CD Of The Week: Jasper TX – The Black Sun Transmissions

CD Of The Week: It has been two years since we were last treated to a full-length release from Jasper TX and Sweden’s Dag Rosenqvist’s return is marked by a sound evolved and matured into something yet more complex and challenging than before…

‘The Black Sun Transmissions’ opens with Signals Through Wood & Dust and the piece features a collection of sounds which are sculpted into feedback-laden ambience. The result is menacing and imbued with a sense of foreboding, serving to set the scene before ultimately closing with morse code and radio static, conjuring images of a post-apocalyptic survivor searching for hope in a world ruined. This apocalyptic aesthetic carries on into following track Weight of Days, which sees Rosenqvist ratchet the songwriting up a notch to deliver a stunning composed number defined by beautifully measured strings and refrains.

All I Could Never Be begins slowly and Rosenqvist chooses to highlight a melancholic aspect to his art. A fascinating counterpoint to his searing noise, it shows the artists’ varied tonal palette. The album’s finest moment however comes with the closing number White Birds. After the powerful melancholia and despair experienced on The Black Sun Transmissions thus far, the beauty of the piece seems accentuated and the listener drinks in the plaintive frailty as a thirsty traveller falls upon an oasis, a fine ending to this accomplished work and leaving the listener wanting more.

Rosenqvist has previously expressed frustration with the state of the current music business and the length of time taken for this album to come out, but perhaps he will garner some small comfort with offering a work as strong as ‘The Black Sun Transmissions’ into the world. Though in no way meant to belittle Rosenqvist’s already impressive and varied back catalogue, this release seems to suggest that the artist has grown even more accomplished and inspired as of late and, rather than finding a niche to fit into, has created his own.

The Black Sun Transmissions is available through Stashed Goods

- Review by Adam Williams for Fluid Radio

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