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Album:
I'll be long gone before my light reaches you
(LAMP003)

Artist:
Jasper TX

Release Date:
October 2005

Tracklisting:
1.Blown out to sea,
I'm never coming back
2.Braille
3.Letting go (the world is coming to an end)
4.Help them die
5.Rounds
6.My heart is broken, I've lost my way
7.All those broken birds singing Winter into Spring

Download PDF Press Release (70KB)

Why would a Swedish musician choose the name of a Texas county as his moniker? Well, if you have the conscious and sensitive psyche that Dag Rosenqvist has, it's no wonder you'd want, through music, to pay your respect to a man who lost his life because of his skin colour.

Music has always been a part of Dag's life, with double bass studies and participation in bands from an early age. It wasn't until moving to Gothenburg at his late teens though that his passion for music was truly manifested. A fascination with recording started with a borrowed 4-track cassette recorder, on to which the first songs were captured and Jasper TX was born. Dag's interest in recording continued to grow and led to a Sound Engineering degree and the building, eventually, of his own studio.

A true dedication to analogue gear and lo-fi aesthetics is at the core of Dag's musical heart and Jasper TX's music. A deep understanding of sound allows him to build rich sonic textures extrapolated from various sources. A multi-instrumentalist, he places guitar at the centre of his songs, to which he then adds organ, drums, toy piano, field recordings, voice and of course many layers of effects. Taking his influences from a variation of genres and techniques (post rock, ambient and folk music, western religious musical patterns, processed/filtered instruments and field recordings) Jasper TX references a number of artists, from Fennesz and Sigur Ros to Mum and compatriots Tape, while staying true to his creative vision.

'I'll be long gone...' is a very personal album driven by strong sentiments and an introverted melancholy. Its changing patterns create a balanced dynamism that feeds a never-ending ebb and flow between delicate melodies and distorted ambience. The seven songs float from distilled sadness to discreet euphoria, and through them Dag is paying homage to all that is beautiful about this world. The shifting mood is reflected not only in the music but also in the titles, small experts from the sad tale of a broken heart. On the other hand, the calming beauty of tracks like opener "Blown out to sea, I'm never coming back" and "Rounds" functions like a warm blanket of sound, making one feel that everything is going to be alright.

Jasper TX delivers in his debut album a collection of songs that expose not only his musical skills, but also his unique touch that puts soul into the instruments he uses. There are no words, but if there were they would tell the stories of time-withered sailors away from their homes, lone lighthouse keepers fighting the storm and other tales of misfortune where the human spirit prevails. If music really has the power to bring out the good in people and make this world a nice and tolerant place to live in, then this is the perfect example of it.

REVIEWS:

Stylus Magazine
C+
January 2006
There is a Swedish flag hanging over my desk here in residence. I love Refused, leggy blondes, guys named Adolf who weren’t half bad, and, less so lately, progressive social policies. So, when I listen to Jasper TX’s debut experimental ambient album about the end of something resembling the world, I get even more excited knowing mastermind Dag Rosenqvist’s a Swede.

Now, I don’t listen to Mogwai, or Sigur Ros. I haven’t even heard Fennesz. I’ve just never gotten around to it. Thus, when I listen to ambitious, drawn out music like the kind featured on I’ll Be Long Gone Before My Light Reaches You, I’m left to my primitive understanding of the legends like Stockhausen, Varèse, and, *cough*, Radiohead.

All of this might mean that Rosenqvist has a free throw on this one; I’m green in his area of expertise, and I’m keen on his background. Not to mention that the strictly instrumental aspects of his work are much more minimal than most of the would-be contemporaries I’m familiar with, while his use of futuristic elements play effectively with his theme, if not wisely on his influences.

I’ll Be opens with “Blown Out to Sea, I’m Never Coming Back.” Its hushed ocean waves crashing at the shore come in over black box static, and tones surging in thirds. Pure sonic waves of ambience gush into the fold as high pitched organs screech methodically for three minutes, before a mellow power chord riff glides in with fourths. After one round on the guitar, a kick/snare drum beat leads into a massive orchestration of bending strings and pattered keys, with all the ambience of the first five minutes maturing akin. One by one the layers give way to the soothing waves smoothing out the landscape, and feedback squeals the track through its final minutes of droning strums. It takes a full minute after that to hear the mic being fumbled, then delicately tapped on methodically. It’s like a broken heart beat being sung by the most pretentious of emo kids.

“Letting Go (The World is Coming to an End),” with its chimes and deep pulsing background sludge feels redundant at first, but after the melody gives out, furious bursts of sheer trembling volume attack the senses to failure, and the sinister feeling behind this album begins to take full shape. In spite of feeling as though this and other epic songs are simply rehashing what’s been done by the aforementioned pioneers, the intensity with which Rosenqvist meticulously crafts each segment of the music, every tone brimming with anticipation of further and more accessible accentuation, makes the final five minutes of “Letting Go” easy to swallow—pleasant even.

“Help Them Die” is the album’s defining track, and it’s a gorgeous feat for such an ugly sentiment. More impressive is that it’s only four minutes and carries with it a brief, tempered pay off; something Rosenqvist couldn’t duplicate as he searches for meaning in “Rounds,” and shoots for the moon through crackling, passive guitar distortion dueling with a banshee on the never-ending “My Heart Is Broken, I’ve Lost My Way.”

Even still, his meticulous craftsmanship shines in closer “All Those Broken Birds Singing Winter Into Spring,” where a locomotive industrialization is cut through with more of the same pentatonic plucking from “Help” and earlier track “Braille.” Taking his time and pushing through the fog delicately, adding electrically charged organs to set the piece adrift into the changing season. A distant drum beat emerges under the cover of wailing bends. Finally, the birds speak up, and the ambient background serves as perfect imagery for chirping on the beach as the tide comes in once more to help sing the album to closure.

For all of its stuttering, “I’ll Be Long Gone Before My Light Reaches You” isn’t so easy to target for grandiose musicianship. It incorporates all of the major elements of educated experimentation, and hits the perpetual touchstones, through field recordings and electronic patterns the likes of Cage and Stockhausen set the foundation for years ago. It stands out from the ubiquitous pack of post-rock innovators by covering ground most wouldn’t dare attack. That’s also one reason it’s an album you’re not likely to hear much about.

But, I promise, it’s at least as interesting as Takk.

Dallas Observer
December 2005
If beauty is a result of tragedy, then Swedish indie whiz kid Dag Rosenqvist has picked the right name for his band. His heavily processed, static-based compositions may have little in common with the site of a Texas racial tragedy, but the pure emotion Jasper TX wrenches in this dense and melancholy opus is certainly fitting. The opening cut, "Blown out to sea, I'm never coming back," isn't lighthearted stuff--after five minutes of ambient layers of static, a distant drum pulse ushers in an absolutely lovely piano refrain, which then builds into a hypnotic drone before abruptly halting. The seven lengthy pieces might all be this odd, but they share a fondness for the organic, the ebb and flow of field recordings and the innate power of sounds barely above silence--what Brian Eno talked about as the necessity to listen to the unnecessary. On the opening minute of "Braille," tape hiss actually drowns out the piano, creating a strange outcome, as if it's up to the listener to choose which sound is paramount. Simultaneously epic and remote, Jasper TX succeeds in his noisy niche with a lot of collected meanderings folded and compressed into songs that sing without words.
by Darryl Smyers

Textura
November 2005
On his Jasper TX album I'll be long gone before my light reaches you, Swedish musician Dag Rosenqvist creates blurred soundscapes using primarily guitar and secondarily organ, drums, toy piano, and effects. His material inclines towards the epic, with four of the seven tracks in the ten-minute vicinity. Stylistically, though, the compositions are intimate and subdued with a lo-fi, analogue sound strengthening the at times shoegaze nature of his style. While titles like “Help them die” and “My heart is broken, I've lost my way” suggest a mood of resignation, the music is somber as opposed to depressing. Throughout the album's seven pieces, industrial episodes alternate with ghostly drones accompanied by field noises of thunderous rumbles, creaks, and bird chirps.

Almost all of the material succeeds in realizing its intended mood. “Blown out to sea, I'm never coming back” clearly aims for becalmed quietude. After wave-like smears of soft static awaken, an ascending bass line and then a sleepy drum pattern appear until hazy guitars and delicate peals burst forth halfway through to stream over the languid pulse. In “Braille,” melancholy piano and guitar figures barely manage to pierce a seething layer of crackling static, until it recedes to expose the simplest of descending piano motifs. The final piece, an ebbing and flowing guitar meditation “All those broken birds singing Winter into Spring,” builds from gentle plucks to a dense storm before returning again to the quietude of soft exhalations. The album's singular misstep—a severely grating one, unfortunately—occurs midway through “My heart is broken, I've lost my way” when jarring rippling noises bleed all over its soft tones. Aside from that glaring lapse, Rosenqvist's release merges the melancholy beauty and distinctive old-world ambiance heard on numerous Type outings with the relaxed guitar-based explorativeness found on Constellation and intr_version albums.

WarpMart
October 2005
Jasper TX is a small place in Texa but also the name of the so far excellent Lampse labels new signing... A collection of gentle songs that recall the showgazing era, Cocteau Twins etc as well as the more acoustic bits of the Morr and Leaf back catalogues and a bit of Jim O'Rourke. A delicate voice and gentle arrangements of acoustic exotic pop mixed with electronics make this a lovely album.

Almost Cool
October 2005
The last time I heard the name Jasper, Texas mentioned, it was almost ten years ago, and it wasn't a good thing. In 1998, three white men from Jasper, Texas chained a black man to the back of their pickup truck and dragged him to death, rightly causing a nationwide outcry. As far as I know, Swedish musician Dag Rosenqvist has no personal connection to that event, but it must have struck enough of a nerve within him to name his music project after the small county in the middle of the lone star state.

Rosenqvist is a multi-instrumentalist who places guitar at the middle point in most of his tracks, then layers in drums, drones, organs, field recordings, electronics, and processing. His tracks are at times so delicate they sound like they're on the verge of collapse, and at others they're so dense and loud that they sound like they're going to blow out speakers. On I'll Be Long Gone Before My Light Reaches You, seven long tracks stretch out to nearly an hour in length, and there's a good mixture of warm, layered production and lo-fi grit.

Opening track "Blown Out To Sea, I'm Never Coming Back" is worthy of the long title, as it opens with a long wash of soft guitar feedback and processed drone before building some steam with programmed beats and an uplifting guitar melody before again dissolving again. "Braille" again pulls together multiple guitar melodies in a deceptive way over some subtle drones and noise, while "Letting Go (The World Is Coming To An End)" mingles music box melodies over found sound before the track shuffles off into another foggy dreamscape comprised of muted guitar tones stretched to oblivion.

A majority of the release is so quiet that it's almost easy to space out if you're not listening closely. In fact, my only major beef with the release is during the second half of "My Heart Is Broken, I've Lost My Way," when a static-filled guitar filter is used that completely breaks from the more subtle techniques on the rest of the release. I've listened to a lot of releases like this in the past couple years, but for some reason I find myself coming back to this disc. It's one of those occasions where an artist has really done something more with less and the result is an album that is soothing and at times very sad, not a bad combination for when the weather is getting colder. A great little disc on an up-and-coming label.

rating: 7.25

Smallfish
October 2005
Third release on Lampse - 7 tracks of subtle music that moves easily between deep electronics, instrumental post rock and really gentle acoustic. The tone of the music is pensive; this wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack to some beautiful documentary or (a very tearjerky) art house film. The fact that it encaptures more than one style makes it all the more lovely. I know i'll be listening to this alot...

Boomkat
October 2005
Only a handful of releases in and Lampse have already established themselves as purveyors of the most gorgeous blue noise imaginable; a fact which is forcibly asserted by this deeply enjoyable album from Sweden's Jasper TX. With a vibe initially remeniscent of the warm shimmering guitar manipulations of Fennesz, Jasper TX (aka Dag Rosenqvist) coaxes finely textured and fathom deep compositions from a relatively sparse aural palate, resulting in a sound which has the scope of Sigur Ros coupled with the raw ebb of Jelinek and Tape. Opening with what at first seems a textbook excursion in layered rustles and machine lint, the album kicks off with 'Blown Out to Sea, I'm Never Coming Back'; wherein this slightest of foundations is slowly furnished by distant sea swells of diffused soundscape detritus and heart-flushed bass to make a post-rock influenced sound which will thaw all but the coldest of emotional husks. Similar in its effect is 'Braille', where through static ruptured digital shards, a fragile sense of glowing optimism emerges, rewarded at the end by a stunning piano melody which coaxes the ear straight into the border-line drone of 'Letting Gon (The World Is Coming to an End)'. Possessing a similar monochrome outlook to Norway's Deaf Center, Jasper TX proves on the likes of 'Help The Die' and 'Rounds' that the grandest of gestures are best realised through the most personal of compositions. Stunning.