Mats Erlandsson - 4-Track Guitar Music (2021)

Melancholy fuzzdrone for lonely sadbois here from Posh Isolation/Miasmah alum Mats Erlandsson.

It feels fitting that "4-Track Guitar Music" was recorded in a huge empty room, the former machine hall of disbanded Swedish iron mine Ställbergs Gruva, to be exact. There's a sense from the very beginning that this is lonely stuff, and Stockholm's Mats Erlandsson uses every trick in the sad cinematic drone playbook to eke out all the emotions he can from his electric guitar, laptop and 4-track tape machine. Stylistically it's a little like Fennesz remixing Sigur Ros, if that makes sense, fusing post rock melodic riffs with overdriven laptop stylings and fogged-out droneclouds.

But what the album lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in execution. Erlandsson's re-amping and re-recording of the material in such an interesting space adds a cavernous quality to the tracks that elevates them significantly. There's a ghostly sheen that sings of memory, space and depth and gives it a bit more weight than most post rock/ambient crossovers.