'Tonefilm' is one of those unique recordings where even the composer himself is probably unable to quite fathom just how it came together. Disparate influences, Swedish film clips, plucked guitars, classical piano and melting flutes are interrupted by crunchy, glitchy electronics and off-kilter rhythms and yet there's not a hint of uncomfortable juxtaposition in sight. In fact, all the music on here has a mysterious inevitability about it, as if far from being contrived by a composer with a plan, it had already formed itself and Hans Appelqvist was merely lucky enough to have discovered it walking along a street in Malmø one day. He caught the beautiful fluttering creature in his hand and pinned it down for all of us to see. It's a fragmented, kaleidoscopic, yet fully breathing thing, this CD. Snatches of conversation from Swedish films (with a love theme it would seem) interject a soft guitar on Bakfylleord. On Bortom Haven jaunty latin rhythms clatter away while a piano spatters a riff in the distance. Throughout Hans slows things down, or speeds them up, at a whim. Yet you're never left behind or made to feel impatient. He ups the melancholic tone, then he blasts you with distorted joy. Yet you're never confused, just exhilerated. Instruments are badly tuned, or sound just like they did at your grandparents' house, a bit tinny or a bit jangly, maybe something's rattling away inside that piano, have you checked? Having not heard his earlier release - The Xiao Fang EP put out on the Mjäll label - this stunning album felt to me as if it has appeared out of the blue, that maybe it couldn't be for real, that I dream it, it was too good to be true. We can only hope Hans captures more of this rare and fragile beauty to enrich a sometimes all too predictable music world...
