BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa

Sounds extremely good, kind of a soundtrack to a cannibal movie, released last month on Emego. That's what i call scary music. Not far from the Aguirre soundstrack, that's for sure. BJ Nilsen is a great sound artist, his last albums on Touch were really strong i think.

Press release from the label :

3 tracks:

Man From Deep River Part One

Man From Deep River Part Two

Man From Deep River Part Three

Total Time: 69:59

Compiled and mixed in Berlin and Reykjavik 2008

Mastered at Piethopraxis, Köln July 2008

The boiling up bottomless numbness. Slowly disappearing and so suddenly reappearing. A constant vivid reminder yet as honest as possible. The man from deep river quickly develops between two lonely desperate individuals, and the savage natives around him turn just as quickly against their own mountain god. The ‘illness’ is caused by several deeply depressing circumstances and by the intense difficulty of other sickening circumstances happening around deep river. The underlining of this situation is precise but not quite naturalistic which has only a very limited influence on the god mountain.

Those lovable Nordic heroes are back with a fourth album of intense listening and shined isolationist compositions. In doing so, they have issued yet another brief statement in defense of their research:

“Like another wall of jungle trees Man From Deep River leaves us both stunned and disoriented. It is an environment of high tension but also with moments of temporary insanity and auditory hallucinations. Based on a found tape from 1975, which served as guidance for the compositions"

Man From Deep River opens up a new development in their sound. Melodic passages with sweeping electronics and analogue synthesizers mixed with field recordings and disturbed voices creating a multifaceted piece.

The Swedish born BJ Nilsen defines his work as "focused upon the sound of nature and its effects on humans, and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound." He has numerous recordings on Touch and has collaborated with the likes of Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, and Z'ev. The Icelandic citizens Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson are Stilluppsteypa, whose electronic abstractions engage absurd theatrics that mar the pristine surface of minimalism.

Limited to 500 copies.

http://www.editionsmego.com/twiki/bin/view...go/PurchasePage

Long extract via MP3 on this (nice) blog :

http://mapsadaisical.wordpress.com/2009/02...ep-river-emego/

Thanks for the tips! Will definitly check this one out! I loved Fade To White and The Short Night!

Also appreciated the field recording album he did with Chris Watson.

"Man From Deep River is an extraordinary, unsettling record.

It takes as its starting point an evocative recording made in the rainforest in 1975, and spins nightmares from it. It begins like Chris Watson gone wholly wrong; as a clatter of gamelan and a patter of rain are interspersed with increasingly corrosive sections of drone. I’m captured, drifting in and out of consciousness, mysterious monologues and the mutterings of monkeys breaking through a canopy of metallic greys. Part two is more musical, with muffled melody being increasingly beset by huge vibrations; at one point I felt like I was being trepanned. The closing half hour is way up river and Lynchian in tone, and…is that the sound of someone starting a fire…it’s all taking light…what (or who) are they burning? Oh dear god, no.

I don’t know the story behind the original recording, and in particular what happened to the person who made it…if The Man From Deep River is anything to go by, he may have made it, but I don’t think he made it out...."

Oh my, cheers for the link to the long sample. I heard the extracts on Boomkat and it sounded rather dull but the 15 minute link was flipping fabulous so I've just put an order in for this one ....

leaked?

Support the entertainment you love by purchasing a new, original edition.

I just got my copy. that's a truly great album.

I still haven't got through this yet, but the first two tracks are stunning. I keep on drifting off to sleep with the lovely dark ambience and then waking up by the freaky noises !

the album is definitly a grower but got nothing on "The Short Night" and "Fade To White"

also the other collabo "Second Childhood" is better imo. Still a interesting album tho!

The Short Night is absolutely stunning. When I listen to it I always picture some real angry sea breaking down an old elaborate Victorian pier for some reason.

i like this one.

Still only managed to get through the first 2 tracks due to falling asleep, but it really gets better and better with every listen. Depending on how great the last track is, this could be my favourite album of the year.

Its a top release. I dont think its really similar with The short night, as "Man from deep river" has very differents parts, various bits from god knows where (field recordings, voices) with muchos cut/paste & its way more chaotic. Some lovely drones here & then, plus nice synths. To make it short, i'd say this record sounds like "Vangelis + Chris Watson + Tangerine Dream + Hafler trio stuck in the middle of a jungle and surrounded by canibals". Not sure if this make sense at all but i love it.

ps: i should read again "At the end of Darkness" by Conrad while listening to it.

Sorry, the proper title of the novel is "heart of darkness" by J. Conrad.

  k h o v said:

To make it short, i'd say this record sounds like "Vangelis + Chris Watson + Tangerine Dream + Hafler trio stuck in the middle of a jungle and surrounded by canibals". Not sure if this make sense at all but i love it.

Yeah, I think you've got it pretty much spot on there. It also reminds me of a much darker version of FSOL's first Environments album.