Originally one half, Side B, of a Servataguse Muusika tape release from Aug 2014. A kind of "Leitmotiv Limbo" dual album of two halves "Limbo / Wind Swept".

A dabbling of many kinds with a room full of stuff.

VITAL WEEKLY 951

LEITMOTIV LIMBO - LIMBO/WIND SWEPT (cassette, private)
The cover lists the fifteen song titles, and says that one side is called 'Limbo' and the other is 'Wind Swept' and the band name; that's it... For it seems to me a band rather than a single person doing this, even when I am not entirely sure why I assume this. There is electronics in the form of a modular synthesizer, rhythm machines, saxophones and guitars. Right from the start this has something retro. Recorded in a garage somewhere with a microphone, direct to tape, which results in a direct sound recording but with a band playing some crude of the more experimental side of post-punk and no vocals. Stuff like this you had on end in the 80s; in the Netherlands for instance on the Limbabwe label. Some of the saxophone bits reminded me of Last Few Days while it uses also some cruder tape-experiments here and there. I quite enjoyed this whole obscurity thing and thought it might easily go under again and re-surface years from now and will have a second life on whatever file sharing we use then in blogosphere 10.0 (FDW)

CASSETTE GODS

Is this a VHS player and clarinet duo? Laptop and autoharp? Casio and cymbals?There's a graceful ambiguity to the sounds, moods, and melodies that hearkens to the hypnogogic pop that was all the rage a few years ago. But the Limbos bring some free improv moves, structures, and ideas that feel fresh. A fresh take on the palette of sounds they're drawing from with some fresh musical and arrangement chops to boot. Spoiler alert: the clarinet comes alive on side B in conjunction with some spooky, breathy spoken word. Side B could go on a sexy mixtape. Side B can get it.

RADIO FREE MIDWICH

Leitmotiv Limbo – LIMBO / WIND SWEPT

Also sent as result of Joe’s FOUR LETTER WORLD review. In ‘Limbo’ Elijah Vartto (umlauts over the vowels – apologies for the limitations of the WordPress editor) conjures an alien souk from the echoed honking of an unspecified wind instrument and stick-in-bucket metallic rhythms. The point of view changes every few minutes and gradually a scene is set, protagonists introduced. This comes together in a surprising burst of new wave pop before retreating to the abstract – a menacing bassy warble dragging us down to an underground bunker full of robot soldiers.

‘Wind Swept’ uses field recordings phased to sound like the fuelling of spacecaft over which mournful, austere jazz blowing accompanies growling, heavily filtered vocals. It’s the blues played by a band whose home-world was destroyed as a display of power intended to tame a petulant rebel princess. Guitar jangles like the rigging of boats. All eventually peters out to a gargling throb.

Comparisons have been made elsewhere to early Cabaret Voltaire. This is apt and, of course, a very good thing.