Svarte Greiner: Moss Garden (LP, Miasmah, November 2016)

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Erik K Skodvin out of Deaf Center. The last release I bought (although there’ve been a couple I’ve missed) under the Svarte Greiner alias was Kappe way back in 2009 (before I’d started this blog). I’m happy to report, though, that this is stunningly good. The A-side, The Marble, starts out as a sort of dark, drone, ambient, full of slow doom-laden cello semi-melodies and atmospheric clicking and clanking noises. And then about halfway through this… noise appears, it’s hard to describe, it’s sort of halfway between a buzzing and a fluttering, and it sort of jumps out of the mix and then gets sucked back in like some sort of insectine monster trying to break through a membrane from another world, or something. And then there’s this otherworldly shimmering noise, and — well, I’m not going to try and describe it sound-by-sound, but it’s amazing. The B-side, Garden, goes big on the spacious, resonant clangs and chimes and is also amazing. This is intensely atmospheric without ever being melodramatic, it’s sparse without being spartan, and it breaks significant new ground in a territory which I though I knew quite well. A controlled and powerful masterpiece.

I bought this from A Number Of Small Things.