B.A.A.D.M. 006

Mattias Gustafsson – Frånvarande

• LP
• Edition of 300
• 2019

• A1.Isolation of the Instruments
• B1.1st movement: Frånvarande
• B2.2nd movement: Rening
• B3.3rd movement: Avflagnandets tid kommer
• B4.4th movement: Allt som andades har tystnat

Frånvarande acts as both the pre­lude and epi­logue to Mattias Gustafsson’s 2017 record Nattmusik, form­ing a tem­po­ral cra­dle around his B.A.A.D.M. debut. Side A was recorded back in 2012 and orig­i­nally released under his Ornaments alias, man­i­fest­ing as the with­ered, rain-eroded mem­ory of a majes­tic orches­tral lament, with bowed cym­bals singing through lay­ers of rust and the sound of chil­dren float­ing in through an open win­dow. It was this 20-minute piece that inspired us to present Gustafsson with the con­cep­tual frame­work for Nattmusik, through which he explored the cycli­cal sym­bio­sis of human­ity and nature. The four move­ments of side B were cap­tured in win­ter 2018 as an elab­o­ra­tion on these themes, with pianos and loops tum­bling into thick­ets of crum­pled, per­ish­ing cas­sette. As a col­lec­tion, these pieces frame Nattmusik as an absent point of ori­gin; its rever­ber­a­tions are smeared across both the future and the past, yet the source sound is pal­pa­bly miss­ing. Just as the process of decay strands the object between the pre-degraded form and the even­tual dis­si­pa­tion into the void, Frånvarande is a record that both clasps at moments passed and those yet to man­i­fest, ren­dered nomadic and thirst­ing by the absence of its con­cep­tual centre.