Science Fiction Dreaming

 


It is dark, there are colored lights and people dancing, some are just swaying and moving to the music. We are traveling through the melancholy of a Swedish winter, the feeling is bittersweet and positive, the sound is dreamy and electronic with lots of sustained echoes and glowing atmospheres, decorated with a pulse in places and just soaring with no limits in other places. There is a woman singing long tones with no words, and a man operating the electronic equipment, while everyone takes in the simple and relaxing sounds. Sometimes there are words and even poetry, but most of the time the feeling is ethereal and layered and there is just no need for words. Each song has special qualities and all of them flow into a beautiful mix. This music is for relaxing and thinking, it works well for lowering your blood pressure and getting your troubles and worries to fade away. It works well for dreaming as well as for launching your voyages into deep fantasy.

The album title comes from a remote place in the Swedish wilderness where Johan Agebjörn spent a winter, writing music. The singer who can be heard on many of the tracks is Lisa Barra from Gothenburg, Sweden. Her voice is well supported by the electronics, provided by Johan Agebjörn of Lund, Sweden. The sound is on the IDM side of ambient or New Age music, and brings to mind more about the hidden colors in a night winter sky than the technology. Mossebo does not overwhelm or crowd you with dense decorations. For me the feeling is fantastic. Imagination takes flight. Soaring sweet sleep, echoes and a duet, and a choir of Lisa. This is the best place to start, "Dulciter Somni" (7:07), because it sets the mood and makes the promise, you are headed into the future and there is no turning back. Your map is new, and has never been seen before.

Imagine that you are falling slowly through wind and darkness, Lisa is a warm and wonderful angel to find at this cold altitude. This music could be audio air conditioning, just listen on a hot night to the sounds which are cold, feel the invisible ice and snow. The sequencer shivers and the angels have a story you must mostly feel because this is something that has no words, until the poet speaks. "The Sound of Snowflakes Touching the Ground" (8:45).



The third song is very short. What you will hear is a sampled Lisa choir with deep synthesizer breathing pulsing shimmering. This is the title track "Mossebo" (1:08) and now you are a giant on a beach, there are lots of small speeded up waves on the shore below you. Lisa sings syllables, perhaps she speaks an ancient mythical language, in my fantasy it could be Latin or it could be Elvish, even if it was Swedish I would have no idea what the words mean. There is a subtle synthesizer platform for these tiny marine shore waves and the voice twirling and spinning slowly. She sings like she is in a cathedral. "The Sea" (3:51). Before the beat takes over, hear synthesizers scronking and bleep-leaping along in space, here comes a beat and the motherboards are bouncing to the funky rhythm. Take another chorus and get your boogie on, "Ambient Computer Dance" (5:39). 

Bringing the tempo down to a meditative space, hear soft melodic notes, a piano song, held aloft by subtle synthesizer drones and sky sparkles, "Shoreline" (3:20). Now bringing the tempo up with a solid beat, bass with the keyboard and shimmering pulse. Lisa sings and the poet speaks of the life unit, and the beat zigzags on. Here is a wonderful video clip of this tune as a live performance in 2005, a short excerpt from a concert in Linköping, from the early days of the  collaboration, "Unitas Vitae" (6:27).



This next is one of my favorites, even more heavily sampled Lisa, chirping and rippling and echoing, flickering, playing, beeping. "Putting More Wood in the Fire" (2:07). This is such an amazing collaboration, here and then gone away.

Get yourself a free ride to a distant place, a voyage by train through night and snow by way of sampled field recordings, "Siberian Train Part I" (8:43) and "Siberian Train Part II" (8:10) which features a different and faster tempo, with more of the sound you would hear when riding as a passenger and everyone else is asleep, as the rhythms of the tracks heard from in the coach try to lull you into sweet oblivion, rescued occasionally by the doppler-shifting bells ringing at the road crossings and some short-wave radio bits and pieces scattered carefully through the later vistas of the second of the two tracks.

Go deeper into the darkness of outer space, and witness the coming lights in the sky, Lisa brings the dawn. Go soaring into the mix and find a slow beautiful awakening. "A New Day Arrives" (4:55). With the sound of rain in a cathedral, Lisa sings and there is a locomotive beat. The track's title translates to something like "Lord have mercy" and the song has Latin or Elvish (or maybe Swedish) sounding syllables, or this could be just improvised scifi-scat singing. "Kyrie Eleison" (4:50). The final track on Mossebo features a melancholic keyboard instrumental electronique joined with a beat and a mornful throb, "Unhappy Love" (8:39). 

Johan Agebjörn is an electronic music maker located in Lund, Sweden and has a little label project named Husmus Media. His album Mossebo is ambient with electro beats, "ambient electro" or "arctic ambient," giving the music a rich atmosphere as well as a distinct sci-fi presence. On some tracks he collaborates with the singer Lisa Barra or other musicians. He has another project, Sally Shapiro, a sound that is ”neo-italo disco” with a mysterious female singer whose real name remains a secret. They have four studio albums, five remix albums, and fifteen singles.

Mossebo has been remastered from its release in 2008 and has some bonus tracks added. If you have heard the 2008 version, this one is even better.


1 Dulciter Somni (Remastered) 07:07

2 The Sound of Snowflakes Touching the Ground (Remastered) 08:45

3 Mossebo (Remastered) 01:08

4 The Sea (Remastered) 03:51

5 Ambient Computer Dance (Remastered) 05:39

6 Shoreline (Remastered) 03:20

7 Unitas Vitae (Remastered) 06:27

8 Putting More Wood in the Fire (Remastered) 02:07

9 Siberian Train Part I (Remastered) 08:43

10 Siberian Train Part II (Remastered) 08:10

11 A New Day Arrives (Remastered) 04:55

12 Kyrie Eleison (Bonus Track) 04:50

13 Unhappy Love (Bonus Track) 08:39


The album is available from Spotted Peccary Music:




Originally published June 21, 2019

#Johanagebjorn #IDM #ambientmusic #SpottedPeccary #instrumental #electronicmusic 


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