In a scant 10 years, Rune Grammofon has established itself as the ECM of its generation (it should, in fact, be no surprise to learn that Manfred Eicher's label handles distribution for RG), operating under no less a mandate than proffering adventurous music regardless of genre. From the boundary-bashing Supersilent and noise realms of Jazzkammer to the agit-prop electronics of Deathprod and arctic frostbite experimentalism of Information, Rune Grammofon's multi-culti flavors (all housed in artist Kim Hiorthøy's colorfully daubed digipaks) should be championed for their ingenuity as well as their variety.
The Danish trio Skyphone's very eclecticism literally echoes its label's protocols. Avellaneda continues to mark the same territory mapped out on the group's 2004 RG debut Fabula, mining rich veins of untapped homeland resources. Another in a long line of "new music" ensembles searching for an aural sweet spot where the timbres of acoustic instrumentation join in holy matrimony with contemporary electronic schemata, Skyphone, like fellow RG alumni Alog and Svalastog, also bring a meritorious Scandinavian history to the table, if only to imbue upon their digital folk a more hefty idiosyncratic gravitas.
Beginning with the crisply percolating "Cloudpanic," an interlocking sonic cascade of hiccupping software beats, errant Rhodes licks, nicked guitars, bells, and other untethered squirts and effects, Avellaneda does indeed find that elusive sweet spot, built on the sort of solid compositional foundations severely lacking in untold hundreds of other so-called "indietronica" tricksters. Rustic, imagistic track titles belie the music's own variegated template: "River of Kings" adopts a plaintive melody that effortlessly merges humid Delta blues with pesky, gnatlike electronics; "Quetzal Cubicle" somehow makes whoozy Moog entrails work within a rolling melodic framework of subdued organs, strangely popping rhythms and blustery guitars; "Leafchisel" acts like a mouse set loose in the digital village, as streaming rivulets of lap-steel guitars form a soft hay-bed of sound on top of which processed harmonica struggles to find a comfort zone, the aforementioned mouse the invader looking for calm amongst the categorical bric-a-brac. "Folk" seems too anti-electrical an appellation in Skyphone's case — in their brave new world, uniting such disparate notions simply means home is where the hard disk is.
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