Audiopile Review: Malmö, Sweden-based producer Golden Ivy (Ivar Lantz) has his two beloved LPs for the Malmö Inre imprint repressed for the first time since their initial limited appearances a half decade back. You’d be forgiven for missing these the first time around, limited edition runs (120 for Monika, 250 for Kläppen) and scant exposure outside of Sweden kept these from breaking through to the wider audience deserved, but ballooning prices online and repeated requests to reprint them have warranted this final reissue, which compile the pair in this handy dandy 2xLP set. While we’ve certainly been enamoured with much from the Swedish underground over the past several years via the Discreet/Gothenburg scene, the experimental and textural music has skewed towards revealing a dark underbelly, perhaps a partial reflection of the country’s notorious dark winter months. But Sweden is also the land of the midnight sun during the summer, which is maybe the best lens with which to view the music of Golden Ivy. Across both LPs, Lantz merges Nordic folk, fourth world rhythms and ambient-jazz for a kaleidoscopic whir that practically radiates vitamin D. Gently plucked strings bounce under a gentle hum of bubbling synths, sawing violins cast heart rending laments alongside a bucolic backdrop of woodwinds and cresting ambience, and looped tones ebb against an orchestral shimmer. A mirage of sun-dappled forests dissipate into a vaporous ether, at times reflective of the transcendent minimalism of Terry Riley, the communal joy of Träd, Gräs & Stenar or the recent jazz/fourth world hybrids heard via Double Geography and imprints like Balmat and Leaving. From here we go sublime. Edition of 300, final pressing. Ordered direct from the labl in Sweden. We ain’t getting more. (**all of our copies arrived with a slight ding in one of the corners)

2LP gatefold reissue of previously sold out Golden Ivy albums “Monika” and “Kläppen”. You asked so many times we finally decided to do a reissue of these albums. We love them as much as you do. Limited editions of 300 copies. “On this 6-track album, the musical world of Golden Ivy comes full circle as he introduces these seemingly different elements to each other. On one hand, there is the cold precision of programmed rhythms pulsing through the base layers: echoes of the urban industrial cityscape in which it functions. On the other hand, the sliding howls across the strings of the violin reaches much further out into the wilderness. And still – melded together – they manage to convey a feeling of “home”. Taking inspiration from the fourth world concept of Jon Hassel, Ivar finds a delicate path where influences of folk music from various cultures can be captured and contained within a modern frame of mind. The violin and flute are present throughout the album like a red thread. Perhaps they are the perfect instruments to capture the melancholy, isolation and beauty of being alone with nature, and of being home in oneself. But there’s also Ivars jovial sense of humour that peers through, for instance on the pirate fantasy of “Long John Silver” or the jittery bounce of “Gamle Vän”. Oddball touches of lefthanded debauchery pass by here and there, but the focus remains on simplicity and repetition. The compositions are focused and tightly harnessed to the rhythms which carry them. ” – Simon Eliasson