Since I purchased it at the most enjoyable Touch 25 evening the other week, the only times this new CD from Sweden’s BJ Nilsen has left my CD player are when the machine has gone en derangement, and I’ve been forced to eject it to shout obscenities at its dumb, tongue-lolling, metal face.  If the machine was any more reliable, I’d be tempted to solder it shut with this inside and listen to it on repeat forever, or at least until they introduce the by now seemingly-inevitable eco-tax on stupid shiny dial-faced boxes, and then I’m flinging the thing out of the window and into a bush and scarpering into the night.

The Short Night is one of the most evocative things I’ve heard all year.  By weaving a selection of field recordings taken from Sweden, Berkshire, Italy and Iceland into its sonic tapestries, the album is firmly rooted in the dark outdoors.  When I hear the dogs barking at wind and the birds chirping at waves, the sense of anticipation begins to echo that I felt in his Storm collaboration with Chris Watson, and I’m already reaching for my duffel coat, but it is Nilsen’s digital processing (and in particular his use of old tape machines a la Basinski’s Disintegration Loops) which packs my bag and sends me on an emotional voyage.  The album builds in intensity, from the distressed icy tones of “Finisterre” and “Pole of Inaccessibility” through the howling squall of the outstanding “Black Light” and the finale “Viking North”.  By the end I feel disorientated, drenched, exhausted, like I’ve been at sea amongst black storms with only the disembodied voice of the radio for company, a voice that tells me in a what I already know: the forecast for shipping isn’t good.  Unsurprisingly, I’d be flinging that box out too.

The Short Night is an achievement of absurdly high quality, and I’m thinking of making it a set text for all readers.  Purchase it from the Touch Shop.

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