Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - Lost In Reflections

Label : Killer Pimp
Catalog# : PIMPK010
Country : US
Released : 2009
Style : Dark Ambient, Abstract, Drone, Experimental

Tracklist :

01 This Room Seems Empty Without You
02 Lost & Losing
03 What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive
04 In Crowded Rooms, On Empty Streets
05 What Stays And What Fades Away
06 Himmelschreibende Herzen

"Dead Letters Spell out Dead Words is the moniker for which Swedish sound artist Thomas Ekelund records under. His Gothenburg-born project belongs to a fairly small yet growing genre of artists who create minimally glitchy melancholic electronic experimentations. The project found its birth in 2000 with Thomas' own label Fukk God Lets Create which itself saw only a few CD-R releases before becoming a netlabel. It met its end not-so-recently in 2004 after changing its name to Fukk Tapes Lets Erase which, thankfully, got out of the digital revolution and back into the days of tapes. After his first 3” CD-R on Dreamland Recordings and a split 7” with Modernart, Thomas finally got his debut with one of the labels sharing release duties on this record pair, iDEAL Recordings. In 2004, this album, 11 Instances of Dead Letters+Words found its way to light through Thomas' own unique style of Musique Concrete and field recordings from Gothenburg. After this point, DLSODW went on to work with a regular mountain of other labels releasing a giant backlog of music from every medium one could imagine though I'm fairly certain he never saw vinyl larger than a 7” until this point in time, a cornerstone in the career of any artist.
This fourth full-length of Thomas' came about a year and a half after he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, though it was actually composed approximately 6 months prior to the evaluation. He went into some melodramatic details in the promo sheet to make it sound immensely desolating, however, knowing several people with related diseases myself, I know that it can be quite debilitating. Instead of embracing outward, the mind curls inward to the point that two faces of one person often become apparent. These faces could be seen as represented here through the parallel of electronics experimentations / dark ambience and more structured depressive guitar melody-driven tracks. The 7” itself opens with This Room Seems Empty without you, which turns out to be a fairly structured track in the beginning, focusing on a depressive guitar melody over top a monotone single-note bass line that simply fills in space. The track generally progresses to a point where the production becomes the main elements as the bass begins having heavy volume swell properties and the guitar melody itself gets chopped and mixed with muffled bass drum kicks to give it the experimental electronics effect. Even with this chopping effect, however, the song stays fairly structured and retains it depressing qualities. Lost & Losing begins immediately with electronic fiddling instead of leading into it. This track is far less structured and primarily features a phasing guitar background drone that would remind some of effects commonly used in shoegaze like Projekt artist Love Spirals Downwards.
The LP opens modestly enough with a humming guitar and low-end melody paired with the scratch of fingers over a guitar string. Eventually, the evolution of the track brings about more high-end melodics. This track marks a change in mood, as it seems more hopeful or reflective than it does sad. Droning onwards for six and a half minutes with this same melodic line, you can feel the wavelengths bring about thought in your own mind. Crowded Room opens up with a bit of dark ambience, what some could consider 'corridor sounds', the dripping and clicking of stones through electronics. Subtle layers of guitar and bass help fill the void far in the background though. The clicking and dripping is eventually overtaken by a lush layer of guitar hum and more reflective melodies, though there is a rather annoying high pitched electronic sound with these melodies that makes them hard to flow into. What Stays and what Fades Away follows suit with much the same, just without the lush layers. This track is pretty much straight drone. The longest track on the whole thing, the monster Himmelschreibenden Herzen, or Sky-written Hearts, is next and clocks in at just under 19 minutes total. Opening ominously with some seriously disturbed dark ambient and putrid sounding effects, we slowly climb into an epic display of guitar / synth drone with a repetitious pattern in a minor key. The slow but bombastic drum in the far background beats gently with a crack on the third beat of each measure. I'm not sure how such a title for a song could end up being so epic musically as it certainly doesn't sound like the image that the track name brings about, but it surely is perhaps the best song on Lost in Reflections.
This is the limited CD-R promotional copy so I can't really fully speak on artwork, but I can give an idea based on the CD-R edition itself. The front of the outer sleeve features a dark metting table of 5 gentlemen from what looks like the 50's. Perhaps they're politicians but they also look like younger men, perhaps college students. A strongly conservative picture regardless with a dark overtone. The back is completely barren with the exception of the small label notices at the bottom and top left corner. The inner sleeve holds nothing up front but has the track and vinyl information on back as well as explaining that this is a limited CD-R promotional edition. It also gives the recording information. All in all, a bleak and somewhat cryptic artwork. If you want the full picture though, you'll have to get the vinyl. I can't really speak for it here. Nonetheless, I think the music within grants any fan of minimally melodic drone or heartfelt dark music in general a purchase. Too many audio experimentalists try too hard to get outside the box and end up making music that sounds like nothing of structure. For once, perhaps its time to enjoy an artist who uses minimal experimentation in a minimal way. Its not perfect, but its a fantastic release nonetheless!" Heathen Harvest

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