DAS ELITE ‘Torment EP’
Moody vocals taps into a storm of warm melancholia. “Torment” delves into the feeling of loneliness and the feeling of belonging nowhere and everywhere. Hauntingly intoxicating melodies take over your world inch by inch like the recurring tide. Laced with sensuous, looming sonics in contrast with a dark turbulent undertone, the crawling background vocals paint a semi-sacred and semi-landscape atmosphere.
DAS ELITE is the personal project of Swedish producer Andreas Ahlenius, a vagabond who works with artists around the world and operates out of his studio The Blue Room in his home town Gävle on the Swedish east coast. He is known for creating sensitive, haunting soundscapes and electronic melancholia that explores the duality of light and dark.
Taken inspiration from life, Scandinavia, vagabondism and the feelings in between, Ahlenius’s music reflects a scenic aesthetic at the same time fused with humanly relatable emotions. The producer has worked with a roster of artists, including Julian Lennon, Di Leva, Miss Li, Dada Ante Portas, Saybia, Ola Salo, Anna Ternheim, Marty Will-Piper and more.
The Torment EP features remixes from multiple artists, who each listeners to a different world, shedding new light on the stormy track. MOIST dubs the original with nocturnal robust electronics, entering a urban setting. Between nightmare and reality, illusion and dream, penetrative drums and sci-fi sonics whisk a more than ever vulnerable, human voice. Like being a trapped in a metallic world, being the only one with a heart, MOIST Remix is rich and bleak at the same time.
RED CELL took a different route, with an illusive, vibrant blend that bends and dilutes and transfers. Like a psychedelic ride through the roof to the sky, the swirling track is bathed in a golden ray. Elevating and meditative. Even the original lonesome feeling is being transformed into something else. As if there’s a resolution and deeper meaning behind what meets the eye, RED CELL certainly brings out a very different listening experience.
JEC then strips away original electronic sound storm and reimagines it with deep piano. On top, electronic elements come into the track with an experimental, organic edge. WOLVERINE concludes the remix versions with a nod to MOIST version, expanding the storm with fuzz-edged rains, while the vocals are tranquil.
“Boy In The Cloud - MATTEUS Mix” at the very end feels like a continuation, a B-side of “Torment.” Lyrically, it mirrors the lines in “Torment.” For example, “I feel so lonely now,” then become “I need you now.” And sonically, it reminds you everything about “Torment.” Like a mirror, each happening in “Torment” has a perfect occurrence in “Boy In The Cloud.” There’s a beautiful echo between the two tracks.
