Mattias Olsson is always making my ears challenging by going
beyond the progressive genre. But he is taking it a step further. Whether its
Pixie Ninja, Weserbergland, or Molesome, he wants to go beyond the silence as
far as he can go. This year, he’s challenging me even more with this new duo
called In These Murky Waters. They’ve released their sole self-titled debut
album on the Apollon label. It considers alongside Mattias on keyboards, but
Ewik Rodell on Lead Vocals.
According to their bandcamp website, Erik was looking for
someone who can create these new sounds for a concept album. She found Mattias
through mutual friends as they talked about what ideas that Mattias can come up
with. On the album, he uses the Mellotron, Chamberlin, Optigan (Steve Hackett
used that instrument for the closing track, Sentimental
Institution from his fourth studio album, Defector in 1980), and the Orchestron.
So it is quite an adventure for Mattias to use those four
keyboards to create this eerie atmosphere at times with different story
structures by creating these abstract illustrations to set up the scenes inside
your head. Part of the music is like something out of the French duo Air’s
sessions for Sofia Coppola’s 1999 film debut, The Virgin Suicides.
Listening to Ewik’s vocals, she resembles three artists;
Siouxsie Sioux, The Cure’s Robert Smith, and the late great Nico. She has this
touch that I can imagine that all three of them have given her the torch’s to
make sure to keep their legacy going by making sure their flames don’t burn
out.
Memories are Tape sounds
like an old recording from a 1930s record when you hear it from both the
Optigan and the Mellotron while Ewik’s soothing vocals set up the moment in
their lives as if raindrops has come down by giving them a warm feeling inside
their hearts. We Came from the Ocean
has this post-punk/new wave approach by creating this combination between Joy
Division and Bauhaus.
Elsewhere, Carnival feels
like a dystopian view of what was supposed to be the Greatest Show on Earth,
turns into the Circus from Hell due to its nightmarish landscapes, dangerous
stunts, and hallucinating formats of Ewik becoming the master of ceremonies on
what you’re about to experience. Now mind you, this is not for the faint of
heart while Mattias sets up the circus sounds as a waltz as you can hear paying
tribute to Roxy Music, Yes, and The Beatles.
Adventures in Central
Park has this mournful late ‘60s vibrate of The Electric Prunes’ Mass In F Minor as if transforms into
one of Ewik’s lost letter to the Big Apple. It makes you feel right at home to
revisit Central Park and being away from the big city and clear your head and
start a brand new day.
Tears on a Green
Sequined Dress has this trippy psych-hop by making you hit the dance floor
while Rooms of Faded Photographs
features these ‘50s sound of the Mellotron Cello as if Mattias was honoring the
masters themselves of the THRAK-era
of King Crimson.
In These Murky Waters might take a few listens. So whether you get it or not, it is a challenge. But what Ewik and Mattias have done is to bring the listener to be in the lion’s den with them and be a part of their parallel stories that are brought to life. And while I was inside the lion’s den, it shows that Mattias wanted to something that was beyond Anglagard and White Willow. And In These Murky Waters was one of them.