6/17/2021

Betweenness — Inch

 

Swedish musician Jörgen Gustafsson aka Betweenness is releasing his debut EP Inch on the German label The Magic Movement. The release stands out with its airy atmosphere that pulls you right into a vortex of cosmic events. Steady melodies create ever-changing warm images in the mind of the listener. It is imperative to note that the artist is consistent with his extreme attention to detail. At times, it feels like there is a certain youthful joy in the sound, that makes Jörgen's art akin to Freescha and the label Kahvi Collective.

Upon listening to the composition named Agren, one seems to plunge into some kind of fairy tale space right through the doors of one's apartment. Inch stays roughly in the same "colorful" sound key, it displays some kind of taciturnity. It feels like Gustafsson takes special care of every single note, which adds a certain charm to the EP.

And even if the sound of the release isn't exactly breakthrough, it is pleasant to perceive and encounter a quality approach to recording and clearly conveying a certain atmosphere as if it were an academic essay on a given topic.

It was already at the very end of the listening session that I got the impression that the music featured on the EP could have easily represented various dense cosmic landscapes of the planet Solaris, described in the namesake book by Stanislav Lem and a film by Andrei Tarkovsky.

The stunning ending of the EP is a remix by Barcelona-based producer Sau Poler who exhibited his pleasant and unpretentious view of the ambient composition of Betweenness.

Inch is the beginning of a musician who is starting up on a beaten path, yet adding his own melodic moves to the music that has been thoroughly polished for decades by other known ambient musicians.


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