Porn Sword Tobacco: "Strictly For Karaoke DJs"

Henrik Jonsson is a man to keep tabs on, and not purely because he’s the father of this millennium’s most enlightened band name. Anyone who got into him via the fake trailer pitch doing the rounds on Youtube will appreciate his music’s best enjoyed before it becomes the future jingle of the Discovery Channel, toppling Sigur Rós from their throne and shooing them back to the base of the lighthouse. From custom John Hughes soundtrack cheese to trip-hop sizzled in static, Jonsson can do homesick like no one else, laughing off commitment to one particular genre so he can steal from every plate in the room. It’s a refreshingly toothy attitude from a grunt in the ambient corps, and one I imagine comes as standard when you record all your shit under a sign for the three Swedish contrabands. Last stimulation for 600 miles.

The three preceding Porn Sword Tobacco LPs all shone with tiny minotaurs, and this latest cut from some undisclosed session is no exception to the trickery—despite being a mite more luminous than Jonsson’s usual skuzzy preferences. A fortifying five-minute keeper, “Strictly For Karaoke DJs” is precisely not what it says on the tin: if you slid this one into a jukebox for impromptu cat-stranglers, you’d instantly flatten the atmosphere like a boulder rolled toward a paddling pool. End-of-the-pier piano interludes dice with distant jets, stoned and droning and another reminder of how much this guy’s first OST will melt me. There’s a thinly spread breakbeat to keep the blood from collecting in your toes, and as the chill-out flag goes down to half-mast you know the King is most definitely at home. If it’s intended as a teaser for Album #4 then Jonsson’s still very much the Wario of texturing—rough round the edges, endearing as a scallywag—and hopefully it won’t be too long before he’s out of that wooded bolthole of his and back hypnotising the thrill-seekers with a full-length.

:: Download mp3