B.A.A.D.M. 016

Maria W Horn & Mats Erlandsson – Celestial Shores

• LP
• Edition of 300
• 2023

• A1.Towards the Diamond Abyss / The Navigators
• B1.A Ship Lost in the Polar Sea

Through ebb and flow we drift
Infinite moun­tains in their twisted stratas
Sinews of wounded beasts solidified

In this the­ater of geo­logic fer­vor we rest
A ship lost in the polar sea
The heav­enly eye of the ocean has seen the ori­gins of this land­scape
Its inclined angles and ver­tig­i­nous depths
A pri­mal dance of chaos

Dry crackle from frozen wood
Suspended calm in end­less tor­ment
Time inverted
Adrift towards the dia­mond abyss

The music heard on this album was orig­i­nally the result of a com­mis­sion to score the sec­ond half of the film Nico/​Nico Crying made by Andy Warhol in 1966. The com­mis­sion was made by Art Cinema OFFoff in col­lab­o­ra­tion with B.A.A.D.M for a screen­ing of the film together with a live pre­sen­ta­tion of the score in September 2021 at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. The record­ing pre­sented here was made in the last week of that year and mixed soon after in January 2022. These record­ings are essen­tially live-record­ings per­formed by the com­posers together in the same room and recorded in a man­ner rem­i­nis­cent of the record mak­ing process as it was in the late 1960s. The instru­men­ta­tion used to make the sounds on this album con­sists of mod­u­lar syn­the­sis, zither, voice, con­t­a­m­i­nated field record­ings and metal percussion.

Mats Erlandsson is a com­poser and musi­cian part of the vibrantly re-emerg­ing field of drone music in Stockholm, Sweden, and is asso­ci­ated with prac­tices char­ac­ter­ized by the exten­sive use of sus­tained sound. Erlandsson presents his work both as a solo artist and in col­lab­o­ra­tions, most notably together with Yair Elazar Glotman and Maria W Horn. Recent releases include Gyttjans Topografi on XKatedral, Minnesmärke on Hallow Ground and the col­lab­o­ra­tion Emanate made with Yair Elazar Glotman on the label 13070. In addi­tion to his own artis­tic prac­tice Erlandsson holds a posi­tion as stu­dio tech­ni­cian and was tem­porar­ily, from October 2022 to September 2023, the act­ing stu­dio direc­tor at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm.

The com­po­si­tions of Maria W Horn imple­ment syn­thetic sound, elec­troa­coustic and acoustic instru­ments and audio­vi­sual com­po­nents, often devic­ing gen­er­a­tive and algo­rith­mic processes to con­trol tim­bre, tun­ing and tex­ture. She employs a var­ied instru­men­ta­tion rang­ing from ana­log syn­the­siz­ers to choir, string instru­ments, pipe organ and var­i­ous cham­ber music for­mats. Acoustic instru­ments are often paired with dig­i­tal syn­the­sis tech­niques, in order to extend the instru­ments tim­bral capac­i­ties. Often based on min­i­mal­ist struc­tures, her music explores the inher­ent spec­tral prop­er­ties of sound and their abil­ity to tran­scend time and space, real­ity and dream.