Golden Ivy - Monika LP
Liner notes (printed
on back sleeve)
2018
Malmö Inre
The Malmö-based producer Ivar Lantz has humbly been shaping his own eccentric sound as a solo artist under the name Golden Ivy for the past decade - as well as through his collaborations with Emanuel Sundin on the duos own label Fasaan Recordings, trailing off into experimental electronic projects like Golden Prinz and Börringe Kloster. While some may pigeonhole him as part of the leftfield scene of dance music based on his previous releases, Ivar himself lives in a world of his own creation.
Early on, growing up in Umeå, he followed in his two older brothers footsteps and joined the local folk music community, opting for the violin. Far from the tradition-bound school of classical Swedish folk, this proved a space for free thinking and genre-defying jam sessions.
Somewhere along the way towards Malmö, drum machines and synthesizers entered the equation and the birth of Golden Ivy as a musical persona took shape.
On this 6-track album, the musical world of Golden Ivy comes full circle as he introduces these seemingly different elements to each other. On one hand, there is the cold precision of programmed rhythms pulsing through the base layers: echoes of the urban industrial cityscape in which it functions. On the other hand, the sliding howls across the strings of the violin reaches much further out into the wilderness. And still - melded together - they manage to convey a feeling of “home”.
Taking inspiration from the fourth world concept of Jon Hassel, Ivar finds a delicate path where influences of folk music from various cultures can be captured and contained within a modern frame of mind. The violin and flute are present throughout the album like a red thread.
Perhaps they are the perfect instruments to capture the melancholy, isolation and beauty of being alone with nature, and of being home in oneself.
But there’s also Ivars jovial sense of humour that peers through, for instance on the pirate fantasy of “Long John Silver” or the jittery bounce of “Game Vän”. Oddball touches of lefthanded debauchery pass by here and there, but the focus remains on simplicity and repetition. The compositions are focused and tightly harnessed to the rhythms which carry them.
Motion itself is the key to the experience. It lulls and hovers in stationary position on the opening track “Söndagsmålare” and trickles along through forests half remembered. Finally moving inwards and expanding into a nature that unfolds through endless layers of denim, corduroy and felt.
Your body is part of this motion too. A vessel of history, at the tail end of your lineage. Formed by the blood of people who are now part of the earth. Soil for the trees. You’ll pass by fields where the seeds of these ancestors once bloomed. You may not know it yourself, but your body does. It resounds with a song you can barely hear. Dormant but strong. Embedded in the hand at the end of your arm. The music a link between a shared history with the trees, the lake, the hills. You can read them like notes. The wind rustles in like the stroke of a violin.
And yet at the core of it all, the end destination of this motion, of this musical mapping, there is silence. A vibrant sense of presence, clear like mountain water. And a sense of gratitude and of responsibility. As if you’ve inherited it all and it belongs to you only in this very moment. This very moment on earth.