MIDAIRCONDO - Curtain Call

Having lost one of the members of the original lineup (Malin Dahlström), Midaircondo pick up their artistic path again after a full four years of silence. The splendid "Shopping For Images", released in 2005, had caught listeners off guard. The skillful blend of visual seduction and innovative sound proved to be a winning choice, so much so that the band embarked on a well-received world tour. The stage presence of the three women helped make their performances all the more artistically compelling.

The present rests on the creativity of the two remaining women and shows no real change from the past; the band, in fact, picks up a thread connecting this "Curtain Call" with its predecessor. We're still dealing with an abstract, convoluted pop, often coiled in on itself. An outdated, dreamlike and naive musical formula. The rhythm, when present, gets sucked into an anomalous melodic flow that turns a simple electronic beat into unsettling timbral obsessions. The tracklist alternates between more experimental instrumental passages and more accessible sung episodes. This feature, already present on the previous album, helps make the whole thing more bearable even for those unused to such rarefied, detached tones.

Supple ambient short-circuits flow, complex and entangled (the title track and the brief "Below"), while the pop machinery produces blinding fluorescences (the structural contortion of "Come With Me", the hypnotic loop that at times overwhelms the vocals in "Bringing Me Home"). The interplay between the electro-acoustic backdrop and the voice is a strength exploited to exceptional effect (the languid solitude of "Reports On The Horizon" and "The Very Eye Of Night", the samples and the swaying rhythm of "Silk, Silver And Stone"), while the brazen side of this music emerges when the duo lets their imagination run free (the percussive drive of "Glowing Red", the whirl of voices in "Revolve And Repeat", reminiscent of the Agf school of thought).

Closing with the dazzling colors of "Venetian Veil" and punctuated by the composure of "Stay", Midaircondo's return rouses from its torpor a sound that seemed to have gotten lost along the way. The splendor of a certain celestial avant-garde music (see the grace of Colleen), never dulled even when set aside, reclaims its rightful attention with a skillful work, full of inventiveness and thoroughly enjoyable.

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14/10/2009