Analfabetism
Svälten i Kagelösa år 1431
Fluttering Dragon Records
With a full decade and now nine LPs to its name, Analfabetism has become just as firm a component within Fredrik Djurfeldt’s discography as the much older Severe Illusion. Sitting astride death industrial and pure dark ambient, the bleak aesthetic of Analfabetism might be too much at times even for fans of Djurfeldt’s more beat-driven (yet still heavily sardonic work), but for those with an ear for harsh, textural soundscapes the fact that we have a second Analfabetism full-length released in 2024 in which to get lost is good news indeed.
Preceding LP Den Svagsintes Klagan was created in response to Djurfeldt’s recent move into the northernmost corners of his native Sweden, and as I wrote earlier this year also offered a slight reprieve from some of the harsher extremes of Analfabetism’s sound. Svälten i Kagelösa år 1431 not only buttresses the project’s noisier dimensions atop its predecessor’s bed of atmospherics, but also serves as a caustic bromide against any delusions of bucolic harmony being found in the woods, taking its name and theme from a remote farming village which was lost amidst famine and cannibalism centuries ago.
If one is new to Analfabetism forlorn opener “På galgbacken intet nytt” is as good a primer as any, with its core sculpture of metallic distortion slowly cast about in the mist. More bleak is “Likets väg över Hälleberget”, where scraping rocks and smothered klaxons flit over the snoring of winter gods. Even at its most “composed” -the bit-crushed funereal march of “Våldsdåd i gryningen” – it’s a record offering no respite or solace.
One can debate whether, to paraphrase Margaret Atwood, that it is your own ignorance you enter when you journey to a frontier, or that the cold materialism of a nature red in tooth and claw is all that is to be found at the world’s edge. I can’t say which view Djurfeldt would hold with after making his own journey, but to the listener of Svälten i Kagelösa år 1431, both nihilistic truths are left open.
