Sewer Election Sweet Distractions

iDEAL mainstay and PAN alum Sewer Election peers at noise thru a vaseline smeared lens on 'Sweet Distractions', chopping and screwing noirish oversaturated instrumental loops into a zoned-out concrète symphony - peak listening for fans of The Caretaker, Aaron Dilloway, Basinski, Robert Turman or Lussuria.

For almost a quarter century now, Johansson has been skirting the edges of harsh noise; sure, albums like 2009's 'Vidöppna Sår' coughed black metal phlegm over misanthropic power electronix and 2022's 'horse Utopie' made Merzbow sound mild mannered, but 2017's ace 'Malign' slopped ferric environmental recordings with metallic clattering and Jandek-like guitar vamps, and last year's 'Psychic Panorama II' came off like a fanged redux of psychedelic synth music - icy and minimal but rusted to fuck. 'Sweet Distractions' embarks on another stylistic side-quest, seemingly following the blueprint laid out on 'Malign' highlight 'Dream Bizarre' and building it out to album length, using busted reel-to-reel machines to texturize gunky big band loops, off-center piano phrases and deranged orchestral whines.

Johansson doesn't need much here; the 37-minute track begins with a sputter of moderated tape noise, and springy, stretched-out chimes gingerly emerge from the clouds of tape hiss. Not processed, reverb-sogged and drowned within an inch of its life, the material sounds like raw tape being spooled around reels on the fly - the percussive crackles generated from the malfunctioning equipment are just as important as the diegetic elements. Johansson creates a loping rhythm from his twists of tape, not noticeably at first, but as the oscillating moans and pops begin to take shape, there's a tidal momentum that washes thru the sounds. Muffled voices, strings and brass moans appear in the fuzz, and Johansson progressively dusts off more and more of the muck until a perceptible slowed-down loop stutters into the foreground.

Like Basinski's timeless 'Disintegration Loops' cycle, 'Sweet Distractions' takes the emphasis away from the loops themselves and towards the artifacts and oddities they belch out as they circle across the busted tape heads. Fragments fall away at seemingly random intervals and vinyl crackle almost overtakes the fluttering instrumental lamentations - on some level it's still noise, but Johansson is able to wander towards the aesthetic and avoid jarring cacophony, instead honing in on repetition, grain and murkiness. It's brilliant stuff, skillfully performed and scorched in the best possible way.