Civilistjävel!: Följd LP

Beautifully elusive ghost dubs from Civilistjävel! with a strong new LP, arcing from Pole-like vapours to glassy ambient textures and a closing track featuring cult chamber pop guy Thomas Bush, new from Fergus Jones' burgeoning​ FELT label. In the wake of ‘Brödföda’ (2024) and Jones’ solo debut for Numbers, the seven-part ‘Följd’ reliably returns Civilistjävel!’s legion disciples to discrete imaginary synth spaces that slowly impart a sense of uncanny, isolationist pastoralism and sequestered introspection in a tradition that reaches back to Cluster via the secretive likes of Enno Velthuys to Ø and more obscure Swedish synth reference points. Aside to a parting piece conceived in collaboration with Thomas Bush on vocals, we bathe in the presence of Tomas Bodén’s speed-of-thought style of synth improvisation, gently listing thru his headspace of softly tumescent, aerated analog synth texture and spongiform subs that pad out the bottom end frequencies in what is now surely recognised as a patented, signature sound. From the first strokes until Bush’s quietly yearning vocal part, Civilistjävel!’s hushed, melodic, instrumental lyricism and feel for space lures us from bits reminding of Mika Vainio’s classic ‘Kantamoinen’, to pieces of frosted-pane synth gaze and a gorgeous, 10’ centrepiece of deliquescent drum machine and synth wooze, onto the perfect dab of dubbed out acid in ‘XVII’, and iridescent bliss-out ‘XVIII.’