STYLE March 2011 Ambient groove and spacey electronica. The Mountain Lake is a warm, melodic album with an obvious love of sci fi themes fuelling many of the compositions. Airy synth pads and dreamy washes float around invitingly uncluttered phrases, various layers of harmony interacting with each other in question and answer or deftly entwined. Agebjörn's nostalgic appreciation for the 1980's is evident in both the sharp synthesiser arrangements and the retro drum machine beats; however, this looking back is balanced Janus-like with futuristic audio imagery, smooth cinematic scenery and blissful, floatational reverie. ARTWORK The Mountain Lake arrives in a jewelcase with a two panel insert. The front cover presents a vertical horizon that is appealingly ambiguous; heavy, dark mass to the left; effulgent silky green to the right. The rear cover reveals something of the source of the front image: here we can see the green light to be the sky interrupted by mountainous forms, the waters of a night time lake barely breaking the darkness. Again shifted by ninety degrees, this photograph backs the track list, footed by website details. Within, a soft focus greenscape presents a lengthy discussion of the project to the left: to the right a discography and an appropriate poetic quote. OVERALL Swedish musician Johan Agebjörn has a pretty substantial discography to date that can essentially be split into two main projects: the electro ambient side (of which The Mountain Lake is the latest release) and a 'neo-italo disco studio' project featuring singer Sally Shapiro. For this album Johan has returned to Lotuspike to follow up his Mossebo collection of 2008. The thirteen tracks on The Mountain Lake explore personal themes, taking the title from the English language translation of the Göteborg suburb where he lived between the years 2007 - 2009 when the album was under development. The album features collaborative input from Sally Shapiro and Lisa Barra on vocals, as well as Glass Candy, NeonCoil, Sylwia van der Wonderland and remix guru Steve Moore. You can listen to tracks at Spotted Peccary or at http://www.johanagebjorn.info/.