Svarte Greiner

Though measurably more musical, Erik Skodvin (of Deaf Center) stalks the same concrete ground that informed early ritualists like Nurse With Wound or Current 93. Penpals was first released as a limited cassette by Digitalis in 2008 and has been expanded with three extra tracks. The two original pieces are slow moving, low-key dirges that stain the silence with distant microtones and menacing rumbles, like a thunderstorm carrying a small orchestra across the horizon. The three bonus tracks each allow the musical elements ― impacted bass notes, fuzzed guitar loops and sheet metal percussion ― space to rise to the surface, creating a closer cacophonous threat. Skodvin is ever careful to inhabit this pre-/post-realm, where the inference of turmoil, or its after-effect, allows unease to live, amoeba-like, indefinitely.