Skeppet

Skeppet

Deluxe

Not Not Fun

Multi-instrumentalists Andreas Malm and Henrik Wallin have been triangulating a particular schematic of minimalist mantric-psychedelic instrumental music since the mid-2000s, emphasizing texture, time, and trance states. But with the exception of 2014’s Phase 3 LP, most of the group’s recordings were released as limited cassettes or vinyl in Sweden, long out of print. Skeppet Deluxe collects an assortment of these formative tracks into an hour-long mystic suite of primitivist circular sprawl. Shaping guitar, synthesizer, and percussion into fractals of FX, the ethos of Doing Less, Longer leads across varied terrain: motorik vignette, sunbleached organ vamp, drum rumble, Sky Records cruise, wah dirge, dawnbringer pop, etc. Pieces span from five to fifteen minutes; depth of repetition determines duration. As a discographical cross-section, Skeppet Deluxe revels in a vision of rustic cosmic roads and vanishing horizon lines. Of distance as illusion, and motion as meaning. Recorded from 2006-2011 in Malmö, SE. Gold metallic tapes in J-cards designed by H. Wallin. Mastered by Alex Nagle in Philadelphia, PA.

Skeppet

Phase 3

Not Not Fun

Though active for roughly half a decade, instrumental hypno-kosmische duo Skeppet (Swedish for “Vessel” or “Ship”) have only released two cassette EPs, one 7-inch and one split LP—each more spacious and weightless than the last—all on local labels in Sweden. Even so, their mantric ceremonial psychedelia hooked the minds behind Not Not Fun immediately, delivering on the title of a 2010 compilation curated by core members Andreas Malm and Henrik Wallin for their own Kosmisk Väg imprint: The New Wave of Swedish Cosmic Music.  For Phase 3, the group’s first full-length, they drafted Upper Layer Cruiser Martin Nilsson to play additional percussion, infusing a texture of mind-washed congas within their futurist Popul Vuh ascension voyages and gracefully opiated raga-rock. The album mimics the journey of a deep-orbiting craft, first spiraling deep into the ether, eclipsed and endless (the 20-minute wormhole “Den Nya Kusten,” or “The New Coast”), before arcing back toward the solar wind, increasingly sunbathed and radiant (fittingly kicking off the B-side is “Solskeppet,” or “Sun-Ship”).  A refined exploration of transportive aerodynamics and escape pod jamming by a sub-radar squadron who’ve paid their dues in the engine room, Phase 3 was recorded in waves across three years, partially at Skeppet’s home studio in Malmö and the rest at TonGeneration Studio with Björn Stegmann.