Sub Rosa has a habit of releasing highly conceptual compilations, whereoften times the ingenuity of a particular track or artist gets lost inthe maintenance of vague thematics or some all-too-constrictive"grounds" for collection. The Hidden Cityis no exception, though the level field and loose connectivity of thefeatured artists seems actually to work in favor of the theme: aportrait of Göteborg, the complexity of a city that entered the modernera as one of Sweden's most established port cities, liberalized andglobalized long before the rest of its country and much of Europe, onlyto be swiftly clouded over as Copenhagen and Oslo rose to meet the newcentury's demands. Göteborg's "enlightened," early-global statusapparently outlived its economic promise, and the place has sincebecome a haven for liberal thinkers, artists, and the odd manufacturingmogul (Volvo). There exists here a strange middle-ground between oldworld textbook civilizations and the alienating modernist upstarts;Göteborg survives with pieces of both, a diversity duly reflected inthe city's musicians, poets, and sound-artists. These "sound portraits"are not simple inspiration pieces, but reflections and meditations onactual places within the city, often linked to particular addresses.They create an uneven mosaic of sound in which not one is allowedsupremacy or any definite version of Göteborg's confused history.Pieces of the land's proud past and contemporary persistence comethrough in the orchestral work of composer Peter Hansen, whose "WinterAir" locates an elegance and Norse melancholy that feel like fixtureshovering oblivious to the city's shifting traditions. By contrast,local sound artist Johannes Heldén's contribution, aptly-titled"Bäckegatan 36," incorporates field captures and other incidentalsounds in a gem of dirge-like bedroom electronics, challenging theauthenticity of isolationism and the assumed consistencies connectedwith something as simple as a "fixed" address. Paul Bothén, anothersound artist, creates "Oh Lord" through a collage of recordings from aSwedish barroom performance of a modified gospel tune from the AmericanSouth. His layered cuts create a chilling, gothic atmosphere as muchrelated to Göteborg's uniquely "informed" brand of nationalism as tothe city's more recent financial anxiety ("Oh Lord, won't you buy me acolor TV?"). Elsewhere, the new guard of stealthy, dub-infected Germanelectronica gets represented by works from Mapstation and Göteborgresident Anders Ilar, each more subdued than the artist's usual,perhaps in reaction to Göteborg's own restless quiet. Christina Kubischand Alva Noto come through with two of the more aurally pleasingcontributions on the disc, both technically unimpressive pieces that dolittle more than add to the dreamy, lost city feel of the whole. Thereal pleasures of The Hidden City, though, come from watchingthese well known out-of-towners compete with the singular visions oflocal musicians, including works by Henrik Rylander and Sheriff, andthe poets Anna Eriksson and Fredrik Nyberg. These are the artists thatbring Göteborg to life, with a local color of innumerable shades,revealing the hidden treasure that such a compilation boasts. - Alva Noto - Party Plasibenpius (For Rune Lindblad)
- Peter Hansen - Winter Air
- Johannes Heldén - Bäckegatan 36
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