This is my fourth review out of five in the newest Orange Milk batch,
and I think I may have found the star of the show here. I pegged David Kanaga’s
excellent Operaism as a paragon of
complete composition, framing a song cycle around the idea of a long-form
narrative set to music, but Hans Appleqvist has him equaled, if not beat, with Swimming Pool. The Swedish Appleqvist is
no stranger to constructing sound around a story, as he’s long arranged for
film, dance, and theater, as his digital CV attests (link below). On this tape
for Orange Milk, he lets completely loose, structuring an insanely lengthy and
detailed work, weaving pieces in and out of each other until the whole thing
resembles an ouroboros or a Gordian knot. Swimming
Pool. What secrets are you hiding from us?
The tone throughout is downright Lynchian, and I keep wondering if
there’s a Mulholland Drive–esque
riddle to parse within the album’s twists and turns. Whatever the underlying
concept, Swimming Pool is a fully
immersive experience from front to back, trading fully cinematic passages back
and forth with ferocious electronic pulses, pop- and R&B-inflected tunes,
abstract experimentation, modern classical, and even horror-inflected
industrial workouts. Heavily affected spoken word pieces appear occasionally,
and the album’s centerpiece, the almost ten-minute “We Touch We Part We Tear
Up” could be twice as long and equally attention-grabbing. It’s an entire suite
within itself and might be the best thing put to an Orange Milk tape this
fiscal quarter.
The Rankin-designed cover, always an amazing element to any release
from the label, depicts two lovers in an infinity pool, observed perhaps by a
hovering ball, straight out of The
Prisoner, reflecting a floating piano and a single-tear emoji. Isn’t that
just the Lynchiest? Weird, voyeuristic intimacy cut with surreal or abstract
imagery. The story begins here, but it’s far from its conclusion. Who are these
people? What’s about to happen to them? It’s anyone’s guess, but the mood is
right for intrigue.
--Ryan Masteller
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