Klara Lewis: Ingrid
Editions Mego

Like probably every other review of Klara Lewis's single-track release Ingrid, this one can't help but cite William Basinski's Disintegration Loops as a reference point. There's really no way around it: over its twenty-minute run, Ingrid subjects the string passage with which it begins to moment-by-moment transformations until it becomes an engulfing colossus of degraded noise. Yet while it is the case that Lewis's approach is similar to Basinski's, the mood struck by the two works is different: the plaintive motive at the heart of Disintegration Loops grows even more poignant as it gradually expires into nothingness; Ingrid, on the other hand, swells into a blistering black hole of near-frightening character. Issued as a one-sided LP, the Swedish sound artist's release, her third solo outing for Editions Mego after Ett (2014) and Too (2016), is well worth tracking down.

Whereas some of Lewis's productions involve treating found sounds as instruments, the kernel for Ingrid is a solo cello sequence of melancholy expression that before the first minute's over has become a four-note fragment. Thereafter the loop lilts slowly, its effect on the listener initially lulling before the subtle processing treatments applied during the work's first quarter grow bolder as distortion filters in. That chant-like motive assumes a greater convulsive quality as its lurch grows heavier and the music mutates in aura from plaintive classical to something like black metal. Passing the halfway mark, the melody is still audible yet begins to feel on the verge of being overwhelmed by the incremental roar of the expanding surround. Sixteen minutes along, the transformation reaches a state of completion with the onset of grinding, machine-like distortion; only a minute later, however, the mass retreats from full-scale immolation until peaceful resolution is achieved. Ingrid, it hardly needs be said, is best experienced at peak volume but with the windows perhaps closed to avoid alarming the neighbours.

July 2020