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Visiting Häpnafestivalen this past Friday, I saw two completely brilliant performances. (We got there a little late and unfortunately we missed Tape.) We entered the amazing space widely known as Fylkingen just as Eric Malmberg went on. His performance has been covered elsewhere but let me just say that I am honoured to have been able to witness this special event. A tale in words and music. Eric was describing and playing the life and music of Gatu Edvin Aronsson, forgotten folk music hero of the early 20th century. I have never seen anything like it. So sincere. Thank you.



My expectations for the Stephan Mathieu show were very high. But oh did he come through? Of course he did. Perhaps the most cosy laptop-pose ever, Mathieu was sitting with his Macintosh right on his lap, delivering those sounds that I have come to repeatedly characterize as “romanticism without words”. It was worlds apart from the Malmberg performance yet they both managed to touch my soul in ways that few others have done in a long time.
It was a great night. (Big golden stars to those making it even better; Alexander, Johan, Gustav, Thomas, Theres.)

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A note on "I have a crucial presentiment: within the digital world, it is the quantity of zeros that proliferates. Be it symbolic or not, it can be verified empirically. In my opinion, the distribution between ones and zeros is not fifty-fifty: there are slightly more zeros. According to certain theories, there was once upon a time a similar relationship between matter and antimatter - slightly more matter than antimatter. Thus, the universe is an insignificantly tiny fraction of the mass of the total amount of matter; most of it was destroyed, transformed into pure energy, at the beginning of our world. It is this destruction that the subsequent Universe is compensating for with entropy. Now, we can presume that the digital world cannot endure duality, just as matter/antimatter could not endure it. Consequently, the digitization will arrive at a - for us - unknown limit, when the digital world explodes/implodes into monolithic, non-compound substances. It will be a clean world, void of redundancy, a world of only zeros. It will be a world with only one type of substance and, therefore, the numerical code will be its merely definition. To put it simply: a single number expressing the quantity of zeros. Then, for the first time ever, we will be able to contemplate what a single number can signify. This contemplation will be the next entropy, the next compensation.", the new album by Differnet, part 1.

One thing that I find very facinating about Tomas Bodén of Differnet is his love of revision. I have heard songs – via mp3-files, concerts, compact discs - go through so many alterations that it leads me to think that the music of Differnet might be forever in flux. The songs as they are presented on this record merely represent them as they sounded right that very moment.

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Kalendarium, Malmö:

April 24 - Viktor Sjöberg - Distro, Inkonst. (Runt 19.30)

Gustav Rosengren, Curator på Lady Godiva Operations står för skivspelandet. Elefanten tänkte att nu var det nog dags att be Gustav att lista sina favorit-Fennesz.

Gustav Rosengren, Curator: Fennesz Topp 5:
1. ”Endless Summer”
2. ”Live in Japan”
3. ”Venice”
4. ”Field Recordings”
5. ”Hotel Paral.lel”