Mokira Persona

It may be tempting to discuss the latest effort of Swedish glitchy minimalist Andreas Tilliander (operating here under Mokira, one of his plethora of aliases) in terms of the experimental and ambient music that came out of Germany during the 70's (commonly and borderline offensively referred to as “krautrock”). Without a doubt the shadows of Cluster and Popol Vuh cast themselves broadly over many of these tracks, however a term like “krautrock fetishism” is far too blunt an instrument to use when dissecting or assessing Tilliander's complex and layered schema.

The most salient feature of the album on first listen is the undeniable flow that Tilliander ferrets out and immerses himself in. From track to track, the pull of the current varies, but always there is a sense of finding a way. Whether it's a ball slowly discovering the path on a wooden board stuck with pins (as on some of the earlier tracks like Contour and About Last Step And Scale) or the sort of pulsing, unstoppable force of the jet stream, the motion never stops. Tracks like Valla Torg Kraut feel closer in spirit to traditional Dub grooves than kosmiche ambience. Even the most pensive of the tracks here open up to us the infinite pathfinding experience of an untethered space walk. There is an exciting physicality to the songs that creates not simply a simulation of a new discovery, but a genuine and visceral participation in that discovery. It's a sense that, on some level the act of our listening to the music affects it's development and we come to grow together over the course of the album, until finally we are encouraged on the last track (Invitation To Love) to take a look back and watch the contrails left by our dance with the music fade out into a haze of tape hiss. Tilliander has been a pioneer in sound for some time, but here we are invited behind the curtain for the first time.

On this record Tilliander also branches out as far as his instrumental arsenal is concerned. Until now, Tilliander has been primarily recognized as a laptop artist, working mainly on a computer with various programs and sound manipulation software. Here we see playful trials with various synthesizer sounds, background tape fuzz and heavy bass tones. This is far from wanton experimentation however. Tilliander is by no means just throwing his studio at the wall and seeing what sticks. Instead he crafts supremely subtle, confident and almost sanguine aural exercises that would would make the average listener believe that he was born with a Roland keyboard in his abnormally huge baby hands.

While somewhat less of an outright genre bender than previous outings Persona is a huge step forward (or at least in some new direction) for the intrepid Swede. Managing a feeling of maturity and having a veteran at the helm, while maintaining the sense of blithe discovery that comes with the exploration of a fresh approach, this album will hopefully mark the beginning of a new chapter (or at least a long footnote) in the career of Andreas Tilliander.