Klara Lewis, “Opening” (Editions Mego, 2026)
This latest full-length from the Stockholm-based Lewis is billed as a “a deceptive recording with veiled melodies and clandestine bangers,” which feels more or less apt to me. Stylistically, Opening feels more like an eclectic grab bag of commissions, sketches, and cool ideas than it does a focused and fully formed statement like Ingrid or Thankful, but her collaborative albums are frequently collections of similarly short, spontaneous-sounding pieces and those tend to be every bit as rewarding as her more composed longform work and that remains true here as well. Aside from its comparative brevity and eclecticism, Opening’s other defining trait seems to be a fondness from playfully manipulating and looping orchestral samples, which makes it one of her more nakedly melodic and less noise-gnawed releases (though there are still plenty of beautifully frayed and blown-out textures to be found among these brief and sublime vignettes).
The opening “Ta Min Hand” is the first and the best of the album’s many clandestine bangers, as it quickly evolves from the sounds of hissing rain and dripping subterranean ambiance into a downright rapturous ascending melody of sensuously smeared and swooping sax with fitfully sharp and distorted edges. Eventually, instability triumphs and the melody breaks free of its obsessively looping structure to leave behind a jazzy sax solo in a blown-out and echoing miasma of noise.
If I had to guess, I would say that a subway busker unwittingly provided the source material, which is a neat trick that Lewis gleefully repeats with similarly brilliant and surprising execution on the following “City.” While the sounds are a bit more familiar as train station ambiance the second time around, the transformation is considerably wilder and now happens in reverse, as the clean, wistful, and reverberating chord vamping of a guitarist is abruptly obliterated by the sounds of a passing ambulance that heralds an eruption of juddering, choppy waves of distortion.
Aside from “Ta Min Hand,” the album’s other instant classic is the 11-minute slowburner “Tide,” which first appeared on Irrlicht’s excellent Dissolving Strawberry compilation back in 2020. Notably, it is one of the album’s more sneakily understated pieces, as it initially feels like an ambient reverie of gently churning, murmuring, and flickering orchestral loops, but the overtones and feedback created by those loops gradually form a smeared and shimmering psychedelic haze. By the end, the loops have all faded away to leave behind only crackle, hiss, and a gently billowing cloud of dream residue. In short, it is a perfect marriage of mantric repetition and volatility.
The rest of the album is rounded out by a pair of pieces that were originally commissioned for a film soundtrack (“Drip” and “Feel”) and a host of strong forays into rhythmic loop manipulation. For me, the best moments of that second tier of highlights are the languorously shimmering and shivering bliss of “Fortsätt,” the warm and wistful rustic reverie of “Bud,” and the curdled futuristic sheen of “Vaknar,” but the entire album is a parade of miniature delights, as Lewis is an absolute master at crafting surreal and poignant soundscapes from just a few mangled and abused fragments of swooningly beautiful melody.
Listen here.
