First one off the top of the new Do You Dream of
Noise? pile is Permafrost AC’s Allt som
inte händer, which Google handily translates as “Everything that does not
happen.” This is fitting. Permafrost AC is the ambient folk project of Krister
Mörtsell, who has his hand in
everything DYDON does – he runs the place after all. The Swedish artist guides
the direction of the label, and he is also at its vanguard. His flag flies
proudly.
As Permafrost AC, Mörtsell drapes his guitar in mood, surrounding it with field
recordings, synthesizer, mandolin, melodica – sometimes he just plays piano
too. Sometimes, you know, you just have to
play piano to get out the truth of whatever you’ve got going on inside you. And
so he sits and plays, and we hear his playing, and we are gradually overcome by
the way his playing interacts with the other elements, the space around him. We
can hear it quietly and blissfully merge, and we are haunted by it, reminded of
the actions we did not take or the opposite choices that we made. Mörtsell’s ghostly tracks pipe in
from a multiverse location that isn’t our own. They make us long for how we
could have done it better.
I want to listen to Allt som inte händer 100 times in a row, to let it seep into my
bones and affect me constantly. I want it to offer bittersweet reflection as I
sit bundled in front of a fire. I want to sleep, I want to cry, I want to
drive, I want to hug. I hear these songs that remind me of good and better
times, and I hear their gentle admonition in the disappointment they convey of
the present. I can only promise these songs that I’ll try my best, my own best,
and that I’ll strive to make the better choices. Gotta start somewhere, right?
Hey, now I hear hope and encouragement in them too!
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