(10.21.07) The Short Night is BJ Nilsen’s fourth album for UK label Touch and is
the follow up to 2005’s Fade to White. Also known as Hazard, Nilsen
utilises field recordings, weather, birdsong and radio to sculpture the
sound for this album, much as he did with Fade to White. Apparently, if
only subconsciously, based around a nautical or coastal theme, The Short
Night is a further experiment in Nilsen’s quest to explore the effects
of environmental sounds on the listener and the effective use of time
and space in music.
Completely unrushed and slowly enveloping, Nilsen’s music takes
generally unremarkable sounds recorded during 2006-07 on location in
Mälaren, Stockholm, Sweden; Coombe Gibbet, Berkshire, England and
Landakot, Vatnsleysuströnd, Iceland and combines them with flowing
electronic texture with an expansive evolving quality. For well over 20
minutes, The Short Night drifts along serenely before, during the
closing minutes of “Finisterre,” the fluid layered droning texture
floods its surroundings and becomes dominant. This edgier outlook
continues into “Pole of Inaccessibility” before dispersing once more
into the gentle tranquility of birdsong and minimal electronics with an
uneasy air of intimidation. “Black Night” plays on its title with a deep
dark guttural drone and nagging mechanical whir that warns of danger
unseen. The mood lightens for “Icing Station” and returns to the flowing
textures experienced earlier before the 11 minute album closer “Viking
North” combines elements of all the tracks that precede it; opening with
languid ambient atmospherics, the track begins to become edgier and more
urgent as it unfolds, developing a glowing electronic core before
closing with the distorted voice of a radio shipping forecast.
The Short Night is an ambient album with a dark alter-ego of menacing,
insistent, slowly grinding industrial tones. The effect this has is to
place the serene atmospheric textures Nilsen creates in a new light by
giving them an air of urgency and permeating the whole album with a
subtle, sometimes almost unnoticeable, feeling of apprehension.
The Short Night is out now on Touch.
