Oona Recordings / LP/DL / 2025
Retrospection
I think it was around the year 2000 when I came across the Dead Cities tape by FSOL. I got it from a friend, along with Scorn’s (beautiful) Gyral. I was 16 at the time, two years away from moving out, but for now, I was still living with my mom in a tiny 2.5 by 2.5m room, which had been carved out of the kitchen in our 32-square-meter apartment. A bed, a desk, a shelf with a wardrobe section, and a 120-liter aquarium. Population: two subjects — a black telescope fish named Marlon Brando and an orange goldfish, about the size of a lime, named Marlena Dietrich. I also submerged two rubber dinosaurs: a T. rex and a Brachiosaurus. I did it by puncturing their bellies and filling them with a glass full of gravel each.
Underwater, two parallel scenarios played out. The first revolved around the emotional lives of slightly overweight aquarium fish. The second depicted the dynamic between the two dinosaurs, frozen amid an intense debate.
Introspection
In this setting, aided by hallucinogenic mushrooms (sue me), I experienced the album. And it’s exactly this moment in the past that I return to when listening to the soundtrack of Von Horn’s movie. Oddly enough, the initial impression doesn’t remind me of scenes from the movie that much (the movie by the way is excellent, as I’ve mentioned in Anxious before) but rather transports me to that particular past moment. The music and visuals of the film together off course do form a kind of monolithic structure. Yet the style and genre that Frederikke typically operates in are inherently graphic. I don’t know if I’m expressing myself clearly…
Even if the sounds heard in the moment aren’t straight forward, raw field recordings, when paired with imagery, they tend to act as a dubbing of some kind. My theory is that when melodies aren’t provided with a proper surrounding environment, the mind fills in the gaps, hoovering the most intricate possible scenery from its loaded database. Thus, a journey through time.
Veritas
In relation to the film, the album seems to function as an additional visual space. It expands reality, even though the reality itself consists of two entirely different spots in time, far apart on the timeline. Still, the atmosphere of Denmark’s harsh, muddy streets, the omnipresent dust, and the industrial noise of the early 20th century could already be heard in Puce Mary’s compositions before. Though, of course, for the sake of the soundtrack, she had to SLIGHTLY moderate the tension;).
That said, field recordings from the exact times would have fallen within the classical (experimental/industrial) domains anyway, so this marriage of the past and contemporary sound doesn’t feel mismatched. In fact, I’d say it’s quite a successful relationship.
It’s worth mentioning that Frederikke Hoffmeier’s compositions for this album featured contributions from other musicians, mostly known within academic circles: Astrid Söderholm on cello and double bass, Xian Yeoh on harp and cymbals, and Nina S. on horns. In pieces like this, every sound, every pause, shift, breath, and voice matters. The production by Frederikke and the mastering by Anders af Klintberg are spotless. If it weren’t for the rather gripping plot of Von Horn’s film, one might think The Girl with a Needle was a 100-minute-long music video.
Release date: March 7, 2025
Marta Podoska