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Ronnie Sundin — Seven Year Silence (Fangbomb)

By Paul Baran ⋅ August 7, 2009 ⋅

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Based in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo, trained artist and DIY noisenik, Ronnie Sundin, was given the sobriquet of “Sweden’s most silent man” on the basis of his two previous releases – Morphei on the label Hapna in 2002, and later Hägring on the experimental noise label, Antifrost. In each of these releases, Sundin was keen to invoke bleak, minimal sound-scapes by exploiting the quietest of low subsonic frequencies.

But this approach takes a back seat on his new release for Fangbomb, Seven Year Silence. And there is nothing silent about it. Presented in a cover of fractured mountains and gloomy skulls, nothing can really prepare you for the maelstrom contained within; jettisoning the delicate field recordings of the previous work for a sound that is ear shreddingly immediate and brutal.

One can only assume that his frequent collaborations with Norwegian noise extremist, Lasse Marhaug, have had some baring on this feedback outpouring of Mr. Sundin’s inner ID on this latest cd, with his mixer providing enough variations of serrated feedback to cauterize the craniums of even the most jaded of listeners.

Beginning with an an ominous digital growl from the mixing desk: Part 1 of the two-track set is perhaps the most texturally interesting and subtle; churlish snowballs of pink and white noise begin to fizz in the listener’s ears, before layering into a wall of dense sensory overload and interference jamming that resembles the sound of Todd Dockstader turning dials, whilst suffering an anxiety attack.

After 10 minutes, the listener is offered a temporary respite, but the sinister atmosphere doesn’t let up, with processed brass and radiophonic workshop bleeps and whistles; barely, keeping the lid on a horrorshow sine drone that indeed threatens to resume its shredding sonorities by the piece’s end.

Part 2 repeats the same trick, but is even more explicitly assaultive, as frequencies jostle and ping pong their way out of your speakers. Indeed, near the end, I could discern a growl of some unspecified creature – whether it was a recording of Cerberus the three headed dog, or the ‘composer’ imitating this mythical creature could be anyone’s guess, in a recording that has no purpose other than to outdo Russell Haswell in warping peoples olfactory prejudices.

But with this release, Ronnie Sundin has successfully re-invented himself with from “Sweden’s most silent man” to one of the loudest motherf…ers of the fjords.

~Paul Baran