By Andreas Jakobsson. Ergo, September, 2011.
It's hard to imagine a more radical resistance than Johan Hjort's music projects. In times of Idol artist factories, hyper commercialism, conformity and hurried releases, the Uppsala artist releases albums that are slower and slower.
Two years ago, he worked under the name Hjorten with the project "2009: Year of the Deer", where he released one track a month and the collected album ended up being two hours and fourty minutes long. That time it was a bit too much, a bit too unbalanced and shattered. On "Staring Into Strange Eyes" the listener meets a more gathered Johan Hjort whose album might be his most coherent and defining work yet.
And Johan Hjort's contemplative ambient is slow. It sneaks through the contemporary day, it mirrors it gently and leaves an expression in the outskirts where not many find themselves, but those who do, will hear how everything slowly breaks down and approaches the inevitable apocalypse.
4/5