Benny & the pots

New Year's Resolution department (2): hear more BJ Nilsen in 2010.

The awesome Pole of Inaccessibility (from The Short Night - mapsadaisical's top pick of 2007, in case you'd forgotten...) remains my, er, touchstone for his subtly intense music. Elsewhere in my very partial picture of his output The Rorschach Train, an unreleased track from the Fade to White sessions, is more ethereal/limpid & quite haunting, while Easter Parade from the same period & Meter Reading from the new The Invisible City deal in more urgent textures.

His older recordings as Hazard tilt towards somewhat more conventional electronica, but are still absolutely worth hearing - an LMYE edit of The Vibrating Room & the rich tone poem Tangled Mass (both from North) also feature below.

By the time of Wood (2000) he already sounds like himself - juggling found sounds & other textures into often gripping & always diverting performances. Cut Out Replay is austerely playful, while to these ears the warmer, more reduced Pylons points to the sublime stuff to come...



"Track notes: Gravity Station: subharchord, pitch-regulated viola, amplified chair dragged across floor, window shutters, grand piano, virtual Hammond organ, steel whistle coffeepot, acoustic and electric guitars, B&K Sine Random Generator Type 1024, birdsong through B&K Frequency Analyser Type 2107, Studer B67, various DSP

Phase and Amplitude: bumblebees, acoustic guitar, Studer B67, various DSP

Scientia: birdsong feed-backed and overdriven through B&K Type 2107, B&K Type 1024, subharchord, wing-flaps and bird eating, virtual Hammond organ, door slam, glockenspiel, Online Voice Decoder, Studer B67, various DSP

Virtual Resistance: subharchord, birds, acoustic and electric guitar feedback run through B&K Type 2107, cat climbing up door, airplane, virtual Hammond organ, broken Fishman Parametric EQ, bowed acoustic guitar, footsteps on snow, Studer B67, various DSP

Meter Reading: virtual Hammond organ, train, Studer B67 tape cut-ups, boat ramp, feedbacked Ferrograph Series 4, various DSP

Into Its Coloured Rays: wasps run through B&K Type 2107, piano, dead trees leaning against each other, crows, Studer B67, various DSP

Gradient: acoustic guitars, virtual Hammond organ, B&K Type 1024, Studer B67, various DSP

The Invisible City: amplified chair dragged across floor, feedbacked Ferrograph Series 4, rain, acoustic guitar feedback, tapeloops of found sounds, various DSP"



BJ Nilsen > Meter Reading (from The Invisible City, Touch) > The Rorschach Train (unreleased) > Easter Parade (unreleased)

Hazard > The Vibrating Room [edit] > Tangled Mass (both from North, Ash International) > Pylons > Cut Out Replay (both from Wood, Ash International)

More downloads here.

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.