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The Stockholm Syndrome.
Or “nostalgia for the present”
The future seen from the past should resemble the present, don't you think?
Why, then, does it so often happen that, having the opportunity to enjoy ourselves situated in that future which is our present, that vision seems naive like the fantasy of a child too overwhelmed by the whirlwind of stimuli surrounding them?
The Swedish Cake
By a series of fortunate coincidences, I'm taking a musical stroll through the lands of Sweden, among the polychrome landscapes of pop territories.
And the question, in different forms, seems to resurface in every case.
Three records, three, released in the last few months, each generated by a different approach to handling the memorabilia from the vast trove of music from the past 40 years.
Each grappling with different slices of the gigantic cake.
In the realm of electro pop, the “The Knife” plunge their blade, carving out a generous slice with this “Silent Shout”.
The Silent Shout
And it is precisely with the title track that their third album opens. But where on earth are we?
This synth arpeggio has the same age as the improbable hairstyle I must have sported in a previous life (which also included the useless embellishment of a mane)
We are inside their third album, but I confess I was unaware of their existence until just a few days ago.
They are a duo. In photos, they wear black ultranasal masks stolen from an unlikely commedia dell'arte.
But the disguise is not enough to hide one of the two identities: we recognize her voice, the same one we heard in “What Else Is There” by Röyksopp.
Even though it will take on different, never “natural” tones across the 11 tracks. Always filtered, sometimes it recalls a pseudo-alien version of Kate Bush, in a “treated” falsetto as if to accentuate an absurd exoticism of digital postcard flavor with oriental touches of “The Captain” where a rarefied and extended electronic trail precedes its entrance.
And sometimes it will also be “tripled,” to surround, on the dance floor, the vaguely epic (and frankly not memorable) of the partner, within the groove of “We Share Our Mother's Health,” which forces me, funny enough, to a hint of dance. All around, percussive synthetic bounces and steel drums.
The pace is varied. Thus, the previous dynamism is followed by the brief lullaby of “Na Na Na” where the little girl returns to offer us her voice in a childish version. Perhaps to prepare us for the mishmash of “Marble House”, sneaked away from some album from the first half of the maligned ’80s (Human League? Help me, how many have I erased..)
The frantic marathon among the possible references balancing between the German sound and British synth-pop memories (often mixed within the same track) and glimpses that should appeal to those who enjoyed the latest Royksopp, ends with the next title, where the Swedish duo's personality seems to find maximum autonomy.
While listening to the essential treatment given to “Like A Pen”, I ask pardon from the admirers (I am among them) of the ingenious Plaid if I find myself thinking of a singable, less conceptual version, as if extracted for a lighter treatment, from the phenomenal “Not For Threes.”
Perhaps due to the goodwill inspired by the previous track, but even in the delicacy of “From Off To On”, liquid and whispered, I find more reasons to relax than to rummage through the database of déjà vu.
Symptoms of the syndrome
In the role of an unwitting passerby, captivated for the brief span of listening time, I have the impression of detecting some symptoms of the so-called "Stockholm syndrome": I am confined in a space not my own, subjected to conditioning, at the mercy of a bunch (well, the kidnappers are two, but how can we exclude accomplices, even if only fellow travelers or "bad teachers"?) that dictates its own rules with persistent nonchalance, forcing me to unnatural temporal regression.
I should put up some form of resistance, react based on simple observations: each of these sounds comes from the past, it is likely a product destined to sound enchanting for the young folks swarming in the evening from one club to another, blissfully unaware of the mold from which, for example, many synth arpeggios have been cleaned.
I can't like it, there are too many apparent naive aspects running through it.
Yet I'm listening to it again, 'this album.
I should attempt an escape, which again is as simple as pressing stop.
A great opportunity presents itself during the funny and unsettling grotesquely martial tempo of “One Hit”: I shouldn't endure it. I should be irritated, I think. And the kidnappers are too occupied with their amused staging to pay attention to me. Even if it comes only towards the end, it's the opportune moment to make a getaway.
And yet I remain here, waiting to hear once again the faint closing track, that “Still Light” always on the verge of evaporating like the outdated sound on which the two soft voices rest, now whispering. As if they suddenly realized that the game is over.
Nostalgia for the present
Returning to reality, to the present.
Far more unsettling than that future that the records they plundered seemed to evoke many years ago. An unease of a different kind, from which the youth from the land of Sweden seem to want to escape.
Balancing between a past, which for them exists only as a reservoir of suggestions, and a comfortably drawn future then.
Perhaps afflicted by a strange form of nostalgia.
Nostalgia for the present.
A present that, unlike the future, seems never to arrive.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Silent Shout (04:53)
I never knew this could happen to me
I know now fragility
I know there's people who I haven't told
I know of people who are getting old
Wish I could speak in just one sweep
What you are and what you mean to me
Instead I mumble randomly
You stand by and enlighten me
In a dream I lost my teeth again
Calling me woman and half man
Yes in a dream all my teeth fell out
A cracked smile and a silent shout
A cracked smile and a silent shout
If I explain it once thoroughly
He'll have you later 'cause it's never free
You were at the gigantic spree
I caught a glimpse now it haunts me
I caught a glimpse now it haunts me
02 Neverland (03:38)
Eyes are sober and this is the plan
I'm sitting in a car heading Neverland
A fancy man a fancy man
He's pointing with the fingers that are left on his hand
Eyes are hazel but far too cold
Looking out for love
But none of us can
Where's the monkey that I've been told of
I'm staring at the money
That burns in my hand
I'm dancing for dollars
And for a fancy man
Come right over
I'll knock on your sholder
This is a story and this is what I've planned
An angry man an angry man
Nothing is more fatal than an angry man
Vulnerable heights
Feed the hand that bites me
Following the steam into another room
Standing in the corner
Is this my home
Showing us love that none of us can
I'm singing for money
That burns in my hand
Tell me
Will I make it home tonight
I'm doing it for dollars and for a fancy man
I've got a lot of money that burns in my hand
03 The Captain (06:08)
Coming home after a long long walk
Coming home after a dozen of walks
Coming home after a long long war
Coming home after a dozen of wars
We are out of wind
We have pock-marked chin
We have lots of water
We turn the other cheek and we win
One thousand stories and there's always more
We've been offered one more lap to go
In my hand I hold a key
It's dear to me cause I know where it leads
We are out of wind
We have pock-marked chin
We have all this water
We turn the other cheek and we grin
05 Na Na Na (02:27)
I've got soul in my bones
Got a home, a dog and a man to call my own
Every month
I've got my period
To take care of
And to collect in blue tampons
Na na na
Na na na
I've got mace, pepper-spray
And some shoes that runs faster than a rapist rapes
What I need is chemical castrations, hope and godspeed
Na na na
Na na na
What I need is chemical castrations, hope and godspeed...
06 Marble House (05:18)
I cut your nails and comb your hair
I carry you down the stairs
I wanted to see right through from the other side
I wanted to walk a trail with no end in sight
The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common this was meant to be
You close my eyes and soothe my ears
You heal my wounds and dry my tears
On the inside of this marble house I grow
And the seeds I sow will grow up prisoners too
The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common this was meant to be
Now where's your shoulder
What is its name
What's your scent
Say it again
If it goes faster can you still follow me
It must be safe when it's on TV
I raise my hands to heaven for curiosity
I don't know what to ask for
What has it got for me
The others say we're hiding
It's as forward as can be
Some things I do for money
Some things I do for free
07 Like a Pen (06:13)
Sharpen my body like a pen
Come on I need to show it
Something too small for a lense
If I rub it if I wipe it
Guiding with one single hand
Nothing's wrong you like the feeling
I am all over the land
Come on I need to show it
Back on the mountain again
I was standing watching seasons
You're now my only friend
I'm too heavy, I'm the burden
Sitting and picking on myself
It's a shiny, shiny morning
And when the light finds my eye
I'll be fleeting like a scent
I hold my breath and then count to three
On and on outworn
Must be five hundred degrees
Will it show, in my show
08 From Off to On (03:57)
We can not wait much longer
We want happiness back
We want control of our bodies
Everything we've lacked
I think I even liked it
If the feeling was mine
A little something about my body
Is it the warmth inside
When we come home, we want it quiet and calm
We want you to sing us a song
When we come home, we pull the curtains down
Making sure that the TV is on
If you move a little closer
I'll tell you what's my aim
It's every evening on a big screen
Hosted by celebrities
I had a dream about deleting and killer whales
Is it the feeling of your body
Or is it the feeling of mine
When we come home, we want it quiet and calm
We want you to be around
When we come home, we pull the curtains down
Making sure that the TV is on
From off to on
From off to on
09 Forest Families (04:08)
Too far away from the city
Some kids left on their own
They said we have a communist in the family
I had to wear a mask
Too far away from the city
We had to make this room
Fathers were football players, formal works, policemen
What the mothers did I didn't know
Music tonight
I just want your music tonight
I saw her by the organ
She was laughing while pressing the keys
She said my favourite book was dirty and
You shouldn't show you can read
Too far away from the city
We never heard its noise
We learned how to stay fit and things like
Green-tones hide the blush
Music tonight
I just want your music tonight
Music tonight
I just want your music tonight
Too far away from the city
We came to breathe clean air
Nature left a safe oasis
And the mothers walked towards the forest
Music tonight
I just want your music tonight
Music tonight
I just want your music tonight
11 Still Light (03:15)
The doctor came in the morning
She held my hand
And asked "was it worth it?"
"Could it be worse than this?"
Please recall
Give me a hint
Anything will do
If this was the last time now you should tell us what to do
I was afraid I guess
Now I can't think no more
I was so concentrated
On keeping things together
I've learned to focus on
I didn't want to disappoint
Now where is everybody
Is it still light outside?
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