Swedish, Gothenburg-based drummer Johan Björklund, known from the Thymeshift group, tells that his musical personality was shaped by his first live music experience he had of Bohus Bataljon (Bohuslän Big Band of nowadays). His obsession with drums and rhythms led him to the solo project (plus guests) Disturbance. Björklund dedicates this project to the late Swedish drummer Thommy Larsson of the Franska Trions band who passed away last year.
Björklund has been working on this project since 2006. He has turned his own studio Eternal Darkness to a private playground, honed his production skills and has used many of his instruments – percussive ones, but also electric guitar and bass, keyboards and programming and processing the sounds, and invited a few selected friends to contribute to the project. None of the guests were informed about what Björklund has prepared for them and they were asked to contribute their musical ideas immediately when they listened to Björklund music for the first time in the studio’s headphones. He edited the recording tracks between January 2018 until August 2019.
Björklund is a musical nomad and his pieces for «Tribal Elektronix» visit few distinct cultures and musical realm simultaneously. The opening «Kuchi» samples voices of Japanese woman talking, jumps to a Middle Eastern ritual and floats with the trumpet of Mike Lloyd over breezy, nu jazz percussive samples. «Dark Bringer of Eternal Light» packs this nomadic trend in an expansive envelope. «Romantetic» goes further to faraway sensual Brazilian territories. Some of the pieces as «Thea» and «In Stranger Places» have strong and mysterious cinematic qualities while others like «Hello Sthlm» highlight Björklund’s affinity to techno music. «Guitars Unfackedable» is the only piece that suggests some measures of tension and chaos. Björklund concludes with the emotional, beautiful ballad for his daughter «Signe» (for he already dedicated «Lullaby for Signe» on his «Mess», Imogena, 2009), again, with the trumpet of Lloyd.
Eyal Hareyveni
Johan Björklund (dr, perc, African dr, gran cassa, handclaps, kalimba, g, b, Nordlead, Norg m1, Norddrum, prog, treatments, samp, v, growl), Thomas Gunillasson (g, Ableton live remix), Mike Lloyd (tp), Dona Tarokh (v), Farzaneh Moslehi (v), Signe Björklund (v),Erik Ivarsson (lap steel), Håkan Hellquist (g), Anders Augustsson (eg), Anna Bylund (v), John Lönnmyr (Fender Rhodes), Carl Svensson (g), Kristofer Göransson (synth arpeggiator), Midaircondo (Lisen Rylander Löve & Lisa Nordström) (sample from live performance)
