(05.01.05) Per Henrik Svalastog’s debut as a solo artist (he was one half of
Information, a mainstay on the Norwegian electronic scene who released
three records and a number of 12″ during the last decade or so) is an
excursion into the woods above Tromsø where he captures elusive
radiation signals from the high atmosphere and plays them back as
accompaniment to painstakingly sparse acoustic melodies.
Silencer is filled with so much silence that it is almost the
main “sound” of the record; everything else is but the infinitesimal
movement of particles around the gravid emptiness of atomic space.
Svalastog improvises on archaic folk instruments like the langeleik
(the Norwegian version of the zither) and the ram’s horn, and he takes
the music of these instruments into the bit-space of his computer
where he processes all the vibrant energy out of their sounds. The
resultant echoes are his grist, the dust and micro-particle that make
up his thin electro-static compositions. Brittle hand drums beat
slowly in “Restringer,” an irregular patter of hollow sound that rises
up through a haze of drifting snow. A tiny guitar tuned so high that
it is nearly a bell plucks a Yuletide melody in “Silverliner” while a
radio beacon sounds its laconic wail in the background. The urgent
rise and fall of “Blue White Yellow” is the sonic passage of a solar
flare that throws off so much radiation that the wind patterns twitch
and turn unexpectedly. “Fish in the Air” is filled with such brittle
sounds that the very act of hearing them breaks them. Melodies start
and are lost, washes of sound peer through veils of static, and beats
stagger three steps like frozen explorers before falling without
another sound into bottomless crevasses. The wind and snow cover
everything eventually.
Silencer is dub recorded so far past the Arctic Circle that the
tropical warmth of the echo is frozen instantly and shatters into
micro-filaments of sound. This is the frigid chatter of molecules
freezing their electrons off. I’m glad I’m up to date with my heating
bill so that I can turn up the thermostat before the sounds of
Silencer have a chance to ice over the furniture.
Silencer is out now on Beatservice Records.
