Opinions
»The Swedish port city of Gothenburg is a menacing prospect under low, metallic grey winter skies, as twilligt hurtles in from the cold sea forcing locals to seek refuge in a hugh sprawling shopping centre that seems to occupy half of the entire city centre. I like to think that Henrik Rylander, formely percussionist with Swedish post-Industrial extremists Pleasure and Pain and later Union Carbide Productions, knows the place well. Traditional Arrangements of Feedback (a remarkably reserved, even academic, album title for such a chilling electro blast) was sourced, he helpfully informs us, from feedback from various effect units, channeled into a PowerMac and sculpted into ten hugh (though not all long) pulsing beasts coming at ya from a No Man's Land somewhere between Toshi Nakamura and The Normal. Like Rylander's hometown, it's automated, efficient and precise, but also claustrophobic, chilly and intimidating. But if you haven't tried it donät knock it: I grew up in the bleak factory wasteland of late 70's Manchester, and I can't tell you how much I really enjoyed listening to Joy Division, Section 25, the Stockholm Monsters and Joh Cooper Clarke. I'm sure the good people of Gothenburg recognize the same grim euphoria of their daily existence. Check it out, but be warned: listening at the right volume is like diving into one of Sweden's icy black lakes; if you're not used to the low temeratures, you could suffer a heart attack.«
- Dan Warburton, Signal to Noise
»Just so you know, you will probably have to like this kind of music to... like this kind of music. The third solo release and first on iDeal from Swedish born Henrik Rylander is the absolute epitome of chorusless analogue noise broadcast at varying sinful depths of gut rumbling magnitude. On the surface, all of these... um... songs, I guess, are just a collection of fuzzy bumps falling over themselves again and again. But with each revolution, Rylander reveals a little more of the virtuoso within himself, continually tweaking the littlest of sounds to good effect. And with his constant metallic fine-tuning and grinding subtleties, he shows a surprising amount of sophistication and dirty elegance. To him, white noise is but a canvas. Although, as the title suggests, Traditional Arrangements Of is composed completely of feedback (by running it through all of his various FX processors), Rylander forms consistent and entirely innovative beats some of which, in the right setting, could probably be danceable. From a current standpoint and with the memory of Jimi Hendrix still fresh in our minds, there isn't much traditional about this, but who knows? Maybe this will be what future generations will recall as one of the classic albums of a burgeoning genre. Pretty impressive from a man who drummed for what would become pop rock also-rans The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. I sense creative differences were involved.«
- Filmore Mescalito Holmes, www.tinymixtapes.com
»When listening to Henrik Rylander's industrial take on feedback experimentalism on Traditional Arrangements of Feedback it's quite difficult to imagine him as one of the founding members of the legendary and visionary Swedish rock band Union Carbide Productions. But that's indeed the case and when Björn Olsson (another former Union Carbide member) explores soothing soundscapes inspired by the Swedish nature, Rylander constructs something a whole lot harsher and less accessible. What we get is relentless in the same way as Throbbing Gristle but just as with some of their contemporaries there is a surprisingly danceable rhythm to it all. But please bear in mind that I use that term loosely here. Rylander is after all using nothing but feedback to create these soundscapes and the ones that not are ready to "get feedbacked" (as the press kit puts it) should look for new sounds elsewhere. But fans of rumbling cut and paste feedback, rhythmic noise excursions that are all about textures and sonic landscapes that aren¹t necessarily seen as music if you ask your neighbor across the street can¹t really go wrong.« - Mats Gustavsson, Dream Magazine
»Musiken som utvinns ur hans överbelastade feedback-konstruktioner är monoton, rytmisk och väldigt elektrisk. Det finns naturligtvis potential att kräma på ordentligt när man arbetar med just feedback, och det gör Rylander mellan varven, men oftast är det lugna, surrande drones och vasst sprakande rytmer som gäller. Sista låten heter förresten "Speaker as Microphone to Speaker", en titel som ger fina bilder av tillvägagångssättet vid inspelningstillfället.« - Petter Ottosson, Fat Bankroll
»... Traditional Arrangements of Feedback" är definitivt ett av de intressantaste svenska albumen på länge.« - Henrik Strömberg, Groove
»Rylander has changed his sound considerably on 'Formation', and this third album further establishes the concept he came up with then, namely the rhythmic use of feedback from various fx-units.
Henrik Rylander has exhibited audiovisual art and some of the tracks seem to have developed from that context. His trademark rhythms have become pulses of sound, and the sound textures are mostly vibrating hums, drones or low rumbles rather than screeching feedback noise. If the arrangements could be called traditional, it is only in the sense that Pan Sonic and others have established something of a tradition of finding and using the unintentional and otherwise unwished for ghost sounds of the machine, which Rylander can't help imitating to some extent. 'Speaker as Microphone to Speaker' touches on the clicks'n'cuts genre while 'Flange' is closer to Masonna-style Japanese noise. Still, it is a focused and intense album, leaving your ears quite raw from the experience.« - by Mattias Huss, from Release Magazine
»Svenske Henrik Rylander har spillet musik i over tyve år og blandt andet været medlem af Union Carbide Productions, der blev til The Soundtrack Of Our Lives i de tidlige 90’ere – dog uden hans medvirken. Siden dengang har Rylander arbejdet som fotograf og lavet kunst-installationer og musik. Dette, hans tredje solo-album, består, som titlen Traditional Arrangements Of Feedback antyder, udelukkende af feedback arrangeret i rytmiske strukturer, der i vidt omfang allerede er kendte af folk med smag for elektronisk musik. Det barsk klingende basismateriale giver pladen en fysisk påtrængende kraft, og det er svært ikke at sammenligne Rylander med andre ligesindede kunstnere som Pan Sonic og CoH, når hovedet fyldes af hans mekaniske, ofte monotone bearbejdninger af tordnende, sitrende, ulmende og skrigende støj. Traditional Arrangements Of Feedback er et rigtig interessant resultat af det restriktive koncept, kan med fordel anbringes i pladereolen under “konceptuel støj-kunst” og er perfekt til at frigøre hjernen for overflødige tanker.« - by Jakob Rosenbak, Gaffa.dk |
