Svarte Greiner - Kappe (2009)

The latest offering from Norway's Erik K. Skodvin is a black and alluring trip of brooding, scintillating atmosphere. It hangs low over an evening hour like a murderous mist of resonating regrets and misguided memories. It is the sound of the Earth itself grieving as it slowly stirs and devours its errant children.

Kappe consists of four tracks, though as usual for this type of music you'll want to listen straight through so as not to interrupt the exquisite experience. "Tunnel of Love" is a terrifying tune of sizzling, horrific, percussive sounds like drops of rain and blood showering upon steel chimes in an industrial nightmare. Below the pitter patter of sorrow, deeper memories stir in a swelling undercurrent. "Where Am I" is slightly more forgiving, yet graceful in the way holocaust winds might feel as they brushed along your skin, corroding your flesh like acid razors atop some bomb-burnt parapet in a dark waste. "Candle Light Dinner Actress" is the longest track, imagine a day spent in the abandoned city of your heart, grey and leeching. "Last Light" closes the album with some tonal echoes, I pictured a quartet of clarinet players floating amidst the dark rift of space as the cold of the vacuum took them, their final notes playing across all creation.

So I guess you can tell from this that I truly enjoyed this album, it is one of the better pieces of dark ambient that I have heard in recent memory, and I must insist you track it down if you are also into this genre. Like most good releases of its type, it requires rapt attention to detail, or the proper setting and mood to appreciate. Take this to the abandoned places within your own universe and let it tear its black talons across your fabricated shores.

Verdict: Epic Win [10/10]

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