Photo by Rasmus G. Sejersen
Copenhagen’s LLNN will unleash their third full-length, Unmaker, via Pelagic Records on September 24th. A stupefyingly unforgiving affair, Unmaker is at once abrasive and vile, at times effervescent and escharotic, and finally absolutely smothering, suffocating, terminal.
LLNN burst onto the scene with 2016’s critically acclaimed debut album Loss, a sheer display of “absolute raging rawness,” as Terrorizer put it. But there is much more to the band’s sound. Noted the Sludgelord accurately, “the wavering drone synths that are effortlessly merged with a raw hardcore-driven darkness define the subtle idiosyncratic nuances of LLNN‘s very unsubtle, painfully overwhelming sound.”
Following European tours with Bison, performances at esteemed festivals like Roskilde, Roadburn, and Arctangent and a split EP with Wovoka, LLNN returned with sophomore album Deads in 2018, an album that felt more compact, yet more complex and simultaneously organic. The band further explored the coalescence of the guitar and bass – axis with keys player Ketil G. Sejersen’s synth layers, a direction that is now further pursued on Unmaker. In fact, LLNN‘s contemporary heaviness is not just “dense, suffocating tracks that build and crash,” or, “buried vocals coming from under thick guitars and pounding drums (Decibel).” It’s also the very dominant synths that evoke the feel and vibe of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi movies, inspired by composers like Brad Fiedel, Vangalis, John Carpenter, and Stanley Kubrick as much as by sci-fi/horror games like Silent Hill, Dead Space, Halo, and Limbo.
“As huge fans of classic sci-fi scores and video games, we’re fascinated by how cinematic sound design can evoke certain emotions and let our imagination unfold into abstract storytelling,” notes Sejersen. A recently released short film gives insight into the creation process and sound design on the new record, showcasing the process from the original sound recording to the final result, a production that took place at a blacksmith using various industrial machines. “A big part of the sound design in LLNN is initially created by field recordings, and afterwards by modulating the raw audio files in post-production,” he continues. A circular metal saw was recorded and modulated – and by layering these sounds over other estranged and heavily treated recordings of industrial tools, LLNN creates their sometimes eery, sometimes harsh but always thematically coherent synth-soundscapes.
These sounds – essentially manipulations of the real world – orchestrate and exemplify the album’s central theme: Unmaker is a tale about how technology, in combination with certain power structures, is transforming humanity, essentially affecting human values, and becoming an end in itself. A tale about how progress becomes regress, depending on the angle of the observer and the standards of appraisal.
In advance of the release of Unmaker, today the band unveils first single, “Interloper.” Vocalist/guitarist Christian Bonnesen comments, “It’s a song about feeling worthless. Forever doomed to sit with the kids at the dinner table, fed with scraps from banquets of kings.”
Stream the track via YouTube at THIS LOCATION and all streaming services HERE.
Unmaker was produced by Jacob Bredahl at Dead Rat Studio and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege with sound design production by the Sejersen brothers at Gravitated Sound Studio.. Unmaker will be released on CD, digitally and on vinyl in five different color variants. All variants come with a second LP featuring only the synth sounds, titled Sonic Fragments from Unmaker. These fragments on their own — exposed and without the rest of the band — constitute an unrhythmical, parallel universe to the album, and allow an interesting peak into the band’s dark cosmos.
Find preorders at THIS LOCATION.
Fans of Cult Of Luna, Celeste, Godflesh, The Body, Amenra, Love Sex Machine, Cryptopsy, Year Of No Light, Neurosis, or the soundtracks from Alien, Blade Runner, Arrival, or Hereditary, pay heed.
Unmaker Track Listing:
- Imperial
- Desecrator
- Obsidian
- Vakuum
- Scion
- Interloper
- Division
- Forger
- Tethers
- Resurrection
Since their very inception, LLNN have triggered the interest of movie soundtrack composers like the award-winning sound designer Peter Albrechtsen, known for his work on movies like Dunkirk, Antichrist, and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. ” As a sound designer for movies, I love when music feels like a sonic adventure,” says Albrechtsen. “I’m obsessed with music that explores what sound can do to our body, to our mind, to our imagination. LLNN‘s new album is one of the most overwhelmingly intense records I’ve heard in quite a while and the way it blends abstract ambient sounds, shattering rhythms, and extreme noise is both hypnotic and powerful. The sense of sonic detail is staggering and for each spin, I hear new elements, echoes, textures, and my mind gets new visual associations. Sometimes it feels like the soundtracks of Apocalypse Now and Eraserhead has been melted together and blasted through a ferocious guitar amp – these songs have both a sense of impending doom and an extraordinary combination of raw energy and gritty beauty.”
LLNN:
Christian Bonnesen – guitar, vocals
Rasmus G. Sejersen – drums
Ketil G. Sejersen – synths
Rasmus Furbo – bass
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