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.
Hear the track and watch the video here:
The album is out on 20 September.
Aural Aggravation 