BJ Nilsen - The Short Night

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5...according to our Phil on Thu 30 Jul, 2009.

BJ Nilsen I've not heard of before. I was wondering what the BJ stood for? I do hope it's not rude. Anyway 'The Short Night' is an older piece of work by him which originally came out on Touch in 2007 on CD only. Now it gets the ultimo primo wax treatment and now you can get it on black DJ friendly wax with a brand new sleeve. It looks nice. It sounds good too. Very good in fact!! Subtle hums, drones and tones blend perfectly to make some of the most deliciously excellent atmospheric music I've heard in a while. It's somewhere in between Biosphere and Machinefabriek I reckon. It could sound a wee bit dark ambient at times but there's plenty going on even if it's just the most miminal noises here and there they seem to occupy the space perfectly. There's an underlying tension in the music which bubbles under and I think that makes it even more compelling. Really quite excellent!!

This vinyl version of the highly acclaimed CD album 'The Short Night' was edited and remixed in Berlin in July 2007. It was cut by Jason at Transition, London, on a Neumann VSM 70 in April 2009. These tracks have been radically remixed and presented for vinyl.

A follower to 2005's 'Fade to White', BJNilsen develops his work further, based on field recordings and electronics. This time he adds harsher yet clearer harmonies with musical elements to the compositions, creating a beautifully complex and detailed study. Recorded in 2006-7 with mostly analogue equipment, using up to 50 year-old tapemachines, filters and generators that end up being the soft cushion in these cold location recordings from Malaren, Stockholm, Sweden; Coombe Gibbet, Berkshire, England and Landakot, Vatnsleysustrond, Iceland.

The Short Night falls into an area of experimental electronic music somewhere between Murcof, Stars Of The Lid, Biosphere and Pan Sonic. What it lacks in obvious melody, it more than makes up for in mood and atmosphere. Even at its most serene, there is an air of threat, and yet at its most threatening there is also a calm constancy at the centre. Like the aforementioned artists, Nilsen is pushing music into areas where environmental and generated sounds are becoming indistinguishable. A kind of back-to-nature, earth science electronica if that makes any sense.

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