Sweden’s Andreas Tilliander has been releasing minimalist digitalia as Mokira since 2000, his first recordings were for such genre giants as Raster Noton and Mille Plateaux and he’s now based mostly on the equally heralded Type. He also produces acidic dub-techno under his own name for domestic label Adrian Recordings, and traces of these rhythmic explorations cross over into his latest, possibly most challenging Mokira release to date, Persona.
As the name and cover image of Liv Ullmann’s chin implies, Persona relates to the Ingmar Bergman film of that title, although how is never satisfactorily revealed. The decision to move away from his laptop and record on analog tape, using only monosynths and a TB303, might suggest an affinity with the monochrome film stock and raw emotions explored by the master director, however the most immediate reference once Tilliander’s tape starts rolling is the spacier elements of classic Krautrock: specifically Cluster and Harmonia.
With no intervals between tracks, Persona rolls by like one single, gaseous plume, individual pieces defined by gradual shifts in texture and structure and, somewhat incongruously, dynamics. First track ‘About Last Step And Scale’ begins with faint tape crackle before the synths announce themselves, vast waves considerably louder than what came before. Penultimate ‘Ode to the Ode to the Street Hassle’ is similarly muffled, a looped melodic cell lifted from Spacemen 3 lifted from Lou Reed; here the low volume emphasises the layers of detachment between Tilliander and Reed, pointing to similar experiments by Akira Rabelais and William Basinski. In ‘When the Sun Hits / The House Hit’, this same crackle is used as an underlay, like the pops of Pole. Elsewhere ghostly 303 tones stamp out vague rhythms, Basic Channel dub effects crack and fade, while throughout the rolling banks of synths throb and buckle in random, ever-enticing patterns.
Joshua Meggitt
