TESTBILD! - Barrikad

Flute, clarinet, glockenspiel, melodica, organ, toy piano, trumpet, recorder, harpsichord, vibraphonette, a harpsichord belonging to the Royal Danish Academy of Music and a range of trumpet and trombone variants, together with the classic set-up of bass, guitars, drums and vocals, create the suave acoustic fabric of "Barrikad", the new chapter from Swedish band Testbild!.

Ambitious and inspired by film soundtracks of the '60s and '70s, "Barrikad" is one of the band's most complex and demanding projects, and the three hundred vinyl copies in which it's released represent the fruit of a conscious artistic choice, one that through its lavish packaging (the work of Rikard Heberling and Jacob Grønbech Jensen) draws the listener into the new album's visionary tone.

A more ethereal lyricism underscores the dissonance with the previous "Aquatint", while certain classical and jazz elements evoke the exploits of the "The Ocean Tango" project, made in collaboration with Louis Philippe.

Sumptuous echoes of medieval music, with evocative quasi-classical harmonies, animate “Barrikad”, which welcomes folk touches with flutes and gothic choirs, a fluidity that also pervades “En kartbild utan sand”, a mini-symphony that unfolds between faint voices and impetuous crescendos of horns and rhythms.

“Barrikad” is an album devoid of artistic speculation, more intent on creating and searching for new sonic languages than on distilling the great intuitions of “Aquatint” into a formula.

The project aims to recover a sound free from the cages of download; every fragment is a refined variation of timbres and sounds, as in the brief interludes of “På randen” and “Interlude”, and is also functional to a reinterpretation of native folk, as in the dissonant “Skuggspel”, while the sonic torments of “Mareld” anticipate a sonic orgy that both disturbs and fascinates.

The Canterbury-style appeal of certain sonic solutions remains relevant (“Skuggspel” sounds like it stepped straight out of the Caravan songbook), jazz skilfully works its way into the fabric of “Stormsvalor”, emerging triumphant in the acoustic-symphonic solutions of “Watt”.

Don't be fooled by the playful tone of “På randen” and the straightforwardness of “Tidsstyrd”, a ballad arranged with glockenspiel and toy piano: the new Testbild! album is a beguiling work, but never a conciliatory one.

A learned, inspired work, “Barrikad” does not linger over the refined harmonies that made “Aquatint” the band's masterpiece, instead letting traces of jazz and avant-garde emerge forcefully. And the brief but sophisticated finale of “Tegelröda ljus” seems merely a preview of what the Swedish group has in store for the future.

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12/07/2011