Swede Eric Berglund proved with his solo debut White Magic in 2010 that he could make multi-layered, intelligent pop music.
This follow-up record is no different from its predecessor in the sense of its textured complexities, however Wonderland builds on CEO’s debut with its own weird and wonderful tendencies.
“And I felt like I opened Pandora’s box” echoes the audio bite on the opener ‘Whorehouse’, which is a sentiment not too dissimilar from when the listener clicks play on this album. ‘Mirage’ brings together two unlikely elements as well. This time it’s a sinister tone overlapping an audio bite of children speaking, amongst what seems like a plethora of samples.
But if there’s anything that Berglund knows how to do, it’s throwing a myriad of sounds at a wall and somehow finding a way to make it look like a decorative collage. At times the results can be more odd than anything else.
The title track stands as the ‘banger’ of the album with what sounds like a repetitive “meow” sample throughout. While these small oddities might ruin any other release, the Swede drops such moments intermittently.
‘In A Bubble On A Stream’ and ‘Juju’ are beautiful pieces of ambience that level out some of the record’s more obtuse and ambitious tracks.
In that sense, Berglund doesn’t take his audience for granted, however the lack of vocals can at times leave you a little frustrated. When the musician sings on ‘Whorehouse’ and elsewhere on the album, they become the highlights of Wonderland.
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However, as this release comes in at just over 30 minutes long, Berglund makes a point of keeping things brief. Not that we can hardly blame him. CEO packs more complexity and brilliance in half an hour than most pop releases will contain in double that time in 2014.
Listen to ‘Whorehouse’ from Wonderland here:
