Mark Dicker follows up recent cassette releases on Tesla Tapes and Hominid Sounds with Flyalarm, 42 minutes of heavy tackle in which dense layers of modular synthesis coalesce with field recordings of a Norwegian winter. In this thick rhizome of tone, Dicker’s heavy electronics commingle with chance encounters from the field to produce throbbing drones modulated by the murmurs of a primeval forest.
Oscillators grind and disperse through the valley bedrock, filtered by the ancient trees, creaking and groaning amongst themselves. Abyssal sounds — like drift ice traversing the frozen river — dredge up from the depths relics belonging to histories both recent and remote. An eerie klaxon resounds periodically across the valley; monolithic, weathered outcroppings cast strange shapes in the half light, enveloping the dark ambience. A wood burning iron stove crackles and spits underneath a great canopy of tone that filters skywards in notched, resonant peaks.
Recorded above a church in Oslo, January 2021, Flyalam is performed on modular synthesiser, in conversation with recordings from various locations in the Hallingdal Valley. The cassette edition of the recordings is pro-duped on a wood green tape, with a photographic impression of the forest’s image printed on semi-transparent j-card.
Stay frosty.
