CD - Kafkagarden
In "Music Library 1" Marcus Fjellström takes inspiration from classic music libraries - collections of sounds that were used in sixties and seventies movies and low cost television productions. The result is a lovely mash-up between classic contemporary recordings, experimental bedroom electronica and vintage cinematic sequences. The work is both conceptual and rigorous but also slight, because - even if they are refined and well organized - the references are primarily a mix between "high culture" and "low culture, somewhere between John Cage and Ennio Morricone (the latter here representing the simple "man of cinema" rather than a belatedly acknowledged musical genius). The sequenced fragments do not seem to bring any hidden meaning or abstract theory, but are participants in the creation of a range of feelings from sentimental to playful that do not lack tense atmospheres and surreal tones. Rather than being a simple aesthetic gesture, the vintage feeling of the project works as a prospective "interpretation" of a specific tradition, which today has much in common with the need for experimenting with unusual things. The charm of the archive is dominant, mediated by the random variables dictated by the author's personal choices. The work is mindful of the seminal experiments by Raymond Scott at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and his abundant stylistic variety.
Aurelio Cianciotta