Norwegian experimental musician Erik Skodvin (Svarte Greiner) is coming back to Prague after one year. He will give a concert on 13 December in the club Roxy together with the american composer Rafael Anton Irisarri and Czech band Opuka.
SVARTE GREINER (no) / RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI (us) / OPUKA (cz)
13.12.2009 / Roxy NoD (Dlouhá 33, Praha 1)
Entrance: 250,- Kč
More information:
www.myspace.com/svartegreiner
www.myspace.com/rafaelantonirisarriwww.myspace.com/rafaelantonirisarri
www.letmo.net/productions
http://nod.roxy.cz
From the press:
(SVARTE GREINER)
„Kappe represents a leap into the unknown for Erik Skodvin, as he takes his project into ever more inspiring experimental territories. Where Knive provided some moments of temporary reality, Kappe locks the listener in and injects shots of claustrophobia right under the skin and continues to oppress and torture until the end. Skodvin has created a difficult yet fascinating record and it is anyone’s guess where he can go from here.“ The Milk Factory
„Erik Skodvin, the crown prince of nefarious Nordic doomscapes, returns with another incredible dark ambient grimoire for the Type label. Kappe finds the Deaf Center member peering yet deeper into the sonic abyss, concentrating his efforts on four lengthy compositions, each one following its own distinct subterranean tributary.
There's a real air of restraint about Kappe, and it's an album loaded with dark energy, always poised ambiguously between outright aural punishment and an impenetrably black chasm. A masterclass in organic, artful gloom, Kappe comes with the highest possible recommendation.“ boomkat.com
„Knive is an slightly unnerving, but largely enjoyable release that calls to mind everyone from a soundtrack to a David Lynch film to Coil.“ almostcool.org
„This is shadowy cinematic music of the highest order. Awesome.
...
Labeling itself "acoustic doom" for those with a genre-delineated filing system, 'Knive' sees Skodvin plundering a record collection evidently stacked with the likes of Earth, Badalamenti and Volcano The Bear - coming out the other side with a record that is inky black without becoming oppressive or claustrophobic.
...
As with any music this mysterious and furtive it's bound to carry all manner of subconscious connotations, suggestive of nocturnal spaces, coastal, wave-like motions and cavernous depths, you feel as though you're being taken on a tour of dark corners and abandoned, desolate locales.
...
He already made some waves with his dense debut album "Knive" a couple of years back, but this selection of music is quite honestly by some distance the most immersive and impressive thing we've heard from this clearly gifted producer.
Opening track sets the scene with a rumbling drone and layered strings that are at once austere and moving,
you can hear bits of Sunn0))) in there, as well as the more textured work of Coil, and in the low rumble of what sounds like a cello you can almost imagine Arthur Russell's more abstract work having some influence.
Next one takes a much more ethereal tone, delivering a kind of ghostly arrangement of strings and layered tones that reminds us of Alva Noto's sublime 'Xerrox', or indeed Brian Eno's classic "Music For Airports" - and it's utterly gorgeous. The entire B-Side is taken up with "Baandspiller I Solnedgang", introducing radio interference into the same anodyne mixture of dense drones and subdued harmonies that gradually disperse and shapeshift to reveal fragments of dialogue and scenery, like clouds parting to unveil a breathtaking panorama. It's a masterful, hugely moving piece of music that rivals the best work of Tim Hecker or Fennesz, and completes this magnificent album.“ boomkat.com
„Several tracks feature a pure, faint, female voice. This keeps a necessary sense of listenable normality to all the ghastly scraping, eerie rustling, startled bird calls, horrible footsteps, suspenseful door openings, and strangled surprises. We feel unease, but could we recognize the long-forgotten scent of human sacrifice, execution, and ship burials if we heard it?“ brainwashed.com
„The music of SG is practically perfect. It's like that sound in our heads we've been imagining for ages but had never actually heard. Until now. Imagine the music of past AQ faves like Jasper TX, Machinefabriek, Xela, Part Timer, that crumbling, hiss drenched loveliness, but then filter it through some dreary drowsy slowcore, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore or Low, but then loop it and process it and pull it apart until it becomes even more fuzzy and hypnotic, a Basinski or Tim Hecker produced bedroom dark ambient doomfolk record from Bohren perhaps? Sounds impossible, but Knive is all that and still somehow more.
From the first track, we were totally hooked. It's like the soundtrack to some ultra abstract black and white film, unearthed and projected in all its decayed and degraded glory. Everything is shrouded in shadow, shades of black and grey, back lit and rendered soft and indistinct. The mood is minor key and ominous. Very epic and cinematic, but somehow still understated and subtle. But definitely scary. And evil. But not overtly so. The record is bathed in tape hiss and record crackle and all sorts of gorgeously textured recording inconsistencies.“ aquariusrecords.org