Deathprod

Morals And Dogma

SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND. DL/LP Howling, unnerving and moving ambient landmark.

For a quarter of a century, Norwegian musician Helge Sten has created dark ambient music as Deathprod that’s as black as night, gloriously minimal, and frequently glacier-paced. Smalltown Supersound are making a remastered triptych of Sten’s work available on download and vinyl for the first time. Alongside Treetop Drive (1994) and Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha (1996), the best is 2004’s Morals And Dogma. It’s a showcase for Sten’s self-styled ‘Audio Virus’ – a nexus of primitive samplers, homemade electronics, tape echo and arcane gear, including Theremin. The latter is a key component of the funereal 18-minute elegy, Dead People’s Things, where a howling, distorted icy blast of doleful drone meets fluttering interference. Denser still is Cloudchamber, where Sten unleashes hypnotising synth billows and what sounds like distant artillery shelling into its primordial noise fog. They contribute to an album of uniquely unsettling beauty.