>> BJ Nilsen
bio: BJNilsen; Sound and Recording artist Born 1975. Lives in Stockholm. Has been active with experimental music since the early 90s with various constallations. Started off with Morthond 1990 and released 3cd´s and a cassette on Cold Meat Industry. For the past 9 years he has been releasing his works as Hazard and BJNilsen on the UK labels Ash International and Touch, making music and sound for documentary film, television and commercials. He is focused on the sound of nature and its effect on humans, field recordings and the perception of time and space as experienced through sound, often electronically treated. Participates in freq_out installation group, [www.freq-out.org] and sometimes in the Spire concerts www.spire.org.uk/ Selected audio works: 1998 - 2006 Hazard: Ash 4.5 North Ash 5.4/5.5 Wood c/w Bridge/Field Ash 6.5 Wind (In collaboration with Chris Watson) Tone 17 Land Compilation of selected live material 2001-2002 BJNilsen: TO:CDR5 BJNilsen/Hazard Live at Konzerthaus, Vienna 06_12_03 TO:65 Fade to White, BJNilsen Forthcoming 2006: New cd collaboration with Chris Watson (TOUCH) 'Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna' with Stilluppsteypa (Helen Scarsdale) Participates in Evil Madness 'Demon Jukebox' out on 12tonar www.myspace.com/evil666madness Compilations and Collaborations [Selection]: Ash 4.1 Antitrade - Peenemunde Ash 5.2 HISS - Pylons Touch T_ZERO_4 Old Lead Mine Touch T_ZERO_1 Touch Sampler 1 - Flood Gate Touch Tone 13 Light - Meteosat Touch.. Tone 20 SPIRE - Organ Works Past Present and Future as BJ Nilsen -Breathe Tone 21 SPIRE LIVE at St. Pierre Cathedral, Geneva as BJ Nilsen-Rue de Basses, EFA 12565-2 Jazzcity - The Vibrating Room Charrm 28 .. Still Fear Drop Compilation Fluide HMS 004 BJNilsen & Stilluppsteypa -Vikinga Brennivin various artists krev x dcd freq_out 2 CD freq_out 1 CD 2cd´s and Vinyl with Janitor together with Lina from Deutsch Nepal Chris Watson ¬ BJNilsen - Storm Boomkat (UK): It's always an event when a new Chris Watson disc comes into view from the distance. The lauded field recording expert has become widely regarded as the best in his field having recorded three solo discs for Touch since 1996 showing the breadth of his style. He doesn't do anything more than record locations and atmosphere, but if you thought field recording was merely birds tweeting and wind blowing prepare to be astounded, as Watson amplifies sounds you didn't even realise were there, contextualizing nature as experimental music perfectly. This time around Watson appears with his friend and fellow Touch recording artist BJ Nilsen and the story goes that Nilsen called up Watson to express his interest in a series of storms across the North Sea. Nilsen had been recording them and had been quite stunned by the results, and proposed a collaborative cd project with Watson to explore these natural rhythms and music created by storms at sea. And what a collaboration the two have managed, this disc despite its apparently simple means is as detailed and as absorbing as any collection of supposedly textured experimental music you could possibly find this year with waves of noise so detailed and so organic that when you think about it they could only really come from the organic world. The sound of rain gets lost in crashing waves and wind batters both into submission, rocks are avoided or smashed into purposefully and water rises and falls with unmatched aggression. This is a symphony of the skies, and simply must be heard to be believed whether it is Watson's shockingly detailed track recorded on the North East coast of England and Scotland, Nilsen's more stripped down recordings on two Swedish islands or their collaborative track - each takes us on an intense journey into the very nature of sound, and the sound of nature. Essential.... BJNilsen - Fade to white: Prefix (USA): Sound artist can be an unattractive description to those wary of music created more by concept than by emotion, suggesting sterile exercises in studio trickery that can only be admired from a distance. Its rare to discover experimental composers presented outside a daunting academic frame, and Swedish electronic artist BJ Nilsens Fade to White may seem better suited for multi-media installations than late-night headphone study. Its an album that requires some patience and an interest in the technological processes involved, but it also forms an expertly organized abstraction. Better known by his ambient alter-ego, Hazard, Nilsen has worked under the broad theme of a union between nature and technology. Some of his better-known tracks were built from sound recordings of local wind patterns first made for environmental study. The body of Fade to White is a series of slow altered drones, often arranged in wave formation: a persistent rise from slight hum to swaying, metallic cloud. Nilsens sources never reveal themselves, and dramatic shifts in his established pattern are rare, but the shrill Grappa Polar approaches the beginnings of melody, and the albums final peak, Nine Ways Till Sunday, forms an ominous plateau before collapsing into shuffled units of fuzz. Nilsens noise is not confrontational in the style of Japanese legend Merzbow, and he occasionally resembles a more abrasive version of ambient artists such as Tim Hecker, managing to create delicate structure from near atonality. Fade to White is far from an easy listen, but given time it can lead to an intense curiosity about Nilsens methods. He works in a field thats very difficult to approach, making the personal affectations of this album an even clearer sign of his technical mastery. [Patrick Coffee] BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa Drykjuvísur Óhljódanna 2006 Helen Scarsdale CD Track Listing: 1. Svefnlaus / Sömnlös 2. Elstöt / Rafstud 3. Undir Ahrifum / Sundurlaus 4. Supbröder / Drykkjufélagar 5. Undermaskin / Töfra Maskína 6. Skuggbild / Skuggamynd In Scandinavia, it's not uncommon to hear of someone's mother, grandfather, uncle, or plumber who drank him-or-herself to death at an early age; and the Swedish drone artist BJ Nilsen has felt the alcoholic pangs which may foreshadow his own demise. In recent years, Nilsen has turned to his Icelandic neighbors Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson (collectively known as Stilluppsteypa) in existential sympathy over the problems of their collective lust for alcohol. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna marks the second collaborative document of abject minimalism that these three have composed; and like its predecessor Vikinga Brennivin, this album is spiked with drunken thought. Any alcohol induced euphoria has been tempered by perturbing blackouts, moments of cruelty, and an all-consuming nihilism. Beyond their shared Scandinavian heritage, their expressionist urge for the frigid drone, and their penchant for drink, BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa intend this recording as an open ended experience, wandering through their sound without the burden of any exegetical text that may get in the way. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna resolves itself as a grim kaleidoscope, where the bleakness of the wintry Scandinavian landscape and the langour of a drunken escapade constantly mutate through the highly refined sensibility of dronescaping. Sonar pings announce the beginning of this album, with its echoes returning as an amorphous fog and locating little but a gloomy pall upon the event horizon. Clattering electronics scurry across the barren sounds like death-watch beetles upon the tundra; and creaking doors offer something much more foreboding than what Pierre Henry envisioned for musique concrete. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna adheres to the psychological dis-quiet through sound design that Alan Splet provided for Eraserhead or that Nurse With Wound achieved on Salt Marie Celeste. Yet for all of their tendencies for brooding and desolation, BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa retain a compulsion for a glacial beauty through their intoxicated visions of the sublime. BJ Nilsen has released numerous records for Touch and Ash International, both under his given name and as Hazard, often focusing the sound of nature, its effect on humans, and the perception of time & space as experienced through sound. He has also previously collaborated with Christian Fennesz and Chris Watson. Stilluppsteypa have unleashed well over a dozen releases in their tumultuous existence of electro-absurdism laced with subversion, blackhumour, and horror. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna is a limited edition pressing of 1000 copies.
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