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NILSEN, BJ & STILLUPPSTEYPA - Vikinga Brennivin

Format: CD
Label & Cat.Number: Helen Scarsdale Ageny HMS004
Release Year: 2005
Note: the very first of the fruitful "hallucinogenic" collaborations between these Scandinavic projects - music as it could appear during a deep intoxication ('Brennivin' is a strong, almost poisonous Icelandic liquor), subtle - hazy - hypnotic ghostdronecapes, based on processed field recordings that a barely recognizable... back in stock !
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00


More Info

"Nordische Drone-Collaboration von BENNY NILSEN (ex HAZARD, MORTHOUND) und STILLUPPSTEYPA: 5 Stücke, durchdrungen von schwelenden, geheimnisvollen Drones und etwas konkreteren Soundabdrücken, sehr spannend, hypnotisierend, betäubend..... „schöne Klaustrophobie“ meint Frans de Waard.......

“...Focusing the perception of natural sounds through a reconstruction of time and space, Nilsen has rendered the commonplace sounds of wind, rain, and snow as stealthfully seductive and quietly menacing drifts of frozen sound. Their resultant collaboration is an existentialist allegory in which the three drunkenly stumble out in a Scandinavian winter night and spiral toward the inevitable point in which they blackout. Lest this be construed as a derelict piece of method acting, the craft that Nilsen, Sigmarsson, and Thorsson brought to Vikinga Brennivin is impeccable, as the extended soundfields breath with the majesty of distant fog horns and sparkle with the delicate light of countless stars cast down from the black heavens onto the frozen tundra below. Frightening and barren, yet hauntingly compelling, Vikinga Brennivin is an isolationist masterpiece....” [from the label info]

www.helenscarsdale.com


“Drinkers out there: pay attention, because our favourite drunks are here and they celebrate their favourite drink: brennivin. Never heard of? No problem. It's an Icelandic liquor made of potato and flavored with cumin, which burns down your throat - and I know: the only two
times I was really sick of alcohol in the last 10 years was of brennivin. The first time I got this poison served was at Stillupsteypa's house - no wonder, they are from Iceland and like everybody from there they drink. A lot. An insane lot. These days Stilluppsteypa is Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson and they team up with BJ Nilsen - our man in Sweden (and known from Touch releases, more than his drinking habits, at least here). Of course it's hard to tell wether one would think of the booze if it didn't have that title, nor is it easy to relate the music to the drink. The five lengthy pieces here all deal with a hermetically closed sound. Processings of field recordings perhaps, but no longer recognizable
as such. Some ten or so years ago, someone invented the term 'isolationism' for this kind of music, but basically it was what everyone else called 'ambient industrial', but somehow 'isolationism' sounded better. It's certainly an appropiate term for this CD. It's either music you hear when you try to make it home after a night of heavy brennivin intake and if that didn't do the trick it's music you hear in your head when you wake up. It's almost claustrophobic music, but beautiful claustrophobia. Lovers of Nilsen's other work, or Thomas Köner's old work, should keep an eye open for a CD packed in copper-plates inside a jewel case.” [FdW / Vital Weekly]



"The cold winter nights stuck above the Arctic Circle have become the perfect climate for extended bouts of intoxication for many a Scandinavian. As a result, the capacity for the Icelandic duo Stilluppsteypa to consume alcohol is the stuff of legend. Alcohol has soaked into every fiber of their being; but its manifestation in their music (and their personalities for that matter) is closer to the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde allegory, as a raging alcoholic squirms just beneath the surface of a stoic Scandinavian temperment. Of course, where these two personalities come into conflict is where the art of Stilluppsteypa is realized. A schizoid tension runs throughout Stilluppsteypa's impressive catalogue of terminal drones, sputtered rhythms, and atomic fractures; and often this tension is dished out with a smug dollop of black humour and Dadaist absurdity. So, it's hardly unusual to come across Stilluppsteypa celebrating Vikinga Brennivin, the stringent Icelandic alcohol that has undoubtably killed some of their collective brain cells. Yet it was the stoic BJ Nilsen -- the Swedish electron wrangler whose best known for his work as Hazard -- who invited Stilluppsteypa to collaborate on Vikinga Brennivin. Their resultant collaboration is an existentialist allegory in which the three drunkenly stumble out in a Scandinavian winter night and spiral toward the inevitable point in which they blackout. Lest this be construed as a derelict piece of method acting, the craft that Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa brought to Vikinga Brennivin is impeccable, as the extended dronescapes breath with the majesty of distant fog horns and sparkle with the delicate light of countless stars cast down from the black heavens onto the frozen tundra below. Frightening and barren, yet hauntingly compelling, Vikinga Brennivin is an isolationist masterpiece." [Aquarius Records]