It’s been chilly, damp and foggy in most of the UK for the past few days. What more appropriate choice of topic for this week’s blog, then, than an album called Masters of Fog?
According to Discogs, Tonbruket is a Swedish music project whose sound is “somewhere between jazz, psychedelic rock and neo-folk”. The 4-piece band themselves put it somewhat differently. They say that they create a “sound world … that defies all genre definitions”. And, strangely, their own description is more helpful than the independent journalist’s fumbling for more informative adjectives. We can safely include ‘jazz’ in the description, but ‘psychedelic’ and ‘folk’ must surely be unintentional misdirection. The categorisation team here agree that it’s not just jazz, but we prefer the terms ‘avant-garde’ and ‘experimental’ to hint at the unexpected elements that brush against your body like the cotton cobwebs on a ghost train ride. You may find it unsettling, but if you hold your nerve, it will add a little thrill to the enjoyment.
The album opens with the title track, a slow trudge through a thick fog while a pedal steel guitar and piano build a creepy atmosphere for a black and white horror film. In time, we will meet the masters of this scary place, but will they be centuries-old vampires, shambling present-day zombies, or fearsome aliens from another world? This movie has no script. There is no hint yet of what might be coming.
A flashback takes us to a slow-motion pop party – people dancing to the sounds of Am/Fm radio – as if to say, this is how it was before the fog, and how it should be again. That leads into a story about a small group of suicidal doom-sayers – the ‘end-of-the-world’ers that the papers have dubbed The Enders. They may be fatalistic, but we just find them rather sad.
The screenwriter has written the stage direction, “Enter the Amazonas“, here. Shadowy figures working on clanking machines appear in the gloom. The camera floats through underground caverns, past fire pits and bellows, hammers and anvils, cogs and levers and conveyor belts. An army of ugly creatures is manufacturing Tonability with which to overthrow the unsuspecting people of Earth Above.
As we tour the underworld, an inset window shows humanity unknowingly Waiting for Damocles Sword to fall. The Underlings will soon wrest power from their Overlords. All it will take is one small jerk on the ever thinning thread. The machine is nearly ready. It just needs Wheel No. 5 to be completed. And the work is proceeding at a frantic pace, the main beam of the engine urgently rocking.
The dramatist now seizes the opportunity to hold the audience in suspense. He takes us back to The Barn for another reminder of what normal life used to be like. A collage of acoustic guitar and string ensemble pieces recount the mix of modern classical concerts and ceilidhs held in the local community centre.
The machine is using the Chain Rule Formula to calculate when to fire. As it cranks up the ropes and pulleys, the tension increases inexorably. A flash of lightning severs the cord and the human race meets its doom, but the filmmaker spares us the thunder. Instead, A Tale of Fall plays the gentle sounds of a fond eulogy, and the picture ends with the Underlings’ lament recalling The Pavlova Murders that started this fateful sequence of events.
I have imagined Masters of Fog as the soundtrack to a horror movie, but it’s really not that scary. And, anyway, there’s always a sequel, isn’t there? Maybe the human race wasn’t completely wiped out. Or, maybe the King of the Underlings, too, is sitting under the heavy blade of jealous rivals sniping from the rumour machine. The follow-up, Light Wood, Dark Strings, was released in 2023. If you enjoyed the foggy episode 6, you won’t want to miss the contrast of number 7.
Crotchety Man 