Permafrost AC – Skärmtiden läker alla sår

9.1.20 by Ryan Masteller

Ol’ Krister Mörtsell sure has his thing. Not only does he run the väldigt bra Do You Dream of Noise?, a massively cool ambient/electronic/post-rock label out of Sweden, he also performs as Permafrost AC, whose output varies from massively cool ambient to electronic to … I dunno, probably not post-rock. But still! Pea meets pod, or pod creates/cultivates/signs pea (to contract), and the rest is history, with Permafrost AC releases dotting the DYDON discography, and the discography of other labels. Including Lamour Records, which is what this one is on!

I have it on good authority (Google Translate) that “Skärmtiden läker alla sår” means “The screen time heals all wounds,” which I don’t understand in the slightest, so I’m not going to give it a second thought. (Translation programs don’t often get what I’m REALLY trying to say, you know? There’s an idiomatic blind spot to them.) What I do know is that we’re all wounded in some way, and we’re all striving to heal those wounds. Especially these days, these remarkably dumbshit, disappointing, and disconcerting days. Heal me, oh Permafrost AC, with your shafts of synthesizer light, with your gleaming cubes of EBow’d guitar!

And there they go – my wounds are fading. There’s something environmentally and psychically friendly about this kind of ambient music, the minor keys layered in the atmosphere, like you’re at the top of a mountain looking out upon the landscape and watching the clouds roll in. It’s not the kind of music that gives you an easy way out, emotionally, but it makes you think, contemplate, consider deep down how you’re going to approach everyday life hereafter. So it gets inside you and becomes part of you, and now you’re a serious thinker with an eye on making the world a better place. Wounds, begone! Now we heal your wounds.

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