Moonilena is the alter ego of Swedish composer Marlena Salonen, and on her debut, Minnet, deep explorations of lost worlds become a cracked mirror. Throughout these electronic treasure maps is a creeping tension, a feeling that pushes us further and further into the void because we dream of something better on the other side. But within these melodic expositions, those hopes begin to vanish, to darken and become part of the abyss itself. Minnet is dense. We begin to realize it’s not a beacon but a warning. It’s a masterful debut.
Minnet will be released tomorrow, May 10, via Moloton on cassette and digital formats. Listen and order a copy HERE.
Nattrafik (English: Night Traffic)
This song was originally written as part of a score for an exhibition by another artist. It consists of an FM radio broadcast I recorded, juxtaposed with a pretty basic melody. The scenery for the exhibition was to be a boat docking at a harbor. I was researching ferries and harbors at the time and came across this video of small birds flying around a ferry, so I always think of that video when I’m listening to this song. The song came out more melancholic than it was supposed to, so it was never used.
Skuggkurva (English: Shadow Curve)
I like to visualize this song as someone going for a swim in the ocean – the light part above the water, the dark part underneath. It begins with an almost inaudible, faint female voice being washed away by a manipulated field recording of a moped and cassette noise. If you listen closely you can almost hear like a choir-like singing lurking in the distance. I think the track has two sides, one of them a bright one with artificial digital choirs. After a while it takes a dark turn, the choirs change character and get a more shaky fragile sound. A sonar-like sound appears, creating a foreboding feeling.
Dom bor under taket (English: They Live Under The Roof)
This track starts with a sharp sound in the beginning, resembling the sound of some kind of electrical error. It’s followed by made-up bird sounds and a telephone-like ringing. This is a song I wrote one summer when we had swallows living under the roof of our apartment building. You could hear them scrabbling and scratching, ripping out isolation material from the building to build a nest. During the evening they would fly so fast that you would only see shadows quickly appearing and vanishing under the roof. I had read that due to birds dying out, scientists are making fake bird sounds in the forest, to stimulate the animals into breeding. I wanted to recreate that distinct sound that can cut through loud city noises.
Stenens dröm (English: The Stone’s Dream)
A song I did during a vacation to the island Öland in Sweden. From the island, there is this view of a nuclear power plant across the sea on the mainland. If you live or have a cottage on the island you get these iodine tablets sent to you from the government, in case the power plant has an accident. One day I was watching the waves hitting the stone shore which consists of fossils, rubble, and stones, with a glimpse of the power plant in the distance. I wanted to capture the feeling of being a stone being washed around in the ocean for thousands of years. Maybe in a distant future when all life has ended, only the stones remain to dream about it all. It’s the only track which has drums on the record.
Förlåt (English: I’m Sorry)
This track starts with an air-like sound, that is washed away by a high-frequency beat and sampled bird-like sounds followed by morse code. Synth pads enter, which after a while are accompanied by a trumpet that has a feeling of despair to it. I made it after I read about a Swedish spy (spying on Sweden for the Soviet Union), who during the 80s was stationed in a bunker in the Swedish Stockholm archipelago. I wanted to make my own morse code but didn’t really know what it would say. Later on, when the spy was serving a sentence for espionage, he managed to escape thanks to his wife who was disguised with sunglasses and a wig. So with that in mind, I made some sort of remorseful love message from the spy to his wife that reads “I miss you”. I’m not entirely sure that I got it right, but it doesn’t really matter. The song was originally called “Döden i berget” (English: Death in the Mountain) but then the title was changed to “Förlåt.”
Utrop (English: Exclamation)
A song loosely based on the concept of the waiting room. A female voice is calling out names while a sound I designed that is meant to depict some sort of made-up, slow, sluggish machine is heard in the background. I wanted to create the same atmosphere that waiting rooms sometimes have. They are often bright and calming but at the same time have this limbo-like feeling. So there is a high-frequency synth pad throughout the track, while a glittery sound I made with a granular synth floats by. I have always been fascinated by speakers in public spaces and wanted to recreate that kind of sound, so the voice was recorded using a walkie-talkie.
Utan en sång (English: Without A Song)
This track begins with a field recording I made using a bucket on my balcony as a shield from the weather (to make sure the field recorder didn’t break from the water). The field recording then gets washed away by this steam-like sound. Then a melody constructed like a canon emerges. I made it during a warm summer day in August. That week, there was thunder coming and going, so there was an electric feeling in the air. In the evening rain broke out. The field recording used in the song is a recording of the thunderstorm and the moment before it broke out. I then manipulated the sound so it went from being very dry to eventually having a sort of drowned feeling to it. I tried to capture this heavy electric feeling that manifests after the thunderstorm. It reminds me of some sort of wordless mourning hymn, hence the name.
Spegel Utan Svar (English: Mirror Without Answer)
It begins with this granulated guitar-like sound I don’t remember how I made, together with distant heavy thuds. There’s this crackling broadcast sound, that I want to convey a feeling of tuning (like on a radio) into a scene in life. Children can be heard, playing on a beach. Sandlike tape noise washes away the guitars but the broadcast sound remains and synth pads enter, and later a MIDI-saxophone. I wanted the feeling of the sound being encapsulated in a distant future. A memory from someone who has dozed off on a hot day. In the end, the slumbering mood is broken by a sudden metallic shaking sound and distant booms. Maybe the broadcast is interrupted and then shifts to another scenery?
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