It's interesting that Maskinkultur's Allsköns bråte is, in effect, a compilation of old and new compositions, because it didn't feel like that until I read it and started to consider it when listening. For the first few tracks, it feels like there's new elements being added each time. The opener, I stugans halvdunkel ligger två valthorn glömda (which according to Google Translate means "In the semi-darkness of the cabin lie two forgotten French horns") starts with a low hum that builds with layers of rhythmic organ synths. It sounds epic and triumphant while still ultimately being very minimal.
Then the following track (Your soul is a fish, swimming inside your body) brightens things up with these really rich synths that create these big harmonies and drones and feel quite beautiful, but so far it's all just been synths. It's not until the third track, Skidåkare klär sig i anorak, that we start getting some genuine percussion. Skittering hi-hats that add a sense of urgency to everything.
I use the word "genuine" to describe the percussion because I'm talking about actual percussion instruments, but the way the synths have been played is very percussive. I can imagine the artist banging away on the keyboard recording these tracks live, semi-improvised, and a lot of the engagement comes from the repeating notes forming the rhythms.
Things feel like they change after this though, with synths taking on a more harmonic role and the rhythms being left to traditional percussive instruments like drum machines. With Smärtblommor och sköntistlar this ends up with something that sounds a bit like the Icelandic outfit, múm. I've got more to say about this track in a bit so stick a pin in that.
Things then change again to a much more ambient sound-designy space, with tracks like Kaffet är klart! and "The doctor is in..." featuring these warped samples and tape loops.
But those shifts never made it feel like it was incoherent, which is why I said what I said at the start when I said that I didn't realise it was a compilation until I read that it was a compilation. It was almost an engaging and cohesive listen the whole way through.
I say almost because I have a big criticism about this otherwise pretty strong album. Most of the tracks range from around four to seven minutes, but there are two tracks that are notably longer. One is the closing track, Kom å ät, maten kallnar!, a sort of orchestral four-to-the-floor 15 minute techno thing that I really enjoyed. The other being the aforementioned Smärtblommor och sköntistlar which is 25 minutes long and I'd had my fill of at around 6 minutes in. Now, I'm an honest reviewer so I listened to the whole thing but the temptation to skip it was there and it was real, and I really did begin to lose my patience with it.
I'm not sure of the science of what makes one long song work and another not, but I think the closer gets itself into a groove and I barely notice the time go, but this song is neither repetitive enough to space out to nor varied enough to feel like a track with several different movements, and so it really felt like a slog.
That's my only real criticism though, and I think if that track was like a quarter of its length, the album would be completely solid with no caveats. As it stands, there's just the one caveat, which is still pretty good going, and I'd still absolutely recommend it.