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2CD
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MIA 056CD
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Miasmah Recordings presents the posthumous release of this double album of the final work by experimental composer Marcus Fjellström, titled The Last Sunset of the Year. Collected by Marcus' friends and colleagues Erik K. Skodvin and Dave Kajganich, this release brings together music written and produced during Marcus' tenure as composer for the first season of the AMC anthology series The Terror, which told the story of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. That said, The Last Sunset of the Year is, by design, not a soundtrack to the show. Dave Kajganich writes in the album's liner notes: "The selected pieces have a unity unto themselves, and we feel strongly that this release should be taken not as a companion to the show, but as Marcus Fjellström's final album, on its own terms. We've presented these pieces without titles, except for titling the four movements of the journey they suggest. It is a journey that evokes the mystery, grandeur, and desolation of the Arctic, and articulates the spiritual and existential implications of traveling there." Kajganich reached out to begin discussing the idea of this release with Skodvin, back in 2017, after Marcus' death, but before the series had premiered. In the years since, Dave and Erik have Zoomed and emailed back and forth hundreds of times, studying all seventy-five of the pieces Marcus wrote for the show in all their forms (as many as six or seven versions to a piece), to winnow down a final list of pieces to include. The most difficult phase of the process, Kajganich reveals in the notes, was understanding the best way to sequence the tracks. It required listening to many different track orders and paying close attention to how each order created a slightly different identity for the album through their specific juxtapositions and dynamics. The album's title comes from a moment in the show when a group of Victorian sailors who are trapped in winter pack ice, suffering dwindling psychological resources and supplies, stand on the deck of one of the doomed ships to watch the sun rise above the horizon for a moment, and then immediately set in the last sunset of the year before six weeks of darkness, an event which, even through the lens of their inevitable coming losses, could still be viewed as something astonishing and beautiful.
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2LP
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MIA 056LP
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LP record. Miasmah Recordings presents the posthumous release of this double album of the final work by experimental composer Marcus Fjellström, titled The Last Sunset of the Year. Collected by Marcus' friends and colleagues Erik K. Skodvin and Dave Kajganich, this release brings together music written and produced during Marcus' tenure as composer for the first season of the AMC anthology series The Terror, which told the story of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. That said, The Last Sunset of the Year is, by design, not a soundtrack to the show. Dave Kajganich writes in the album's liner notes: "The selected pieces have a unity unto themselves, and we feel strongly that this release should be taken not as a companion to the show, but as Marcus Fjellström's final album, on its own terms. We've presented these pieces without titles, except for titling the four movements of the journey they suggest. It is a journey that evokes the mystery, grandeur, and desolation of the Arctic, and articulates the spiritual and existential implications of traveling there." Kajganich reached out to begin discussing the idea of this release with Skodvin, back in 2017, after Marcus' death, but before the series had premiered. In the years since, Dave and Erik have Zoomed and emailed back and forth hundreds of times, studying all seventy-five of the pieces Marcus wrote for the show in all their forms (as many as six or seven versions to a piece), to winnow down a final list of pieces to include. The most difficult phase of the process, Kajganich reveals in the notes, was understanding the best way to sequence the tracks. It required listening to many different track orders and paying close attention to how each order created a slightly different identity for the album through their specific juxtapositions and dynamics. The album's title comes from a moment in the show when a group of Victorian sailors who are trapped in winter pack ice, suffering dwindling psychological resources and supplies, stand on the deck of one of the doomed ships to watch the sun rise above the horizon for a moment, and then immediately set in the last sunset of the year before six weeks of darkness, an event which, even through the lens of their inevitable coming losses, could still be viewed as something astonishing and beautiful.
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LP
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MIA 043LP
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Miasmah present the first vinyl issue of Marcus Fjellström's first album Exercises In Estrangement, originally released in 2005. Listening back to it now only re-confirms the unique mind of the Swedish composer, who sadly died in September 2017, only 37 years old. Marcus was an avant-garde composer and audio/visual artist exploring the edges of classical music. The word "classical" here means nothing in the usual sense, as he would bend the rules to his liking -- and hence create a completely own sound that is hard to define. A student of the conservatory in Piteå, Sweden, Marcus's path was unlike most composers with similar backgrounds. His love for the bizarre and macabre would send him on a descent into the darkest corners of musical experimentation. A trajectory that resulted in some of the most peculiar and fascinating sound documents created in the last two decades. For his debut album, Marcus made a record that not only lives up to its name, but really is a profoundly mind-expanding listen that might sound even more intriguing today than back in 2005. Reflections on everything from spirituality, resurrection, and abstract art is being undertaken, all while adding a big dose of the absurd. As Tiny Mix Tapes wrote back in 2005: "Marcus Fjellström's Exercises In Estrangement is an unsettling, visionary work of modern composition that falls soundly within the idiom of contemporary electronic music yet evokes the darker aspects of the work of many of the more brooding mid- to late-twentieth century European classical composers."Includes 12-inch, eight-page booklet with drawings by Marcus Fjellström; edition of 300.
Marcus worked with the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sinfonietta Cracovia as well as numerous other orchestras, ensembles and soloists, artists and filmmakers. He spent the last half year of his life scoring the AMC series The Terror. In his works, Marcus often aimed to combine opposites so that they don't contradict each other, but rather fuse into a natural, third element -- "high" and "low" culture, the naïve and the sophisticated, good and bad taste. These are all elements that comfortably blend together in his works. Musical influences range from electronic acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre to 20th century composers such as György Ligeti and John Cage. Further influences include impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy as well as film music composers Bernard Herrmann, Angelo Badalamenti, and Zdeněk Liska.
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LP
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MIA 044LP
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Miasmah present the first vinyl issue of Marcus Fjellström's second album Gebrauchsmusik, originally released in 2006. Gebrauchsmusik is a bizarre sound document that deserves a closer look. Listening back, it only re-confirms the unique mind of the Swedish composer, who sadly died in September 2017, only 37 years old. "Gebrauchsmusik" is German for "Utility Music", and his second excursion into post-classical experimentation is exactly that; thirteen tracks with each one written to suit a certain theme. War, art, festivity, sadness, death, and resurrection are all interpreted by Fjellström in his unique style, taking a classical framework and distorting, confusing, and manipulating them into far fetching scenarios that is only limited by one's own imagination. Includes 12-inch, eight-page booklet with drawings by Marcus Fjellström; edition of 300.
Marcus worked with the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Sinfonietta Cracovia as well as numerous other orchestras, ensembles and soloists, artists, and filmmakers. He spent the last half year of his life scoring the AMC series The Terror. In his works, Marcus often aimed to combine opposites so that they don't contradict each other, but rather fuse into a natural, third element -- "high" and "low" culture, the naïve and the sophisticated, good and bad taste. These are all elements that comfortably blend together in his works. Musical influences range from electronic acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre to 20th century composers such as György Ligeti and John Cage. Further influences include impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy as well as film music composers Bernard Herrmann, Angelo Badalamenti, and Zdeněk Liska.
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LP
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MIA 013RE-LP
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Miasmah present a 2019 repress of Marcus Fjellström's Schattenspieler, originally released in 2010. Swedish composer and multimedia artist Marcus Fjellström's debut Miasmah release followed two critically acclaimed, full-length albums on Lampse -- 2006's Gebrauchsmusik (LAMP 006CD) and 2005's Exercises In Estrangement (LAMP 002CD). In addition, Marcus has had several commissioned works requested, leading to him working with, among others, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, numerous ensembles, soloists and filmmakers including Salad Fingers creator David Firth. Based in Berlin, Fjellström's compositions often combined aspects of modern classical composition and arrangement and more avant forms of music, be that acoustic or electronic. Schattenspieler (which translates as "Shadowplayer") takes the form of eleven compositions which explore ambience and melody, texture and silence. Haunting synth and orchestral instrument-based audio constructions, flowing from one moment to the next -- the fleeting ghosts of Fjellström's melodies rise, only to be buried under a claustrophobic clutter of percussion and creaking background noise. These pieces do indeed feel like you're listening to something more implied than obviously stated, as if Fjellström wanted only to expose us to the shadow of the music -- the implication being perhaps a more terrifying experience than to be confronted outright -- listen to Schattenspieler and you may find your mind starts to play tricks on you... The undeniably Angelo Badalamenti-esque descending synth strings of opening track "The Disjointed", lay the foundations for Fjellström's Schattenspieler album; music resting somewhere between the unsettling horror soundtracks of Jerry Goldsmith, the elevating melodies of Cliff Martinez, and the subtle audio constructions of Miasmah label mates, Kreng and Jacaszek. Marcus's wide-ranging abilities in composition and his willingness to let go of accepted form and function makes Schattenspieler a perfect choice of release for the Miasmah label. The suspense laden "Antichrist Architechture Management", with its harrowing and tense undertones, weaving synth lines and a wash of static hiss and flicker, is a particular standout track. Despite it's a strangely oppressive sound, shafts of light grace Schattenspieler; pieces such as "Untitled 090616" find gorgeous melodies are boxed in by unsettling arrangements and sparse background ambience. There is a coldness to many of these compositions -- not without emotion, but somehow remorseless. Schattenspieler is, for the main part, a defiantly bleak journey. Includes 12-inch, eight-page booklet with drawings by Marcus Fjellström. Purple vinyl; edition of 300.
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CD
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MIA 036CD
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Six years after his last album on Miasmah, Schattenspieler (MIA 013CD/LP, 2010), it's great to find Marcus Fjellström resurrected after several long years spent composing his audio-visual opera Boris Christ. Born out of shattered dreams and an obscured vision of the future, Skelektikon is a delirious yet lucid exploration of the farthest and most conflicted reaches of the heart, teeming with confusion, passion, and ghostly shadows. Being no conventional composer in any way, Marcus stumbles further down his musical domain of detuned orchestral (re-)arrangements and pain-inducing synth passages, arriving at a most unique and personal result. Where Schattenspieler gave way to noir filled alleyways, Skelektikon fills them with paranoia. It's the sound of limbo, of dancing amoebas, of deviant skeletons, nostalgia, and futurism, or quite possibly none of that. Inhabited by the bizarre and the beautiful, Marcus's music is a blurred yet encouraging representation of how you can never trust your own feelings - or eyes and ears for that matter. And yet, you can't shake the idea that the truth is to be found somewhere within this alien language, as delivered to us through the speakers. After the listener opens their eyes after the final track has dissipated, they shouldn't be surprised to find someone or something there, staring at us, in silent and unsettling knowledge. CD version comes in a digipak sleeve; Edition of 350.
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LP
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MIA 036LP
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LP version. Includes download code; Edition of 500. Six years after his last album on Miasmah, Schattenspieler (MIA 013CD/LP, 2010), it's great to find Marcus Fjellström resurrected after several long years spent composing his audio-visual opera Boris Christ. Born out of shattered dreams and an obscured vision of the future, Skelektikon is a delirious yet lucid exploration of the farthest and most conflicted reaches of the heart, teeming with confusion, passion, and ghostly shadows. Being no conventional composer in any way, Marcus stumbles further down his musical domain of detuned orchestral (re-)arrangements and pain-inducing synth passages, arriving at a most unique and personal result. Where Schattenspieler gave way to noir filled alleyways, Skelektikon fills them with paranoia. It's the sound of limbo, of dancing amoebas, of deviant skeletons, nostalgia, and futurism, or quite possibly none of that. Inhabited by the bizarre and the beautiful, Marcus's music is a blurred yet encouraging representation of how you can never trust your own feelings - or eyes and ears for that matter. And yet, you can't shake the idea that the truth is to be found somewhere within this alien language, as delivered to us through the speakers. After the listener opens their eyes after the final track has dissipated, they shouldn't be surprised to find someone or something there, staring at us, in silent and unsettling knowledge.
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CD
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MIA 013CD
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Swedish composer and multimedia artist Marcus Fjellström's debut Miasmah release follows two critically-acclaimed full length albums on Lampse. In addition, Marcus has had several commissioned works requested, leading to him working with, among others, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, numerous ensembles, soloists and filmmakers. Currently based in Berlin, Fjellström's compositions often combine aspects of modern classical composition and arrangement and more avant forms of music, be that acoustic or electronic. Schattenspieler (which translates as "Shadowplayer") takes the form of eleven compositions which explore ambience and melody, texture and silence. Haunting synth and orchestral, instrument-based audio constructions flow from one moment to the next -- the fleeting ghosts of Fjellström's melodies rise, only to be buried under a claustrophobic clutter of percussion and creaking background noise. These pieces do indeed feel like you're listening to something more implied than obviously stated, as if Fjellström wants only to expose his listeners to the shadow of the music -- the implication being perhaps a more terrifying experience than to be confronted outright. The undeniably Angelo Badalamenti-esque descending synth strings of opening track "The Disjointed" lay the foundations for this album; music resting somewhere between the unsettling horror soundtracks of Jerry Goldsmith, the elevating melodies of Cliff Martinez, and the subtle audio constructions of Miasmah label-mates Kreng and Jacaszek. Marcus' wide-ranging abilities in composition and his willingness to let go of accepted form and function makes Schattenspieler a perfect choice of release for the Miasmah label. The suspense-laden "Antichrist Architect Management," with its harrowing and tense undertones, weaving synth lines and washes of static hiss and flicker, is a particular stand-out track. Schattenspieler also includes a four-part suite "House Without A Door," which was originally commissioned for the Bernd Behr film of the same name. "Uncanny Valleys," reflective in some ways of the opening track, is a haze of descending synth and organ tones. The imperfections in these often scratchy recordings makes for an alluring, almost drug-induced state of mind where all that is real is unreal.
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LP
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MIA 013LP
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LP version. Swedish composer and multimedia artist Marcus Fjellström's debut Miasmah release follows two critically-acclaimed full length albums on Lampse. In addition, Marcus has had several commissioned works requested, leading to him working with, among others, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, numerous ensembles, soloists and filmmakers. Currently based in Berlin, Fjellström's compositions often combine aspects of modern classical composition and arrangement and more avant forms of music, be that acoustic or electronic. Schattenspieler (which translates as "Shadowplayer") takes the form of eleven compositions which explore ambience and melody, texture and silence. Haunting synth and orchestral, instrument-based audio constructions flow from one moment to the next -- the fleeting ghosts of Fjellström's melodies rise, only to be buried under a claustrophobic clutter of percussion and creaking background noise. These pieces do indeed feel like you're listening to something more implied than obviously stated, as if Fjellström wants only to expose his listeners to the shadow of the music -- the implication being perhaps a more terrifying experience than to be confronted outright. The undeniably Angelo Badalamenti-esque descending synth strings of opening track "The Disjointed" lay the foundations for this album; music resting somewhere between the unsettling horror soundtracks of Jerry Goldsmith, the elevating melodies of Cliff Martinez, and the subtle audio constructions of Miasmah label-mates Kreng and Jacaszek. Marcus' wide-ranging abilities in composition and his willingness to let go of accepted form and function makes Schattenspieler a perfect choice of release for the Miasmah label. The suspense-laden "Antichrist Architect Management," with its harrowing and tense undertones, weaving synth lines and washes of static hiss and flicker, is a particular stand-out track. Schattenspieler also includes a four-part suite "House Without A Door," which was originally commissioned for the Bernd Behr film of the same name. "Uncanny Valleys," reflective in some ways of the opening track, is a haze of descending synth and organ tones. The imperfections in these often scratchy recordings makes for an alluring, almost drug-induced state of mind where all that is real is unreal.
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