The new Tor Lundvall album “Empty City“ once again shows that he understands how to work with illusions. Starting with an early pre-order-sale at Strange Fortune, offering the chance to get a ‘handnumbered limited edition’ (which I succeeded in, luckily) he already interested the maniac collector.
Then again there are these catchy song- and album titles, like ‘Under the shadows of the trees’, ‘Dead Cities’ and ‘Last Light’. And there is always this beautiful artwork, because Lundvall furthermore is a very talented painter whose pictures again tell the same story that his music is into – deep and gloomy landscapes, scary and full of secrets. Irritating a bit, but nevertheless always creating the image of home for those who are seeking. He who knows will understand.
“Empty City” is the 4th album from Tor Lundvall and he is slowly evolving. Lundvall still uses some of his characteristic synthesizer pads and his soundscapes do feel very similar to his earlier works. So again he is able to create this unique mood, slowly fading thru the colours of his pictures and again it is very beautiful. Although his music didn’t change that much over the last albums, he’s never been boring nor repeating.
By extensive use of deep reverb drones combined with rhythm elements when needed and some enchanting voices now and then he creates a scenery that can hardly be described by words. I’d suggest looking at his paintings instead (or even better: meanwhile). They are telling secret stories he may have heard of while wandering thru those empty cities or sitting beneath old trees, listening to some birds passing.
It is ambient music and it has it dark moments but I wouldn’t call it dark ambient. You will dive … even more probably slide into the music and take a walk with him maybe and you will see the people of his pictures in your reality and you will feel at home and safe. And you will wake up with the wisdom which he gave you and you may try to keep the insights you both gathered. I wish we could.
Empty City may not be called ‘all new’ but can be taken as ‘all good’ in any way.
