MARCUS FJELLSTRÖM – THE LAST SUNSET OF THE YEAR
Marcus Fjellström is a Swedish composer and multimedia artist whose work ranged from purely orchestral to electronic music. After graduating from his composition and orchestration study in Sweden, he released his debut album Excercises in Estrangement in 2005. Three other solo albums would follow: Gebrauchsmusik, Schattenspieler, and Skelektikon. Apart from that, some of his audiovisual work can be seen on his youTube channel Kafkagarden.
Fjellström passed away in 2017 in Berlin, at the very young age of 37. The year before his death he had been working on the soundtrack for the first series of the AMC TV series The Terror, which told the story of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. He wrote no less than 75 pieces for this show, sometimes as many as six or seven versions of one piece. Erik K. Skodvin and Dave Kajganich, both close friends and colleagues, made a selection from these tracks and combined them into Fjellströms posthumous album called The Last Sunset Of The Year.
This posthumous album is not intended as a soundtrack album: some of the pieces have appeared in the series in a different form, and others are available here for the first time. This album is a showcase of Fjellström’s capabilities as a composer and musician and should be seen as his last and final album.
The 26 tracks (87 minutes) have no titles of their own, but the album is divided in four sections which inevitably link the music to the series theme: Last Morning Watch, Last Draughts – Best Efforts, Last Fixed Position, and Last Heat, Last Exertions. “It is a journey that evokes the mystery, grandeur, and desolation of the Arctic, and articulates the spiritual and existential implications of traveling there.”
But with this dark and brooding music, it’s impossible not to relate is to Fjellström‘s untimely death, too.
“None of those men could know, nor can we, what waits for us across the line of death, but in The Last Sunset of the Year, Marcus seems to have had a notion.”
The Last Sunset Of The Year is released as a 2CD or 2LP release on Miasmah Recordings; also available as a digital download.
TRIO RAMBERGET & MATTI BYE – MIRROR VARIATIONS
Trio Ramberget is an ‘acoustic ambient group’ (or ‘acoustic ambient-jazz group’ if you prefer) from Sweden, formed by Gustav Davidsson (trombone, vibraphonette), Johanna Ekholm (double bass, vibraphonette), and Pelle Westlin (bass clarinet, tubular bells).
On this release, the trio is expanded to a quartet featuring Matti Bye adding the sounds of a muted piano, celesta, live electronics, and an EMS synth AKS. Composer and musician Matti Bye, also Swedish, is mainly known for his compositions for contemporary films, TV productions, and documentaries. He also performs live, playing at silent music festivals and other screenings.
This is not the first time they worked together: Matti contributed to the trio’s Drone Positions in 2023. Mirror Variations feels as if Ramberget has been a quartet all along.
The six tracks are partly improvised, some entirely free-form, while others are based on ‘various compositional and philosophical ideas’.
Two of the tracks are just above one minute long, and the remaining four are longer – ranging from six to almost eleven minutes.
But regardless of their length, all tracks have the same well-balanced atmsphere, ‘exploring shapes, presence, time, and reflections, taking listeners to different worlds, spaces, and places’.
Mirror Variations will be released on November 17, on vinyl as well as digital.
TRIO RAMBERGET & MATTI BYE – CINEREOUS
MARCUS FJELLSTRÖM – THE LAST SUNSET OF THE YEAR is excellent. Very cinematic.