Lonesome Demons. A Review of Komplett Kollaps.

“The album might be the saddest thing I’ve heard in my entire life. For ‘Komplett Kollaps’ you can cry through the winter darkness and let the pain of life pass by” – Julie Hugsted has reviewed Runar Magnusson’s tribute album to the musician and friend Jóhann Jóhannsson, who passed away in 2018″

The Danish online mag Seismograf published a wonderful review of Komplett Kollaps – a dedication to Jóhann Jóhannsson.

In Danish, but I will put up uncle Google´s english version below.

In english:

LONESOME DEMONS

RUNAR MAGNUSSON “KOMPLETT KOLLAPS (A DEDICATION TO JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON)”

by Julie Hugsted

Few things are as bleak as death, and precisely the farewell is the focal point of this tribute album to musician Jóhann Jóhannsson, who passed away in 2018, leaving Runar Magnusson with a melancholy that is omnipresent on this tearjerker of an artistically well-balanced album.

Aesthetic distortions of organ studies pierce the beautiful and compositionally accomplished Komplett Kollaps, which is one long mourning march, a declaration of love mourning the loss of a friend.

The opening track »Severed Voices« sounds like the slow breathing of a giving up pipe played backwards, while the organ enters a droned character on the 11-minute long »Dr. Diablo Plays the Organ’. The church bells creep away and an electronic voice repeats the words »A Star’s Gone Dim«, before the last track »Buried Treasures« ends the work in dark gray tones. The sound manipulation is subdued, repetitive, non-stop and touching in all its simplicity, and the message is so clear that there can be no doubting the emotions that underlie the music.

The album might be the saddest thing I’ve heard in my entire life. Devoid of melodious summer memories or the sound of spring. For Komplett Kollaps you can cry through the winter darkness and let the pain of life pass by.

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