Pärnoja is scheduled to perform, and based on this recording that will be a must-attend event. For this is one stellar and thought-provoking musical accomplishment.
It, like much of what is being produced and created in Estonia (to be precise, Efterglow was recorded and produced in Gothenburg, Sweden, but that is just the slimster being pedantic) defies categorization. My player identified it as belonging to the alternative category but I say piffle. It is not alternative, it ain’t indie. File this under original instrumental. Iridescent as a rainbow, fulgurating like a flash from the heavens, whimsical yet introspective – it fits no pigeonhole. Perhaps that is why the title is spelled as it is. While there is indeed an afterglow after hearing each and every quite remarkable cut, it is the unknown, perhaps an intro to the efterlife (a British hmm? here…), which might be a suitable description.
The 8 selections composed by guitarist Pärnoja are all well named. Every title indicates what to expect musically by mood (excepting the curiously named title track). The multitalented musician plays a number of guitars as well as bass on the record. He is more than emphatically complemented by keyboardist (and producer, mixer) Filip Leyman. Leyman’s musical work here is on electronic keyboards. In the not-so-distant past, that was simply a synthesizer; however, nowadays with computer effects, who the heck knows what is an instrument and what isn’t?
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