Since their founding in 1933, Fylkingen, the Stockholm based organisation and venue for new music and experimental art, has held a remarkable place in the international landscape of avant-garde and experimental sound. Central to these efforts is their record label, offering platform to a diverse range of practices and artists from across the globe, with special focus on those emerging from Sweden. We’ve lovingly covered their efforts numerous times in the past, most recently their incredible triple CD of Åke Hodell material, Verbal Brainwash And Other Works. Now we’re thrilled to shine some light their way once again with their latest release, the veteran Swedish artist, Susanne Skog’s, stunning new debut LP.

A student of Philosophy, Aesthetics, Feminist theory, Radio Production, Performative Criticism, and electroacoustic music, for decades Susanne Skog has occupied a crucial place within the cultural discourses and creative / artist production within Stockholm. Not only has she built a singular and striking body of work in sound, she has sculpted a remarkable body of work in text, first as a founding editor of the influential feminist magazine, bang, and more recently as a journalist and editor for Nutida musik, as well as offering years of dedicated work at Fylkingen and the Sound of Stockholm festival. Skog’s work in sound has, thus far, largely existed in live and intuitional contexts, rarely being released in recorded form. Fortunately, with Siberia/Sirens, this is coming to an end.

Siberia/Sirens, taking its name from the two sidelong works it is comprised of, springs from Skog’s fascinating practice which rides the line of narrative form, documentary, and raw sonic maturity and abstraction. Siberia, a slow building expanse of immersive ambience and texture which entirely rethinks the notion of drone, is built from recordings made by the artist in 2015 during a 205 hour / 9288 kilometer trip by train from Moscow to Vladivostok, and later premiered at Phill Niblock’s legendary Experimental Intermedia in New York. Sirens, on the other hand, through its material differences - drawing on years of recordings of sirens made by Skog in different corners of the globe - displays the remarkable focus of her practice, amounting to a very similar, yet radically different to the well honed ear, expanse of subtle ambience and texture - painting a minimal image which pushes background noise to the front of the mind.

Unquestionably one of the most rich and fascinating releases we’ve heard this year, drawing this crucial Swedish artist toward the broader attention she deserves. Riding the careful line between sound art and experimental music, this one is essential as they come.