Molesome - Dial

Mattias Olsson has been a very busy, busy man when it comes to both bands and projects. Whether it’s his work between White Willow, Anglagard, Pixie Ninja, il Tempio Delle Clessidre, Vly, and Necromonkey, Mattias has been around from day one. Now Molesome is another of Mattias’ projects. And it is this journey that would take beyond this deep, dark, eerie, musique-concrete, avant-electronic jazz cavernous sound he brought to the second album, Dial.

What Olsson wanted to do on the follow up to their 2015 release with Songs for Vowels and Mammals, was to create this piece that would emulate the sound of listening to a radio and going through different channels and listening to the static noises with tiny bits of music coming through. Clocking in at 32 minutes and 44 seconds, Molesome’s second album which is recorded at Roth-Handle Studios in Sweden, the music brings at times both of the composers from Philip Glass and Steve Reich, the Jazz sounds in an echoing reverb effect.

The effect has this sound as if it is calling for a fanfare in the cave as Olsson challenges the listener to follow suit and seeing where the danger is heading whether it is clockwork or as a Rubik’s cube. Mattias is like a puzzle master by giving the listener a giant step to see where and how those locations can be both tricky and surreal. Not only that, but Dial is going through inside of the mansion of a Rubik’s cube and walking through these spiral staircases and the traps that are set, they are both tricky and very dangerous.

Molesome’s music is giving Mattias doing an alternate score for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks franchise. You can hear the Trumpets, post-rock guitar loops, King Crimson’s THRAK-era of the Mellotron setting up this ‘50s dystopian future, the echoing effects of Miles Davis’ A Tribute to Jack Johnson, dialogue going back and forth, it is all there. After my listening of Dial around five, seven times, Dial is a very interesting release this year.

It made me try to understand what Olsson is doing by taking me to these parallel doors that go beyond The Twilight Zone. I will admit, this is not an easy album to listen to from start to finish. It is a challenging release and while I’m not crazy about it, Mattias is always moving forwards to see where the next door will take him to. And it shows that he has more tricks underneath his sleeve to see where the next card will take him to.