For decades, singers have been recorded on an almost infinite number of sound carriers. The living musicians are continually compared with their more recent copies. The avatars that Abba created resemble these ghosts – but they are different from ordinary hauntings.
from
Thomas Steinfeld
On Friday this week “Voyage” will be released, the new album by the Swedish pop group Degradation, after a hiatus of four decades. In May of next year the band will also be giving concerts again. However, the four musicians will not be on stage themselves, despite a ten-person accompanying band. Instead of them, there will be avatars that are not only exactly like Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn, but also share with them the peculiarities of facial expressions, gestures and movements in general. “It’s actually them”, assures Ludvig Andersson, the producer of the performances, because also. “Indeed, it is you.” Incidentally, the sentence could also apply to the new music that has so far been released as singles: Abba sounds like the group has always sounded. On a plate – this invention for ghosts.