Phantom Plastics: Michael Esposito & Per Svensson – The Ghosts of Ogilvie Station 7" Flexi

Firework Edition Records (FER1096) November 2011, Edition of 250 copies

Ending the year and introducing FD with a release which I've been looking forward to since Michael Esposito told me about this project several months ago. After the Inner Voices 7" (released earlier this year on FER, aditionally w/ Leif Elggren on board) this is already Esposito's second team-up with Svensson, whose first Firework release dates back just about a quarter-century. Ogilvie is a train station in downtown Chicago, where Michael - as those of you who are familiar with his works may have already guessed - conducted research and managed to capture EVP to provide the basic sounds for this release. Among the very extensive liner notes on EVP, that come along with this gorgeously presented record, one can find a detailed description of Svensson's processing of the material gathered at Ogilivie: "I have both recorded and played the original sound recording from the Ogilvie Station with my Yamaha MT8X portable cassette recorder, and at the same time run the sound through my Oscillograph Nordmende from 1958 and returned the modulated sound back again to my MT8X and recorded the frequency modulation of the material on a different channel. In this way, the frequency modulation is directly linked to the basic sound material of Ogilvie Station" (so far a short excerpt). The result is a beautiful one from every point of view. The audible part appears like a shimmering journey into the far-off and unknown, maybe a bygone era, maybe something or somewhere far beyond the here and now. Accompanied by continuous swirling sounds, one can divine reverberating voices, even distant melodies if listening very closely. I assume that the format of a single-sided 7" flexi record wasn't chosen randomly, since it works almost perfectly with the music on here. Although quite a brief journey on the whole, I'm sure "The Ghosts of Ogilvie Station" would be taken with this collaboration. Great artwork by Philip Marshall too!

Firework Edition Records