josh epps
Percussion like the creaking of the forest, momentum like the flow of rivers, voices and strings echoing across mountain ranges - everything here coheres wonderfully into a sonic representation of wild landscapes. Perimeter is straight up euphoric.
Favorite track: Perimeter.
Portis
Gidge does it again! What will they do next? Delicate, emotional, with human touches of voice samples & piano. Unsaturated sound arrangement. Sometimes hopeful, sometimes somber, other times celebratory.
Favorite track: Over.
Ben Leathley
It is hard to top Autumn Bells, but Gidge have produced another excellent album with New Light. A turn away from the thoroughly nature-inspired hypnotic electronic of the first release to something more difficult to grasp. What remains is Gidge's addictive playful and engaging sound. Beautiful stuff.
Gidge - the Swedish duo consisting of Ludvig Stolterman and Jonatan Nilsson - are back with a new album. Marking their 5th release on Atomnation, "New Light" can be seen as their second full-length album to date, following up 2014’s mythical “Autumn Bells” LP.
“New Light” features 9 new tracks, a project Gidge has worked on for about 3 years. With this release, Ludvig and Jonatan crossed the seas to find new inspiration in the massive landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, USA. This environment – a place where great mountains, ancient forests, and never-ending oceans meet - helped shape an album that is signature for people that are familiar with the music from Gidge, yet, can be seen as their most eclectic work to date. They refined the production technique on their new album by intensifying the sound palette with analog synthesis and crispy hi-hats. The track “Perimeter” might be the perfect example of this - spanning over exactly 10 minutes, the intensity of the synths in combination with the sharp hats throughout are absolutely fire.
Gidge has a history of making electronic music that is shaped by recordings of Swedish nature, both comfortable on the dance floor and in a more relaxing environment. Each and every Gidge track creates its own sense of atmosphere and emotion, whether that is nostalgia, rest, or epicness. Their work evolves naturally, often building to powerful peaks from a silent break that is tweaked with vocal samples, crackles of field recordings, and neo-classical influences.
While often being adored for the inspiration that is drawn from the forest, nature, and the north of Sweden (and rightly so), the music of Gidge has actually been of an absolute international caliber and is listened to by people from all over the world. Gidge sold out club-tour shows in London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Stockholm, and played their live-set to crowds on festivals in Mexico, Georgia, Turkey and Thailand. Blogs such as Pigeons & Planes, A Closer Listen, and Ransom Note wrote about their music - Pitchfork staffers chose Gidge amongst their favorite artists to listen to on snowy days - XLR8R readers voted Gidge to the #1 spot of ‘best new electronic act’ in 2015 - Bandcamp highlighted “LNLNN” as ‘album of the day’ in 2017. The list goes on…
Rooted in the city of Umeå, Sweden, Jonatan Nilsson and Ludvig Stolterman became friends at 15 through a shared love of electronic music. Their discography includes the album “Autumn Bells”, short-film “Lulin” (in collaboration with Lampray), mini-album “LNLNN”, and debut EP “For Seoul”. Ludvig and Jonatan have both lived (and travelled) all over Europe, including cities such as Paris, Oslo, Berlin, and Den Haag. At this moment, Jonatan resides in Oslo and Ludvig in Umeå - the place where they finished the last bits of “New Light” and run arts platform “NORR arts” together with Vilma Larsson.
This is about as seamless a suite of songs and moods as you're likely to hear.
The album feels self-propelled, so effortlessly does it move from track to track and style to style. It's Hopkins-like in its diverse fluidity.
Rarely is production this precise melded with performances that are equally so. Not only can these guys play, but they can think. There is real craft in the chordal structures that define the album's sense of narrative.
It's place is assured in my top ten albums of 2019. Michael Mueller