German born sound & concrete electronic artist Marc Behrens offers up here a collection of surreal, strange & at times jarring & noisy tracks built around manipulated field recordings, computer composition & subtle electronic elements that at times brings to mind Nurse With Wounds more field recording based & unhinged work.
All the basic field recordings that make up ‘Sleppet’ where recorded in various locations across Norway & mostly in isolated & people-less places which gives the whole album quite a remote, isolated & at times ‘panicked I’m lost in the middle of nowhere feel’. Only the last track ‘Sheep & Industry’ really brings in more man-made sounds & textures to the mix.
First up we have ‘Seagulls & cattle’ which finds Behrens at his most unhinged, jarring & strange. The track starts out with just layers of mournful seagull calls, but with-in half a minute theses smashed into by this jarring, noisy & shrieking tone that sounds like a pterodactyl swooping down to get you; but I presume this is the seagull cries feed through electronics & computers. On top of this shirking mayhem, which seems to be coming in from all angles, is the normal seagull tones carry on along with a very strong & ripping wind tone which I guess could suggest your in the claws of the pterodactyl & are been flown off to it’s nest. There’s also this creaking & bowing electro tone which at times gets quite jarring. Mid-way through the track turns it’s intent more towards a nightmarish slaughter house type vibe as Behrens adds in what could be pig grunts, then brooding junk metal movement over sour & unwell electro tone swoops & falls. All told a very effective & nightmarish slice of sound scaping.
Later on with ‘Glaceier’ Behrens takes field recordings from Brenndalsbreen Glacier on the island of Utvær and makes them into a very nervous, jumpy & at times soothing track. He mixes: creaking & breaking ice, water drips & sudden avalanches of broken off ice weight falling into water. And lastly we have ‘Sheep and industry’ which is certainly the noisiest & most jarring of the four tracks here & it finds Behrens building a shifting & jarring soundscape from: grinding metal to metal groans, sears & bellows, ominous wind creaking tones, stretched barring tones which might once have been sheep noises and a healthy dose of stretching & twisting electro buzzing, bending & sicklily droning electronics.
‘Sleppet’ certainly isn’t a laid back or subtle field recording based album you could put on as moody background setting- it shouts & bash you around the head for your full attention & concentration. It shows Behrens as a master of edgy, jarring & unhinged sonic juxtaposition, but also as a very effective alien mood setter & at times a creative noise maker too. 4/5 Roger Batty
via Musique Machine