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With his last three records all landing within a calendar year (2024-25), enigmatic Swedish producer Civilistjävel! (aka Tomas Bodén) is on a hot streak of releases, his singular vision increasingly ambitious and expansive. There are few artists working at this level so consistently right now, reinventing, revising, and continually developing their language. Following on from 2025’s radically re-worked ‘Versions’ (of Mayssa Jallad’s ‘Marjaa…’), Bodén returns to break fresh ground with his new album, ‘Älvgång’. Featuring contributions from Soccer Committee’s Mariska Baars, Carrier and guest (aka Jabu’s Jasmine Butt), ‘Älvgång’ foregrounds a more insistent rhythm-based sound, whilst comprising his most broad-ranging collection of material to date.  

‘Älvgång’ grew from a series of sketches made in late ‘24/25 at Stockholm’s renowned EMS Studios, which gave Bodén free rein to its extensive collection of vintage analogue equipment and rare modular synthesizers such as the Serge and Buchla systems. A loose framework of tracks slowly began to take shape, alongside a reflection on family and foundations, underpinned or influenced by various sounds that drifted into Tomas' consciousness around this time - ancient Swedish pastoral music, Georgian liturgical chants, gongs, chimes. An idea settled into place that the album would be a dedication to his grandfather, just as the earlier release 'Fyra Platser' (tr. 'Four Places’) was to his grandmother.  

‘Älvgång’ (a curious word that denotes both the course of a river and the passing of time in relation to the river) is grounded with the sense of time and place of an old family photograph, with the tracks of each side bearing one of two names that are more or less the same location. Strinne was the old name for the loose collection of villages in the High Coast of northern Sweden where his grandfather lived. In 1980 it was renamed as Bjärtrå. Both names still exist, but speak to different eras. Metaphorically speaking, the river runs through both. 

Tapping back into slow lives lived in a remote rural landscape of low light and extreme weather, Tomas’ uncanny world-building is echoed in the album artwork and its photographs by regular collaborator Rebecka Holmström which playfully undermines perceptions of scale and reality - dislocated objects coming together in a snow-bound taiga.  

With his music frequently linked back to its place of origin, Civilistjävel! conjures so many adjectives and descriptors, ‘glacial’ and ‘ambient’ frequently among them - but while not altogether untrue, such terms belie the tension and drama so often present in Tomas’ music. Listening to ‘Älvgång’ is not a passive experience. The eight tracks here feel like a patchwork of memories that bathe in the same ethereal, otherworldly glow of Tarkovsky’s polaroids.   

‘Älvgång’ shifts between pastoral kosmische airs and the grittier rhythmic drive of late 90’s electronica. The machine pulses that dominate its landscape are reined in and tempered by a human hand; lithe, untethered coils, breathing in and out. ‘Strinne Ett’ sets out with purpose, sensing awe and wonder through the murk, but as the final tone unfurls like a question mark, another chapter begins, unfolding/building like a Tarjei Vesaas novel. These lyrical, abstract miniatures combine to reveal a wider context: fragile humanity standing alone against nature. 

Guest appearances on Civilistjävel! records have become a regular occurrence (including recent collaborations with Mayssa Jallad, Laila Sakini, Cucina Povera, Thomas Bush, Eldon + Withdrawn), but are always used sparingly and with increasing precision. On ‘Strinne Tre’, Mariska Baars’ voice feels like a balm, a clearing. But as her four-word incantation drifts further into fog, the meaning changes, and the words seem to curdle. Carrier’s beats widen the parameters on ‘Strinne Fyra’, a skittering promise that builds tension then refuses to release it; all false starts, Photek gongs, and trickling modulars. Jasmine Butt pulls all the threads together for the final track, Thomas Tallis’ ghost walking over offset machine impulses, that work against their own symmetry. 

Side two begins inquisitively, scanning bleached, alien surroundings - its sparse pads recalling Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient works Vol 2’. 'Bjärtrå Två’ picks up the baton from ' Strinne Fyra’ with a ruptured Simmons SDS200 drum synth set free from its shackles, the rhythm eventually slotting into the spaces that were hiding in plain sight. What follows seems like an epiphany; ‘Bjärtrå Tre’ is achingly beautiful, a euphoric, winding ascent that leads to devotional plainsong. ‘Bjärtrå Fyra‘s final unheralded shift feels both tragic and haunting.  

Mastered by Lewis Hopkin at StarDelta, the LP is pressed in a black 140gsm bio-vinyl edition of 550 copies