- Loke Rahbek has released a vast amount of music under various aliases, populating Posh Isolation—the label he founded with Christian Stadsgaard and Klaus H Hansen—with releases that vary from brutal industrial to sugary pop. He once called Posh Isolation a monument in progress, likening its projects to separate bricks within that space. His contributions have included the abusive performance art of Damien Dubrovnik, a collaboration with Stadsgaard, and the power electronics of Caucasian Colony and LR. More recently, he's produced dark and beautiful ambient music as Croatian Amor and pastel synth pop in the trio Lust For Youth. Assembled over a two-year period in Copenhagen and at EMS, a studio in Stockholm where Rahbek was an artist in residence, City Of Women bears traces of all these other projects.
Rahbek's best work sets the sublime against the excruciating, which he then modulates into sonorous and discordant soundscapes. "In Piles Of Magazines" and "A Mess Of Love" are the best examples of this on City Of Women. An anxious high-pitched note is held through the latter, but its midsection is drowned out by a swell of warm strings. "In Piles Of Magazines"'s harsh electronics could bore through flesh and bone, but its blasts of colour make Rahbek's sonic torture a little easier to bear.
You can detect instruments throughout the album, but, "A Word A Day" aside, they are usually corrupted in some way. There's the percolating piano on "Fermented" that sounds like a degraded recording, or the tired accordion groans of "Take Pleasure In Habits." City Of Women's finest attribute is not so much the sounds that Rahbek uses as the way he treats them. Take "Palm." Rahbek sets an ominous mood with layers of drone, then introduces a throbbing aural wave that morphs and grows with each subtle tweak. The album has many such pockets that invite deep listening. City Of Women might not have as much bite as, say, the Puce Mary collaboration of The Female Form. Nor does it quite reach the emotive heights of Croatian Amor. But it's a great introduction to Rahbek's music in general.
Tracklist01. Like A Still Pool
02. Fermented
03. City Of Women
04. A Mess Of Love
05. Palm
06. In Piles Of Magazines
07. A Word A Day
08. Swimwear
09. Take Pleasure In Habits