The Abyss by Malcolm Pardon
Formats: Limited edition ‘Pool Party’ splatter LP (350 copies) (BAY 141VX) Black vinyl LP (BAY 141V) Limited edition CD (500 copies) (BAY 141CD) Digital (BAY 141E)
Release Date: 20 September 2024
For Malcolm Pardon, there’s beauty in our universal, inescapable demise. Like the romantic notion of the orchestra on board the Titanic playing their repertoire as the ship went down, on his second solo album Pardon looks past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance.
“It’s not meant to be threatening or horrific in any way,” says Pardon of The Abyss. “There’s this constant dialogue we have with ourselves about how we’re going to die at some point. It’s like a constant companion, so you might as well get to know it, and befriend it.”
As one half of Roll The Dice, Pardon worked alongside fellow Stockholm resident Peder Mannerfelt on brooding fusions of electronica and classical composition. By contrast, his 2021 solo debut Hello Death saw him take a much more stripped-down approach, placing the emphasis on plaintive piano composition with only the subtlest of sonic treatments in the space around the notes. Without intentionally setting out to record a conceptual follow up, as he developed the sketches which would become The Abyss, Pardon found himself contemplating unknown futures and the artists’ quest into unexplored territory.
“For me, on a musical level The Abyss represents exploring your own capabilities,” he says, “Starting from an empty canvas, then slowly finding the way forward by connecting the right notes. It’s almost a subconscious experience. I sit down by the piano, and if I’m lucky I find something that takes me down the vortex.”
The lilting romanticism of ‘Enter The Void’ serves as a perfect distillation of Pardon’s approach, balancing a delicate piano refrain with a low, rumbling blast of noise before being carried aloft by swooning strings that echo down a distant hall. There’s beauty and hope shot through with foreboding in the particular treatment of each sound, the harmonic interplay between the musical elements and the gentle rise and fall of the arrangement.
Meanwhile the synth-rich crescendo of ‘Vanmakt’ comes on like a stoic commitment to joy in the face of loss, underpinned by tactile prepared piano chimes and the real-world creak of the room as the melodies were recorded. Pardon’s forthright approach to composition lands each concise piece with immediacy, but there’s exquisite detail etched into every inch of The Abyss which reveals itself patiently over repeat listens.
“Hello Death was more intimate sound wise and the piano was always kept in the foreground,” explains Pardon. “It was meant to be clear that all the synths and sounds were there to accompany the piano. On The Abyss I tried to make the piano blend in more with everything else, to give more room for the surrounding ambience. If Hello Death was a solo artist, The Abyss is a band.”
Aided in these finer points of production by Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik (working as Aasthma), Pardon took inspiration from the idea of being submerged under water. The fine threads of synthesis and sound treatments which give the album its distinct character served as an abstract guiding principle which informs the fluid motion of the music.
“I wanted to create a vast soundscape that’s not exactly comfortable, but has a stillness and acceptance,” Pardon explains.
1. Deliverance
2. Pockets Of Air
3. Side Effects
4. The End
5. Patchwork
6. Enter The Void
7. Separate Ways
8. Vanmakt
9. Within Reach
10. Seven Bells
11. Aftermath