Deaf Center

The shadowy project Deaf Center, comprising Norwegian multi-instrumentalists <a href="spotify:artist:4JkwbNEFcxRW8jWKIlkiBb">Erik K. Skodvin</a> (aka <a href="spotify:artist:37lOOt5pumxC6rAUAI8cIL">Svarte Greiner</a>) and Otto A. Totland, operated at the axis of ambient electronica, contemporary classical, and drone music. Old schoolfriends who each had a long history of music-making, they finally decided to collaborate while holidaying together in a log cabin. Their early releases were based around numerous field recordings, which they incorporated into lush cinematic soundscapes created primarily with organic instrumentation, layered across a gentle tapestry of occasional, subtle electronic rhythms and effects. Their debut EP Neon City, released in 2004, was the very first CD release on the then-nascent <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Type%22">Type</a> imprint run by John Twells (aka <a href="spotify:artist:1DpTCZ0h0a2IDmLiKJtDN5">Xela</a>) and Stefan Lewandowski. The label, which would go on to become a major force in experimental music, released their album Pale Ravine the following year. These two releases were widely acclaimed, and the duo were hailed as part of the then-fashionable, so-called "post-classical" field, essentially composed of classically trained musicians who combined traditional compositional techniques with electronica and single-track,"pop song"-like works rather than longer, multiple-movement pieces.

During the next few years, <a href="spotify:artist:4JkwbNEFcxRW8jWKIlkiBb">Skodvin</a> went on to found the equally prestigious <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Miasmah%22">Miasmah</a> label, which specialized in dark ambient and drone music, and released several albums of "acoustic doom", both as <a href="spotify:artist:37lOOt5pumxC6rAUAI8cIL">Svarte Greiner</a> and under his own name, through various labels including <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Type%22">Type</a> and the cult <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Digitalis%22">Digitalis</a> imprint; and Totland recorded an album, Retold, as half of <a href="spotify:artist:70iljHECVgbw1r4oRlzGvU">Nest</a>, his duo with Huw Roberts. While <a href="spotify:artist:4JkwbNEFcxRW8jWKIlkiBb">Skodvin</a>'s solo work had a crepuscular and unsettling tone, the <a href="spotify:artist:70iljHECVgbw1r4oRlzGvU">Nest</a> material had more in common with the smooth, cinematic lushness of the Deaf Center releases.

The duo finally reunited a full six years later to record their second album. In the intervening years, the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Type%22">Type</a> roster had evolved away from electronica toward drone, dark ambient, and noise acts, and concomitantly, Deaf Center's music also changed. The sophomore album, 2011's Owl Splinters, was a subtler and sparser affair which had more in common with <a href="spotify:artist:4JkwbNEFcxRW8jWKIlkiBb">Skodvin</a>'s solo material. Recorded at pianist <a href="spotify:artist:5gqhueRUZEa7VDnQt4HODp">Nils Frahm</a>'s Durton studio in Berlin, it forwent the electronic elements of previous releases for an altogether darker and more sinister tone, with haunting piano melodies buried in a morass of rumbling bass notes and cello-string drones. ~ John D. Buchanan, Rovi