andreas tilliander - Lava (2026)

Veteran Swedish producer Andreas Tilliander smudges out VHS recordings, dusty samples and "some shitty synthesizers" on his quiet details entry, meditating on the dread ambient acid that's propped up his output since the late '90s.

Tilliander's prolific, that we've established, but his output under his own name has always been particular. On his last solo albums, the iDEAL-released acidub milestone 'Compuriddim' and 'Case Studies for Buchla Volume One', he narrowed his gaze to fixate on certain analog machines and techniques, and even if 'Lava' isn't so single-minded, it applies the same logic. Here, Tilliander gathers his inspiration from the Skåne landscape: "the fields and roads of Vinslöv, Vankiva, and Hässleholm ... the shores of Åhusfältet and the streets that shaped everything." So, chopping environmental recordings with sounds gathered from old samplers, VHS tapes and his arsenal of machines, Tilliander recreates southern Sweden's subtle sights with slow-moving basslines, off-kilter bleeps, saturated shoegaze-inspired wails and an absence of beats.

Because although Tilliander is best known for his rhythmic experiments - like Mokira's era-defining (and recently re-released) 'Clip Hop' and his spannered run of TM404 releases - he's always been committed to world-building. Here, he commits to a full album's worth of scene setting, forming his topography with sketchy, half-visible experiments filled with twists and turns before launching the record's death blow as an epic side-length finale. 'Det är fullbordat' (it's fully booked), concludes 'Lava' with a symphony of buried drum machine loops, industrial groans, cricket chirps and 303 squelches that's worth the asking price alone. It's like driving through Skåne's backroads at the dead of night, headlights flickering as the sun peeks over the horizon. Redolent gear, genuinely.