AUTORHYTHM - "INTERCELLULAR COMMUNICATION"

Heavy, textural and relentless, “Intercellular Communication” by the Swedish artist AUTORHYTHM is a heady post-punk inspired, Kraut-leaning, synth workout build on some very interesting parameters. AUTORHYTHM is Joakim Forsgren, a visual artist and former bassist of several punk and rock groups.

According to the press release, “Forsgren started to work on what was to become Songs for the Nervous System in 2015, after having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The album is a series of intuitive compositions drawing from the latest medical research on how light and sound at specific frequencies has a potential to affect bodily functions, down to the cellular level. The resulting contemporary but surprisingly human electronic music is a dynamic mix of driving rhythms and meditative soundscapes. While the polyrhythmic beats suggest a kinship to some contemporary club music, the work of Brian Eno would be a more obvious point of reference in its genreless amalgamation of music, life and conceptual art.

Songs for the Nervous System was very much created in a dialogue between the artist and his hardware. At times a stern taskmaster, Forsgren forces his synthesizers to perform outside their intended parameters in a manner reminiscent of how legendary band leaders such as Captain Beefheart and Miles Davis would push their musicians out of their comfort zones. A case in point is on Neurothropic Factors where Forsgren changed a preset on one of his synths by lowering the tempo to a mere fraction of the original BPM, thus forcing it to push its envelopes and present its flaws as perfection. The idiosyncratic use of instrumentation adds a further dimension to a music that is suffused with an unlikely – yet strangely natural – mix of ordered restraint and anarchic urgency.”