went right in that direction, we hoped to make it a comfortable while before it would get completely dark.
The sun however was already quite low before us, when we walked besides the shores of the lake, where a lonely swan floated parallel to us. We joked that he was following us and even waved him goodbye, when the lake ended and our path carried on out of his sight.
But then a couple of minutes later, just casually looking back we saw that the swan had indeed gotten out of the water to waddle to the footpath. He wasn't pursuing us any further, but just stood there with wide open wings like a statue guarding the way. His silhoette looked imposing and surreal. It was the first thing which send a shiver down my spine that night.
Reaching the edge of the forest took us longer than estimated. Some rays of light still made it through the trunks, but most of them were swallowed somewhere in the thickness of the undergrowth before us. Luckily, even considering we had been slower than expected so far, it would take us at most half an hour, until we would step out of the shadows and hopefully see the lights of civilzation right before us. Any longer and we seriously might have relied on the light of the stars and the moon to guide us.
It wasn't even half an hour, when we noticed an illumination, which had to be streetlights. Flickering streetlights? Something was off. Soon it was clear that the light wasn't artificial but came from a fire - and we weren't nearing the other end of the woods, but only a clearing. Maybe two dozen lines of trees separated us from it, when we recognized a huge shadow in the shape of antlers beside the flames. Was it an elk? No the figure was standing upright on its legs and had its arm outstreched towards the sky! And there was movement to its feet, casts of smoke, flame and flesh, creatures beyond the grasp of our imagination, dancing around the fire in eery silence, as if they had not fully entered our world yet.
We should have turned our backs at them to run away as fast as we could, but our feet didn't obey us any longer. We kept approaching the unreal scenery as if we were mesmerized by a hypnotic spell...
Reaching the edge of the forest took us longer than estimated. Some rays of light still made it through the trunks, but most of them were swallowed somewhere in the thickness of the undergrowth before us. Luckily, even considering we had been slower than expected so far, it would take us at most half an hour, until we would step out of the shadows and hopefully see the lights of civilzation right before us. Any longer and we seriously might have relied on the light of the stars and the moon to guide us.
It wasn't even half an hour, when we noticed an illumination, which had to be streetlights. Flickering streetlights? Something was off. Soon it was clear that the light wasn't artificial but came from a fire - and we weren't nearing the other end of the woods, but only a clearing. Maybe two dozen lines of trees separated us from it, when we recognized a huge shadow in the shape of antlers beside the flames. Was it an elk? No the figure was standing upright on its legs and had its arm outstreched towards the sky! And there was movement to its feet, casts of smoke, flame and flesh, creatures beyond the grasp of our imagination, dancing around the fire in eery silence, as if they had not fully entered our world yet.
We should have turned our backs at them to run away as fast as we could, but our feet didn't obey us any longer. We kept approaching the unreal scenery as if we were mesmerized by a hypnotic spell...
Oh wait!
You expected an album review, didn't you? Sorry, I somehow got carried away describing one of many possible scenarios for which Småland's "Oro Och Ältande" ("Worry and Rumination") could be the score.
The trio weaves organic and Electronic sounds to deep, dark yet also strangely magical Ambient compositions of profound depth. This music seems to come from the same otherworld as Anna von Hausswolff's "All Thoughts Fly" - and indeed it has been released by the Organ Queen herself on her label Pomperipossa Records. That connection and the record's artwork of folk tale fairies and horrors promise a lot - and fulfil it all. This album is a beautifully ambivalent stream of imagination, drifting between hope and foreboding, between nightmare and dream.
And if you cannot get enough of this Nordic mystery become sound - there's one Mogwai remix of "Det Är Aldrig För Sent Att Ge Upp" ("It's Never Too Late To Give Up"), which you can add as a digital bonus track:
The trio weaves organic and Electronic sounds to deep, dark yet also strangely magical Ambient compositions of profound depth. This music seems to come from the same otherworld as Anna von Hausswolff's "All Thoughts Fly" - and indeed it has been released by the Organ Queen herself on her label Pomperipossa Records. That connection and the record's artwork of folk tale fairies and horrors promise a lot - and fulfil it all. This album is a beautifully ambivalent stream of imagination, drifting between hope and foreboding, between nightmare and dream.
And if you cannot get enough of this Nordic mystery become sound - there's one Mogwai remix of "Det Är Aldrig För Sent Att Ge Upp" ("It's Never Too Late To Give Up"), which you can add as a digital bonus track:
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