There are the two Eps released by Ulver after their superb album Perdition City. And here the wolves
really have gone out on a limb. Within these two disks is the most experimental music Ulver have ever produced.
The first of these Eps is the oddly titled Silence Teaches you How to sing. The disk is made up of one
25 minute track. The music consists of drones, ambience, strange FX samples and incidental sounds and a style that has been called glitch.
The small seemingly unimportant pieces of noise are looped, mulched and sampled and layered to create strange and wonderfull tapestries of sound.
There is little or no vocals on this disk, the closes we get are a few aaaahhhhhhs and strange humming from Garm.
There is the occasional use of keyboards and some pretty piano parts but most of the time it’s a mass of abstract sounds and textures.
The most obvious comparisons would be with Coil and maybe nurse with wound. But Ulver style is quite distinct and they perform this style of electronic music well.
The Cd comes in a white Case with a white sleeve and some interesting blurred pictures of buildings, carrying on the themes from Perdition City.
The second of the Eps also works around the field of glitch electronics but here the songs (there are three of them, four if you count the music between tracks 2-3) are more focused and contain more melody.
The lovely piano parts that dotted the first EP are used more often on this one with the first track Darling didn’t we kill you(?) containing a repeating melody around which swirls the static and samples.
Out of the fuzz eventually morphs a slow percussive loop. The second track Speak dead Speaker takes advantage of a string quartet to provide some superb atmosphere.
This track really is great conjuring up images of dark night and silent abandoned streets.
Again the glitch noises swirl and are coupled with the piano, strings and some great synth sounds to form the highlight of the two Eps.
There is a section of music between tracks 2-3 consisting of some strange string meanderings before the tolling bell loop of the third track proper kicks in.
This final track is the most abstract of the two Eps.
The tolling bell is accompanied by a soft keyboard melody and some distant piano noodling. The surrounding textures provide a wonderful feeling of warmth, maybe signalling a dawn in a sleepy town.
I recommend both of these Eps to fans of experimental electronics, the second on is the best but both are deep dark adventures into sound and another string to Ulver bow.
