Audiopile Review: Sweden’s Tomas Bodén aka Civilistjävel! has been one of the most consistently satisfying experimental electronic producers of recent years (even though many of his releases supposedly contain archival recordings from the 90s). His mixture of analogue warmth, glitchy texture, moody melody, and intriguing abstraction always hits the spots for us. Some of the highlights from his last couple of albums have been collaborations with vocalists. Consequently, we were extremely excited to hear that he had remixed Lebanese singer-songwriter Mayssa Jallad’s 2023 album ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels’ in its entirety. But not as excited as we were when we heard the results. Jallad previously guested on Civilistjävel’s 2024 album ‘Brödföda’ and her earthy-yet-ethereal voice is a perfect match with Bodén’s style. These remixes lean towards the dub-techno end of that style, with glitchy beats and prowling basslines sometimes anchoring Jallad’s doomily discursive choons, while smoky atmospherics often leave everything to simply driiift. It’s as if Rhythm & Sound had been obsessed with Beirut as much as Kingston. Honestly, this is just the kind of thing we’re after right now and given that we don’t know anything else quite like it, it’s 100% essential.

Civilistjävel! x Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels (Versions)’ is a radical response to Mayssa Jallad’s 2023 original LP, a lyrical account of epochal events in Beirut at the dawn of Lebanon’s civil war. ‘…

(Versions)’ sees Civilistjävel! (aka Swedish producer Tomas Bodén) apply a stripped, dub methodology to Mayssa’s rich stems, refracting the Arabic source through the hazy prism of Northern European electronica. Retaining ‘Marjaa…’s deep spatial framing and vaporous, shifting nature, traces are lifted and set down in a new landscape: a ghost of a ghost. Informed by Tomas’ singular strand of ambient, minimalist, dub techno, ‘… (Versions)’ recalls the reductive, shimmering pulse of pioneering Berlin- based practitioners Basic Channel/Chain Reaction, but with the parameters stretched into the ether. Where versions typically focus on a rhythm, here the anchor is the tone and texture of Mayssa’s voice, around which a new world has been constructed.