A Perfect Friend - "A Perfect Friend"

A Perfect Friend - Welcome Aboard (Stilll 2007)

A Perfect Friend – A Perfect Friend / Stilll

After yesterday awarding Look!! There is Life on Earth! as the prime summertime road trip record of 07, I am having to adjust my exclamation just a bit after spending some time with today’s highlighted album. Now I am no less enthused by Life on Earth! or anything of that nature after just one day, but we are going to have to concentrate their award as the DAYTIME summer road trip record of 07. Why? Because once the sun goes down and the body and mind start to cramp after ten hours of sitting in the car, it’s time for music that is a little more soothing and akin to the ambient sounds of a mid-summer night. Music that both plucks a heart string, reflects the somber mood of day coming to an end and embraces all of the odd noises associated with the sun-downed half of a July date… the insect chirps, the fire crackles, the fluorescent light hums, the distant pops of firecrackers, etc. A Perfect Friend’s eponymous debut does just that: it marries somber, heat-fatigued folk with chirping, whirring, ambient-leaning electronica and field recordings. It is exactly the sort of sighing music you want as the headlights start burning and you just want to feel the serene calm of a cool summer night.

Aptly named, A Perfect Friend is the collaborative efforts of Sweden’s CJ Larsgården and Thomas Jonsson. Maybe an odd couple on paper, the combination of Larsgården’s experimental soundscapes (along with a good number of other collaborations, he also records drone-metal under the Ondo moniker) and Jonsson’s delicate indie-folk (he has recorded a number of albums under the Thomas Denver Jonsson alias and has collaborated with Damien Jurado, Rosie Thomas and others) flows seamlessly together. With Larsgården piecing together an autumnal mosaic of synths, field recordings, loops, samples, and other various electronics, Jonsson weaves a comforting tapestry of melodic interjections including acoustic guitar, organ, harmonica, glockenspiel and other more folksy instrumentation. The results sound almost as if Akron/Family was signed to Mego Records.

The thirteen-minute “When the Temperature is Rising” is surprisingly the most engrossing for my ears. Extremely patient, the song builds off a simple loop of minutely chopped up drum machine and high-pitched tone gurgles. Synthesizer swells and flourishes of electronic noodling, glockenspiel and what sounds like a very slowly exhaling accordion all color just beneath the surface. Jonsson creakingly coos for only a few minutes in the middle of the song and for the most part, it is a pretty redundant thirteen-minutes, but the duo are tapping into just the right tonal mood to keep the listener hypnotized throughout. A more compacted approach, “Welcome Aboard” rides a similar wavelength but utilizes fire crackling-like static beneath Jonsson's folksy pleas, accordion swells and a distant, delicate electric guitar melody. It almost sounds like Pole remixing one of Deerhunter’s more ambient pieces. I also dig the brief “Apf,” if only because it leaves the electronic gurgles aside for a handclap and glockenspiel rhythm.

With A Perfect Friend, Larsgården and Jonsson do a great job of crafting a very organic album out of mostly sounds created from electronic knickknacks. It stutters and clicks and crackles, but is always counteracted with warm touches of acoustic guitar, accordion, organ or something else with a very autumnal tone. Hell, they even used samples of purring cats and quacking ducks amidst the sound collage that is the album. It is a very somber and serene album, and maybe not perfect for middle of the day listening. But I can guarantee that once the sun drifts beyond the horizon and your bones start to ache from the fatigue of the day, there is no better soundtrack than A Perfect Friend for lying back and letting all of the days’ worries drip off your body and fall to the floor.