It’s been almost two decades since Helge Sten, a.k.a. Deathprod, released his dark-ambient milestone Morals and Dogma, a triumph of post-apocalyptic atmosphere produced with the help of an array of samplers, theremins, and analog effects. While the influential Norwegian musician has released a number of EPs and compilations in the intervening years, Compositions is only his third full-length album of new material since 2004.
None of the album’s 17 tracks exceed the four-minute mark, each blurring the line between self-contained pieces and parts of a larger whole. The set opens with the ominous drone pulses of “Composition 1,” with the subtle whirrs and crackles of Sten’s equipment left intact between blaring walls of sound. That same undulating drone slowly mutates into an otherworldly howl across the album, the dynamic shifts almost imperceptible as one track segues into the next.
The interplay between these elements sets Compositions apart from both the relentlessly dark ambient stylings of Morals and Dogma and the sharp, metallic roars of 2019’s Occulting Disk. The album nestles somewhere in between those two work, infusing the feverish abstractions of the latter with the hypnotic mournfulness of the former. As the album unfolds, Sten begins elaborating on his minimalist approach, stacking layers of shimmering, pitch-shifted noise and ghostly static on top of the loud sonic blasts that fade in and out throughout.
Compositions is an intriguing experiment in contrast and contradiction, as it feels marked by both absence and presence, noise and silence. Even Sten’s decision to do away with the longer track lengths of his previous releases both draws attention to the songs as individual songs and, somewhat paradoxically, emphasizes Compositions as a cohesive work. Meanwhile, the album’s descriptive meta title and simple numerical track listing complement the harsh, brutalist soundscapes by invoking a joyless bureaucracy without resorting to the sometimes blunt literalism of the artist’s past work.
Sten also gives up on some of the emotional specificity that made most of his output under the Deathprod moniker so affecting. But even as he eschews evocative song titles and instrumentation, Compositions nonetheless makes for a haunting, gloomy, and often challenging experience. And when the repetitive throbs finally subside after 41 minutes, the silence left in their wake feels nothing short of monumental.
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