Svartsinn – The Borrowed World

Svartsinn & Northaunt along with Atrium Carceri were some of the first dark ambient artists I stumbled across when finding this magnificent "sub-genre" of dark yet gorgeous soundscapes. The Borrowed World is one of my favorite releases from Svartsinn or Northaunt with both tracks coming in at around 20 min each it is a mini-album for each artist.

The Soundscapes presented here are nothing short of magnificent. The setting is a deeply disturbed post-apocalyptic world, with the few survivors left preying upon one another just to see the next day. The brilliant story by Cormac McCarthy has been realized here aurally in a masterful way. The listener is sucked into the despair of the protagonists of the story and we feel their world as if it is our own.

Northaunt produces a devastatingly apocalyptic soundscape tearing at the soul of the listener while simultaneously leaving you begging for more. Svartsinn brings on the talents of Amund Ulvestad on cello for the beautifully dark and melancholic "Ashes Of The Late World". Both tracks leave me in a state of dark bliss envisioning this desolate landscape mankind is so desperately striving toward.

The Vinyl + CD Limited Edition comes packaged beautifully. I also had the pleasure of meeting all three of these brilliant artists at the APEX Fest in the summer '15 where they all signed my Vinyl package! Thanks guys for the wonderful album and the autographs!

Long, has been the wait for a new release by Harleif Langas, but finally after more than 7 years, he teams up with another Norvegian dark ambient act Svartsinn and the duo delivers an album of unfathomable vastness and unrestrained beauty.

Inspired by the novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men) this is the soundtrack to a post-apocayptic world, a derelict wasteland with all it's grim realities, yet at the same time a home for a father and a son, who, against all hope and reason, in a somewhat Darwinian manner, desperately try not only to survive but also not to make beasts of themselves and get rid of the pain and constraints of being a man, to paraphase the good Dr. Johnson.

Arduously crafted, imposing movements of frigid ambience hoover to and fro in the emtpiness, melancholic, desperate, abandoned, with precisely timed sounds of the surrounding environment, instantly paint an unbelievably palpable atmosphere, that with each ing second slowely sucks you in, finally becoming your world, your cruel reality.
Both structures seem to share and employ a familiar set of tools and arrangements, but each is crafted in it's own unique manner and signature character, with Northaunt's take creating an emotional journey that slowly builds up to it's apocalyptic and chilling climax only to loosen it's grip and ease your mind back, while Svartsinn's interpretation at first might seem a bit lighter and less inconsolable, yet those eerie sounds of chelo and a couple of quotes from the movie "Road", especially the gut-wrenching moans and laments of a child over his father's dead body, bring to light feelings of unconsolable despair, loneliness and sorrow.
Yet notwithstanding all this misery and dredd, somewhere in the darnkess and uncertainty, there still lingers a flicker of hope and faith, that unyelding aspect of the human psyche that gives us strenght when all is but lost and allows us to make the next step.

Aside from the amazing music a word has to be said about the way it's been released, which is nothing short of brilliant. Black, heavyweight wax in a solid cardboard sleeve is packed in a gorgeous gatefold, with a fold-in on one side and two photos with accompanying excerpts from the book on the other. In addition, a CD version in a cardboard cover is thrown in for a good measure and to top it all off a haunting cover photo, made by none other than Simon Heath (Atrium Carceri).

In short, the whole release can only be descibed in one way, absolute masterclass.