Kondens is Levander’s second solo album, and it has been in the works for about four years.  Like last year’s Flawed by Yair Etziony, the production of this album was delayed by a fatal hard-drive crash, the worst nightmare of any electronic musician.  In an attempt to save the drive, Levander accepted donations from fans in order to send it out to a fancy lab, which unfortunately yielded no results.  Levander offered to return the excess of funds which had been collected, but instead the generous fans decided to become private sponsors of the album, in effect buying an album in advance of its production.  This is strikingly similar to the approach used to fund the last Einstürzende Neubauten record, and is one that will no doubt become more common in the future.  Perhaps, as a result of his misfortune and of having to go back an rework his concepts, Kondens’ ambient/glitch music largely revolves around the theme of decay, again akin to Flawed.

Based in Copenhagen, Erik Levander is actually a Swede, and member of Rumraket, a label run out of Denmark by Efterklang member Rasmus Stolberg.  Along with Grizzly Bear, Taxi Taxi!, Slaraffenland, Amiina, and others, Levander rounds out an already incredibly diverse roster.  He has also contributed material to Efterklang’s releases, though his solo work bears almost no resemblance at all to that of his friends. A pretty standard glitch/ambient/electronic  laptop-based album, Kondens consists mainly of waves, boops and bips, and collaged sound. He is currently in the process of finishing a Masters Degree in Architecture, which I suppose can be discerned as an influence on his style. Levander  contributes guitar, piano, and clarinet, which may or may not be manipulated on a given track, and mixes them into a dense collage with found sound, samples, and electronic noise.  Though they lack traditional musical development, his songs do not seem haphazard, but a mix of careful composed compositions and wild improved sounds.

Recording under his own name and with all titles in Swedish, it seems to me that this music is made for love of making music (though this is probably the case for most artists making this type of music; I mean, it’s not like they’re in it for the girls and money). As with all music of this style, it will not appeal to everyone.  My main criticism is that the album lacks cohesion and flow between tracks.  Lacking any unifying theme or cohesion, some tracks are, of course, better than others.   “Kvad” generates melodies that linger while “Hitta Hem” decays into a storm of distortion and noise not foreshadowed by the clean guitar which introduces the song.  Some songs offer a break from the distortion and noise, such as “Tribut,” a glitch free interlude of sorts, 2 minutes of solo piano.  Others blur the swelling electronic waves with live instruments, and manage to produce interesting sounds and melodies. It is clear that Levander put a lot of work into creating interesting rhythms out of looped noises and beeps and molding  melodic movement via instrument samples and ambient background drones.

The standout tracks are quite a beautiful example of how lovely beatless laptop music can be. Even though the album as a whole may not be revolutionary, it is clear that this was a lovingly produced album, and it is a fine balance of melody and noise.

-Joseph Sannicandro