For some musicians, mastering a particular sound or method is enough. Not Swedish guitarist Finn Loxbo. He has a penchant for extremes, whether it’s the brute noise he’s brought to improvisational trio Kyosaku and Anna Högsberg’s Attack or the ultra-minimal improvisations of Kommun. But Loxbo also prizes specificity.
Lummernikt, his third solo LP in a recording career that traverses 15 years, synthesizes diverse elements into something quite specific. In solitary mode, Loxbo sticks to acoustic guitar, which he originally wielded in order to try his hand at being a singer/songwriter. Apparently that was something he had to do in order to know that he didn’t want to do it, because he’s limited himself to a vocal-less role ever since. Loxbo embraced instrumental preparation, unconventional tuning and spontaneous creation on his second LP, 2018’s Eter, to arrive at places of suspended abstraction.
If Eter made you perpetually aware that Loxbo was playing an instrument strung with steel, Lummernikt (named after a form of clubmoss whose spores become volatile when powdered) has a resonance that makes you sense its wooden body. The key elements of Eter have been fed into a more structured approach that sounds like captured motion. Each of Lummernikt’s eight tracks comprises streams of perfectly formed notes that seem to tumble, pause, then fall some more. Within that very particular approach, there’s a lot of variety.
While Loxbo’s attack on “Tumlare” calls to mind the interlocking patterns you usually hear coming from a kora, “Skuggmätare” enacts a corkscrewing skitter similar to certain Gastr Del Sol records. “Ametistskimmerspindel” strings together phrases of increasing intricacy, which are punctuated by stray squeaks and dissonances that give the music a sculptured, three-dimensional feel. On closing track “Bolles Sista Resa,” high, sustained pitches bring the music back to a hover, which suggests that wherever Loxbo is right now, he’s not going to stay there. Here’s to hearing whatever he does next. [Fönstret]
—Bill Meyer
