WYGG [While Your Guitar Gently]

Throughout his career, Stockholm-based sound artist and musician Ivan Pavlov has shown a relentless desire to map musical landscapes and sound qualities. A reference to The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps, WYGG takes back the ambitions of COH’s previous album MUSIC VO to the electronic and digital domains. With prominent acoustic tones, WYGG ruminates on the tonal qualities of the guitar, resulting in a balanced combination of sonic, textural, and melodic explorations between acoustic and programmed sounds
The album opens with a sharp play of timbres and electronics, gradually taking the listener into an atmosphere that veers between jaunty, playful glitchy electronics and noise. Over nine compositions, COH’s sonic detailing emerges as a form of pointillism made of infinitesimal variations and subtle rhythmic structures
There is a warm fragility throughout the album as the waves of acoustic harmony blend cunningly with the drifting plucks and shivery electronics. The two closing tracks conceived by COH as an extension of the album’s sonic narrative flit between minimalism and abstract pop with vocal work from Pavlov and vocalist Ola. ‘Bolero With Ola’ offers an expressive dynamic with the female voice enacting a poem written by Pavlov. Conceived as a cover of Soft Cell’s 1983 homonymous song, ‘Heat’ features COH’s alias Frankie Gothard singing voice and carries the track into a soothing soundscape as he gently tones down Marc Almond’s lyrics