Marta Forsberg returns to Warm Winters Ltd. with her most fully-fledged, meticulously woven project, a 7-track album titled 'Archaeology of Intimacy'. Soothing, gentle, yet uncompromising and strikingly beautiful, the album sees the Swedish-Polish composer move away from more long-form compositions; this is essentially an album of experimental pop songs, and it's perhaps the most intimate musical endeavour that she's embarked on thus far.
As the first seconds of the first single "Słowa (Not Saying a Word)" reveal, 'Archaeology of Intimacy' orbits around the human voice – the voice of Marta Forsberg. Initially thought of as just another musical instrument, Forsberg describes that she "used it only as a compositional tool, for making a sketch, always having in mind someone else’s voice". Over time, and with the help of Ludwig Wandinger who co-produced and mixed the record, she realised that it was actually at the core of this new collection of music. Unmasking it, accepting the sketches as final versions and including the intimate details of the voice – the inhales and exhales, the sibilants and imperfections – unlocked new levels of vulnerability in the music.
In addition to her voice, Forsberg utilises a lot of improvisations for synthesizers (the subharchord, audiotronic AMS3 & ASL5 and Yamaha DX7) which she recorded during a residency at the Studio für Elektroakustische Musik (AdK) in Berlin in the fall of 2023, as well as fretless bass guitar recorded by Andreas Dzialocha. It's a relatively narrow sound palette, but one that Forsberg uses with exceptional restraint and power. The variety is stunning; "Salad Bowls" is like if Twin Peaks was a beautiful fable set in the Polish countryside, "For The Night" is an epic, slowly unravelling composition for a small choir with spoken word passages and a catchy "chorus", whereas the closing "Dreamers" is an almost operatic piece which combines auto-tuned vocals, a string section and beautiful synth melodies.
If you're familiar with Marta Forsberg's previous work, 'Archaeology of Intimacy' might seem like an unusual foray into "pop music", but one could argue that this is the real distillation of all of her interests as a composer and musician thus far. The album combines Forsberg's compositional discipline and meticulousness with her knack for creating powerful melodies with emotional resonance, her long-standing interest in the human voice as well as deep understanding and intuitive navigation of synthesis, her fascination with the past and her eyes set firmly into a better future. It's timeless, uncanny yet eerily familiar futuristic music.
