Analfabetism
Av Hjord är du Kommen
Malignant Records
Fredrik Djurfelt’s been in the industrial game for a while; even though it’s only the second release under his Analfabetism project, Av Hjord är du Kommen feels very much like a consolidation of his work as Knös and Instans, the noisier and more experimental counters to his more immediate (though no less abrasive) work in Severe Illusion. Av Hjord är du Kommen makes minor adjustments to Djurfelt’s template of power electronics and dark ambient-inflected industrial, imbuing Analfabetism with a touch more direction and purpose without forsaking its dedication to noise.
If there’s one thing all Djurfelt’s work shares, it’s a resistance to cheap shock or sheer volume as a substitute for more subtle means of disquieting listeners. “Den vägen vandra” could almost be mistaken for a pure dark ambient track were it not for the full range of grinding feedback and violently tremoring frequencies which adorn its minimal rhythmic portions. The piece takes a simple, almost reverential pulse of static and processed strings as its guideline, but rather than ever letting it stand on its own sends a rattling cascade of chirps and klaxons clattering in syncopation with that foundation, sounding like a rainstick from the depths of hell.
That sense of textural and rhythmic (if not melodic) harmony guides much of the record. Compared with the previous, self-titled Analfabetism LP, Av Hjord är du Kommen is a more fully integrated listen. Rather that setting up a swarm of crackles, percussion and feedback zig-zagging against each other, Djurfelt’s aligning the static, croaks, and clanks in a more harmonious pattern, producing a more fatalistic than chaotic vibe. There was always a sanguine sense of intelligibility to Analfabatism‘s structures despite the fractured surface; the landscape of Av Hjord är du Kommen‘s textures are just being brought into alignment with that deeper, churning inevitability.
But at the end of the day, we’re still dealing with industrial noise. Uncompromising, indifferent, abrasive: whatever you want to call it, one knows it when one hears it, and Djurfelt knows how to deliver. Never showy, never reactionary, the grim engines of discord Djurfelt has harnessed churn onward on Av Hjord är du Kommen, spurned only by their own inevitability.
