Release : BJ Nilsen - The Short Night
Artist : BJ Nilsen
Album : The Short Night
Genre : Ambient
Source : CDDA
Label : Touch Records
URL : http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/
Date : 10-21-2007
Encoder : lame.exe -V 2 --vbr-new
Quality : 179kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 7
Time : 48:03 min
Size : 62.75 MB
1 Front 14:24
2 Finisterre 9:35
3 Pole Of Inaccessibility 6:33
4 Viking, Cromarty... 0:06
5 Black Light 4:16
6 Icing Station 2:16
7 Viking North 10:53
The Short Night is BJ NilsenÆs fourth album for UK label Touch and is the follow
up to 2005Æs 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
NilsenÆs 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, NilsenÆs music takes generally
unremarkable sounds recorded during 2006-07 on location in MΣlaren, Stockholm,
Sweden; Coombe Gibbet, Berkshire, England and Landakot, Vatnsleysustr÷nd,
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 ôFinisterreö, the fluid layered
droning texture floods its surroundings and becomes dominant. This edgier
outlook continues into ôPole of Inaccessibilityö before dispersing once more
into the gentle tranquility of birdsong and minimal electronics with an uneasy
air of intimidation. ôBlack Nightö plays on its title with a deep dark guttural
drone and nagging mechanical whir that warns of danger unseen. The mood lightens
for ôIcing Stationö and returns to the flowing textures experienced earlier
before the 11 minute album closer ôViking Northö 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. [Paul Lloyd]