Øjerum - Needleshaped Silence (2017)

Needleshaped Silence has been lying dormant for more than a decade, while mercilessly mauled by passing years and older technology, it is still a dearly beloved sound, and one that’s still sought after. Digital, pristine mp3’s aren’t always desirous or heaven-sent. Their dazzling, polished notes can appear to be a little too clean, its bright make-up masking a nude authenticity, bringing a plasticity and an artificiality to something natural, something the music was born with.

Mistakes are quickly erased in a world that wishes to erase flaws, but imperfections can be perfect things, too, and that’s true of Needleshaped Silence, a collection of muted tracks from øjeRum wherein the past reassembles itself to permeate the present. Accidental sounds become firm roots that can’t be displaced, and its solid foundations become defined things which, thanks to the slightly worn, decade-dulled layers around them, don’t sound like accidents at all. It isn’t always quiet in a dynamic sense: quiet music can be quietly-toned and not necessarily quiet in its overall volume, and it also dismisses the stale, carbon-copy approach of the recording process.