I’ll admit to a soft spot for the music of Swedish composer Åke Parmerud ever since hearing his 2015 Growl release for this label. Much of the selection on that set satisfied our unhealthy lusts for noise, metal, sampling and industrial music, even if he was doing it in a rather stilted manner. Subsequent item Nécropolis missed a few opportunities for making a truly dark occultist statement (though that was far from his intent), and then there was Grains, a nifty item which showcased earlier compositions predicated on voice experiments.

Today’s record Bruit noir (empreintes DIGITALes IMED 22179) has such a great title it’s amazing it hasn’t been used before in noise / rock contexts — although I find there’s already a French rock duo by this name, and also a label Bruit Noir Records in Marseilles which put out a tiny number of extreme-Techno EPs. Here, Parmerud gathers together three compositions, leading off with the main event Louder Than Life from 2020-21. It’s in five “movements” much like a classical concerto, even using conventional terminology for tempos, like Largo and Presto. We’re not told much about it except that it’s dedicated to his friend Anders Blomqvist, who died in 2020. Blomqvist was a Swedish electronic composer often associated with Fylkingen, and while not exactly prolific he was held in high esteem by many; his Jaguar Revisited has proven an enduring hit since 1984 and is even shown on the telly. While Louder Than Life might not be as extreme as I was hoping for, I am getting the sense that Parmerud is expressing a deep connection with his friend, and attempting to evoke difficult emotions through this strange, layered music. He hopes we’ll listen to the entire 33 minutes in a single sitting, but also allows for each separate movement to work on its own terms and stand up to scrutiny. The Largo movement is particularly affecting, for reasons that aren’t at all clear; even more nightmarish is its neighbour Presto, which comes across as a confusing post-modern jumble of ideas, even allowing the ghosts of serialism and 12-tone composition to swim into the murky mix. It’s all very abstract, gloomy, and held together by an unfathomable structure; we might even call it “intellectual dark ambient”, though naturally Åke Parmerud has no connection to that genre and remains entirely unhampered by its clichés and stereotypical sounds.

After that, we go back to 2013 with Raw, a piece written for a commission by the Geiger festival. Apparently the curators of this Swedish event favour “noise” music (probably because they’re based in Gothenburg), so he attempted with this composition to cater to their predilections. He decided to have a go with one of these new-fangled synth software apps, and settled on something called Skrewell from Native Instruments. The world of digital workstations is far from my personal comfort zone, but from notice boards and forums I get the impression that Skrewwell (part of the Reaktor suite of tools) is pretty chaotic — eight noise oscillators capable of modulating each other simultaneously and producing a much scarier version of the generative-synth environment which Brian Eno has made his own. Parmerud had much the same experience, and was evidently chagrined by the “uncontrollable” nature of this Skrewell. He decided to relinquish control and just go for the raw outputs of his experiments, hence the name — settling on a kind of composed-improvised work. He also has to admit he failed on the “noise” benchmark and missed the target by a mile. Raw isn’t especially raw or wild at all (Carlos Giffoni, for one, would use this kind of material as a soothing balm in his hot bath), but it’s still possessed of an eerie quality. One might almost say Parmerud were on the verge of possession by a mysterious ghost or phantom oozing out of his laptop screen.

Also rather fascinating are the weird faceless tones we hear on Dark Matter, even though the method behind this one — searching for inaudible sounds produced by waves of energy from microwaves, computers, or lightbulbs — is old hat, having been investigated since 1996 by Disinformation, John Duncan, CM von Hausswolff, Joe Colley, Scanner, Hafler Trio, and just about anyone on the Fault in the Nothing compilation. Once again Åke Parmerud doesn’t favour a “sensationalist” approach to the subject, and there’s an open-ended quality to the quiet brooding sounds here that is quite attractive.

Parmerud è un compositore svedese di musica elettroacustica, contemporanea, per ambienti pubblici e privati, teatro e via dicendo, pluripremiato. La prima composizione del disco (Louder Than Life) è dedicata all’amico compositore Blomqvist, in 5 movimenti dalla dicitura classica (Adagio, Scherzo, Largo, Presto, Coda). Immaginate Varèse e Russolo che si incontrino in un futuro presente. La dimensione intellettuale sopraffà quella emozionale ma non è meno avvincente o coinvolgente. Non è né Mozart né Einsttirzende Neubauten, ma pulsa di vita come entrambi, con i suoi imprevisti e le sue bizzarrie; vi si scoprono mille cose — ad esempio il dialogo tra fiati strozzati e rumori elettronici, soprassalti di quiete, cascate di archi, volute sintetiche, ritmi cigolanti. Raw è una improvvisazione noise su uno dei sintetizzatori più instabili e si percepisce l’irregolarità del suono e il desiderio-fatica di assoggettarlo: suggestivo e a suo molo lirico. Dark Matter è una riflessione sonora sui campi elettromagnetici degli oggetti che usiamo (forni a microonde, cellulari, lampadine, computer…) disvelandone un’aura poetica dietro formule matematiche.

Avanguardia — Rumori psichedelici — Un’immersione totale in ambito di musica concreta ed elettroacustica. Sette sono i temi, divisi nei cinque movimenti di Louder Than LifeRaw, diciassette minuti di stampo rumoristico, è un piccolo capolavoro dal carattere alquanto psichedelico, ottenuto attraverso un impegnativo synth chiamato Skrewell. Da applausi anche 1. Adagio, crepuscolare e affascinante, che ha vinto ex æquo il primo premio nella categoria C alla bienniale Métamorphoses a Bruxelles. ****

Umgeworfen hat mich das Duo Martin Bédard & Marie-Hélène Breault deren Musik, wie eine riesige Welle über einen hereinbricht. Wie ein Actionfilm oder so ähnlich. Mitunter ist es auch brachial, aber akustisch ungemein überzeugend. Åke Parmerud’s Musik ist eher dunkel. Verfremdete Celloklänge, überhaupt arbeitet er viel mit Streicherklängen, welche dann in atemberaubende Soundcollagen münden. Natürlich wird das Erinnern von Hans Tutschku an seine Japanreise durch viele Fieldrecordings unterstützt und wie er das ganze verarbeitet und erweitert, das ist spannend. Bei der Musik von Vanessa Massera denke ich mehr als bei allen anderen an eine Filmmusik. Eine sehr beeindruckende und herausfordernde Musik.