Nic Krog + Bride + Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø + Black Morava - Sonitus #98

Sonitus presents three musicians from the cosmopolitan Berlin scene: trombonist and sound artist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø, pastoral noise of Bride and Nic Krog’s intimate/skeletal electronics, joined by Mojmír Měchura’s ambient outlet Black Morava.

Nic Krog’s work dramatises a tension between intimacy and detachment. Electronic tropes are complemented by lyrics that draw both from their childhood in the Danish countryside and life on Berlin’s club and queer scenes. The confessional tendencies contrast with apathetic, post-punk-like vocals and emaciated, almost industrial-sounding mutations of bass music. But whether it’s the recent “audio play” on Psychic Liberation, or the debut on Opal Tapes, this is a coldness that always draws you in.

Norwegian trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø is an experienced improviser (see the duo Beam Splitter with Audrey Chen) who combines virtuosic play with a focus on spatial acoustics, utilising amplification and electronics. On the recent live recording Solo Norwich, the trombone’s bass pulses and feedback make a former factory seem busy again, up to the brink of an earthquake; the upcoming release Faint Light Blackens provides a lyrical counterpart out of the resonances of Oslo’s Vigeland Mausoleum. Moments of surprise are just as crucial as sheer intensity.

Esme Rebora’s project Bride takes drone and noise as its primary modes of operation, with forays into power ambient stripped of its bombast and death industrial that dares make use of colour. In Bride’s slowly roiling soundscapes, harshness cannot be separated from beauty. Loops and pulses get crushed into pulp or, conversely/simultaneously, rise to angelic heights in (quasi-)organ or orchestral melodies with a touch of British post-industrial psychedelia.

Black Morava is the ambient alter ego of Mojmír Měchura aka Trauma of the Wrong collective, staging an encounter between rural tradition and something more unsettling – a twisted take on the world of folk costumes, vineyards, and quaint churches. Last year’s Tři oříšky (Traumatized) gives a good idea of the process: a dissolution of an idyl into ghostly loops.

Line-up: Bride, Nic Krog, Trauma (CZ)