Marcus Fjellström - Library Music 1

1 LM 101
2 LM 102
3 LM 103
4 LM 104
5 LM 105
6 LM 106
7 LM 107
8 LM 108
9 LM 109
10 LM 110
11 LM 111
12 LM 112
13 LM 113
14 LM 114
15 LM 115
16 LM 116
17 LM 117
18 LM 118

Swedish composer Marcus Fjellstrom has really excelled himself with this unassuming, self-released collection of "library music". Why the inverted commas? Well, perhaps because library music better describes the sonic tradition in which Fjellstrom is working in rather than the likely purpose of his creations - though it's fair to say that any adventurous TV/radio producers looking for mood music will find an embarassment of riches here. As befits a collection of "library music", each track suggests completely different emotions, landscapes and movements, but almost in spite of itself the album achieves a weird coherence. Fjellstrom's influences are obvious but artfully, elegantly referenced and recombined: not just vintage library finds, but also modern classical, laptop electronics, ice cool avant-jazz and the kind of stirring, fetidly atmospheric film music that just doesn't get made any more - at various points we were reminded of Max Richter, The Focus Group, Howard Shore, Alva-Noto, Moondog, Bernard Parmegiani, Kryszstof Komeda and Basil Kirchin, and none of these are names we invoke lightly. Like his sometime Miasmah labelmates, Fjellstrom uses digital means to give his creations a vintage patina that's visually as well as sonically evocative: at times you have to pinch yourself to remember you're not watching some lost film noir in a smoky Vienna cinema. Every composition is thick with ideas and otherworldly in the extreme, and Fjellstrom has a knack for stirring melody as well as texture. Highly recommended...www.boomkat.com