Audiopile Review: Do the Germans have an unwieldy compound word to describe a record that’s so understated that you could barely notice it, but so compelling that you can’t stop listening to it? This is pretty much exactly Brian Eno’s original definition of ambient music, and he did get a lot of his ideas from German kosmische musik, so there’s something to it. But ambient has become a trope-laden genre and, these days, avoiding cliched genre tropes is increasingly vital to making the kind of dezentundüberzeugend (“understatedandcompelling”) record we’re talking about. Maybe the Swedish have a word for it because ‘Följd’, the new record from Uppsala’s Civilistjävel!, fits the bill perfectly. And we would 100% buy an Ikea record shelf called Diskretochövertygande. ‘Följd’ will appeal to fans of Rhythm & Sound, Biosphere, and Loscil. But really, it sounds only like the mysterious Tomas ‘Civilistjävel!’ Bodén, whose mixture of archival and new music has formed some of the most övertygande electronic releases of recent years. ‘Följd’ is possibly his most diskret release to date, but it’s also one of his best. Notably, Bodén has recently done some excellent work with vocalists and the Coil-esque final track here, featuring Thomas Bush, is no exception. Truly 控えめで説得力のある, as the Japanese would say.

***

FELT welcomes back Civilistjävel! with Följd, the follow up to last year’s Brödföda. 7 tracks further chronicling his melancholic murk, ever drifting towards that faint dub glow. Features a collaboration with Thomas Bush.

Uncanny are the nocturnal sounds that ebb patiently from Tomas Bodén and his machines. His music continues to uncover equal parts beauty and dread from isolation, a purposeful slow pace guiding those gentle noises through the arctic air surrounding its author. No matter the weather, these expressions as Civilistjävel! continue to find a loving home on Fergus Jones’s FELT imprint.

On Följd, he naturally develops on the inclinations found on Brödföda. XIII’s unsettling warble melts into the dusky spurts of XIV. Further on, the dew-glowed ambience of XV precedes XVI’s dub trudge which casts a hypnotic grey shadow. XVII’s wind-swept acid redux then quietly transitions into the stunning introspective drone of XVIII before closer XIX comes into view, its positive dawn enacted through Thomas Bush’s croons lilting amongst organs, guitars and tempered sound design.

Civilistjävel! continues to emote a great deal with very little, a reliable abstract practitioner that posits Följd as an arresting audio tale within his celebrated oeuvre.