Svartsinn – Of darkness and re-creation

If you want to hasten the coming of winter, put the new cd by Svartsinn in your stereo. Today I found it chilly inside my house and I considered for the first day after the summer to turn the heat on. But that may also have something to do with listening to “Of darkness and re-creation”… This is the second cd of the Norwegian dark ambient act Svartinn. Released by Cyclic Law, housed in a sober black & white digipack, which not completely lives up the usual design standards of the Candian label. A nice bonus is the very bleak and misty video of the monumental track ‘Draped in Shadows’ from Svartsinn’s debut album.

The music of Svartsinn is mostly a solitary, introspective experience. Listening to ‘As a black stone momunent’ or ‘Entrance to emptiness’ takes you to solitary plains or endless corridors, where you wander through mist and darkness, with no chance of cathing a glimpse of light. The soundscapes that Svartsinn creates are minimal, but atmospheric. Just thick stretched layers of sound, moody textures with dark and low rumblings. At times it gets really chilly, like the howling of the wind (or are it wolves?) in ‘Tremors within the void’. Pure cold and sombre ambient to take dark wandering spirits into the abyss.

artist: Svartsinn
label: Cyclic Law
details: 8 tracks. 5th cycle (2003)