BJ Nilsen — The Short Night

To begin with The short nights mix of seashore dread filled  field recordings, slow moving drone craft, ambient uneasy & sorrowful yet tuneful electronics/vibes paints a tangible feeling of sinister rain soaked winters days on people-less piers. Or shadowy figure dragging something along the autumnal shoreline, or general seashore uneasy and melancholy.

The material  is at its most effective & captivating when Nilsen mixes field recordings with drone matter or ambience, thats done in such a way that it becomes mesmerizing with both sounds and drone seemingly complete and utterly part of one another. In some the more tuneful and field recording striped moments this rather brought to mind some of Ulvers more drawn out and eerier/ emotional cinematic works such as Lyckantropen soundtrack, or possible touches of Biosphere electro glinting ambience. 

The problems comes when track after track it seems to tread a similar structure and similar melodic traces/ patterns. The tracks more often than not  start off with the mix of field recording and drone, before become more musical and ambient with little variation on this cycle. It’s sad as their are some great sound mixtures going on here,  but ultimate as the album ticks by it frankly becomes wearing and worse of all  boring.

An album that starts off very promising and effective, but by it’s end becomes rather bland and will have you reaching for the off button. It’s just a pity Nilsen couldn’t have concentrated more on the eerier and effective ambient vs. field recording & less on the clichéd melodic ambient textures.