Nattens Ryggrad by Fria Konstellationen

Golden Ratio Frequencies is excited to welcome Swedish/London/Berlin freeform collective Fria Konstellationen to our label family. 

Formed in 2002 in Linkoping, Sweden, both the music and lineup of this amorphous collective has mutated through multiple metamorphoses, with musical styles ranging from improvised noise maximalism to motorik-driven minimalism, from kosmische synth drones to Fahey/Fushitsusha-styled ragas and everything in-between.

In their native Swedish, Fria Konstellationen means ‘Free Constellation,’ and at various points throughout their history, there have been over 20 players in orbit around this aptly named collective. The lineup has now solidified to a core handful of people, with members active in other projects such as Flowers Must Die (Rocket Recordings), Skeppet (Not Not Fun), Frihet and Zugspitze.

After a nearly decade-long hiatus, Fria Konstellationen returns from the etheric realms of time and space with their new album, Nattens Ryggrad, which literally translates from swedish to mean 'The Backbone of Night' and is inspired by the name given to the Milky Way Galaxy by the !Kung people of Botswana and the explorative writings of Carl Sagan. Nattens Ryggrad is an interstellar journey through nebulous drones and freeform improv, that takes the traveller to the heights of cosmic, climactic sound. 

Filling the A-side, the title track on Nattens Ryggrad opens with creeping drones that slowly unfurl and unravel, eventually descending into a full, free jazz freakout—it's The Necks on a krautrock bender if you will. As the track’s pulsating gravitational pull steadily grows, it momentarily lulls you into a sense of calm before jettisoning you into an orbit of trance percussion and clatter, at times threatening implosion, but ultimately delivered with enough restraint to avoid burning up in its own atmosphere. 

On the B-side, we drift through a kosmische galaxy via two pairings of drone and noise expeditions. While ‘Käpp’, and its partner track ‘Käpp, Käpp att slå med,’ deliver sunburned, blown out improv with a nod to fellow Swedish 1960’s pioneers Parson Sound or Japanese freak-out, acid-fried Les Rallizes Denudes; tracks ‘Drönarslakt’ and ‘Almare Stäket’ propel us into dark, endless space with far-out explorative drone in the vein of early Cluster. 

With Nattens Ryggrad, Fria Konstellationen looks to the stars and offers a momentary reprieve from this mortal coil. As their sound simultaneously offers to transport us into the cosmic realms of both inner and outer space, it is in these spaces that we get glimmers of new ways of being—freer ways of being—and an open invitation to bring it all back home, heralding the possibility of a new age. 

Cassette comes with digital download bonus of extended version of Drönarslakt, ‘Drönarslakltlång.’ 

Available May 2020 on digital and C65 cassette, with on body print, double-page, 4-panel colour inlay with silkscreen Golden Ratio Spiral. 

TRANCE INDUCERS, STRESS REDUCERS, SONIC MEDITATIONS, SUN SALUTATIONS, DEEP VIBRATIONS, AND DRONE EMANATIONS; WITH THE INTENTION OF MIND BODY AND SOUL RE-CALIBRATION THROUGH AURAL MIND EXPANSION

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