In the music of Forndom, the past breathes with a vitality that transcends time. “Moþir” is as complex as the deities it portrays, weaving together themes of fertility and loyalty, love and betrayal, light and shadow. It is an exploration of divine ambiguity, where the nurturing embrace of a mother can just as easily turn into the cold hand of inevitability.
Here, Ludvig Swärd strips away the modern trappings of synthesisers, embracing a purely acoustic sound. The music feels as though it has been carved from the very earth, born from instruments fashioned by hand and played with reverence for the ancient…
Following on from the universal acclaim of their latest LP "Le Ceneri Di Heliodoro", ROME releases one of the most impressive releases in its prolific career of 15 years. "The Lone Furrow" is the logical culmination of all of ROME's previous endeavours, a brilliant and patient demolition of the despiritualised modern age, timeless in its critique of man's greed and the deliberate desecration of beautiful things. ROME is back to fearlessly settle accounts of the spirit, with that grave trademark voice, whose tone can be likened to a wise-man's oracle, deepened by countless cigars and pools of stout, or, at times, a Stuka bomber nose-diving into dry gravel. ROME's art always stays slightly beyond the pale and Reuter certainly is what the mainstream would call a joyous outsider. "The Lone Furrow" is a mordant, clear-eyed critique of the modern world, spun with the delicacy of a spiderweb; a journey through the ravaged landscapes of history; a spiritual quest weaving a unique poetry of withdrawal from the troubling world into distant retreats.
Annabel Mehran's black-and-white cover photo for Steve Gunn's The Unseen Inbetween is a portrait of the guitarist and songwriter seemingly on the move. It evokes those found on early- to mid-'60s recordings by Bob Dylan, Koerner, Ray & Glover, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch, and others. Gunn has shifted his focus considerably. Rather than simply showcase his dazzling guitar playing, he delivers carefully crafted, uncharacteristically tight and well-written songs with guitars, keyboards, strings, reeds – and percussion – translating them without artifice or instrumental disguise. Gunn's also a more confident, capable singer than he was on 2016's Eyes on the Lines and it shows.