BJ Nilsen

In optical light, white is deemed to be the unbroken source of all other colours. Logically, if one were capable of recombining the split spectrum they’d arrive at white once again. BJ Nilsen never quite reaches white, but his colour combinations yield startling results nonetheless. Superficially chaotic, each piece is made up of measured and ordered layers of sound that repeat and interlock yet remain audibly stratified. "Purple Phase” is a slow-building opener with the approximate sound of navigating a long tunnel to find an orchestra tuning up at the other end. An aspect of decay runs through the centre of the recording, with key sounds being either swollen, saturated or erased and drawn over. The "real” instruments sounds — strings, horns and the insides of pianos mostly — are often furtive as though pushed to the corners of a room to make way for electronics. The closing piece, "Nine Ways Till Sunday,” carries this overtone of rising noise swallowing the organic sound until it collapses, leaving behind strangely synthesised noises of insects working through the wreckage.