Music Is Dying Now: Deathprod Box

After over a year of countless emails from collectors begging for copies, the ever-wonderful Rune Grammofon has finally relented and re-issued one of the most amazing box-sets we've ever stocked.

Hard to over-emphasise just how completely essential this incredible box set is - a 4cd compilation comprising "Morals and Dogma", "Treetop Drive" (long deleted album from 1994), "Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha" (long deleted album from 1996) and "Reference Frequencies" (previously unreleased, rare and deleted tracks) that comes in a divine solid black box with an informative 32 page booklet with detailed information on each release.

Each album is packaged in its own beautifully designed digipack. Helge Sten has been recording under the Deathprod moniker for over a decade and, alongside Geir Jenssen's Biosphere project, has been responsible for some of the most dense and absorbing soundscaping created in recent times.

Listening to his music (or indeed sitting through these 4 remarkable cd's) is like entering an alternate universe - chillingly isolated and on fire at one and the same time - free of any obvious associations but compellingly evocative - re-defining the notion of cinematic music into something almost tangible in three dimensions

Take, for instance, the heart-stopping 15 minute epic "Treetop Drive 1", recorded a staggering 11 years ago and sounding unlike anything else I've ever heard - epic cinematic strings and electronic manipulations that ebb and flow like the ocean, like the slowness of breath as you slip into unconsciousness. I'd have paid the price of admission for this track alone. "Cloudchamber", meanwhile, sounds like the end of the world - a dense mass of quiet destruction and beautifully hushed decay that words can hardly do justice to.

An incredible object of desire that's had me completely absorbed for several days now - this collection is a must for anyone interested in the kind of music made for the early hours, just before the world comes to life. A huge recommendation.

***

Housed in a matte black box devoid any significant markings and packaged in digipacks of nearly the same quality, the Deathprod boxset looms like a mini-monolith from the movie "2001". One could even view it as a sort of visual representation of Sten's famous "audio virus," a black box (hole) that swallows pure sound and releases it somewhere, anywhere in a completely altered form.

Out of the 4CDs in the set, I'd have to say that my favorites are easily "Treetop Drive" and "Morals And Dogma," but there are so many great moments located within the set that it's hard to pick them all out.

As mentioned above, this is deep, dark listening, and even though this is what many would consider minimal music, there's by no means a shortage of things going on within.

This will be on my year-end list.

***

This 4CD box set is cloaked in blackness, so the design team of Kim Hiorthøy and Deathprod himself didn't exactly have to perform much in the way of graphic tinkering. The Norwegian producer and sonic manipulator's music could be viewed as similarly simplistic, at least on the superficial surface. But upon repeated hearings, the ears start to dwell on the rich layers of his source material manipulations.

Listeners think of Helge Sten (for that is the name Deathprod was born with) as an electronic musician, and he certainly seems more inclined this way when performing with the Supersilent quartet. Sten's own work tends to grow from markedly acoustic matter, transformed via a detailed process of microscopic analysis.

Deathprod records at his Audio Virus Lab, in Oslo. His equipment is often home-made, and his cheap samplers are cobbled together with vintage tape echo machines and ring modulators, allowing him a hands-on relationship with his sonic material.

Three of these four albums have already been made available between 1991 and 2000, although they're very scarce on the racks nowadays. The fourth (Morals And Dogma) contains material spanning the years 1996-2000, and will receive a separate release in January 2005.

The four Reference Frequencies pieces were recorded live onto cassette, sounding like a more rugged extension of Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting work. Repeated honks suggest a dank port, with breathy echoes bouncing down a fluted tunnel of sound. "Treetop Drive" makes an orchestrated swelling, with Sten joined by violinist Hans Magnus Ryan. Deathprod homes in on the scraping minutiae, matching it with his swollen mass. Development is very gradual...

Ole Henrik Moe is Deathprod's other violin foil, and on Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha, he's captured on wax cylinder, then re-converted to digital, like an ancient found recording, boxed-in and warbling. Morals And Dogma strips back to sheer minimalism once more, layering drones that grow out of violin and harmonium, invoking the acknowledged influence of Popol Vuh, Werner Herzog's chief soundtrackers. The gathering thunder is very subtle, rumbling with low choral mimicry.

For those who have only heard Deathprod within the cataclysmic setting of Supersilent, this box offers the chance to sink into a slower stratum, savouring spaced-out events and marvelling at almost imperceptible shifts.

More reviews can be found here.

This collection can be purchased online through the record label Rune Grammofon or through the following distributors:

Norway: Musikkoperatørene
Italy: Wide
Germany: Cargo
France: Differ-ant
Poland: Multikulti
UK and rest of Europe: Cargo
USA and Canada: Forced Exposure
Taiwan: Node
Australia: Fuse
Japan: Bomba Records