Deaf Center

Deaf Center is the Norwegian duo consisting of Erik K. Skodvin and Otto A. Totland, two multi-instrumentalists and old friends sharing the same passion for rich, multilayered and emotional ambient soundscapes expressed in lush chamber undertones, hypnotic dynamics and cinematic pace. Their expansive compositions, most of which were released on Type Records, occupy a vivid terrain, where monumental sonic landscapes meet intimate piano drops, where joyful bliss goes together with anxious longing and neon cities shed their lights on unexplored woodlands or the mazes of unknown rain-soaked urban areas.

The duo’s sound connects external landscapes and inner experience through a strong visual presence, evoking powerful imagery and at the same time relating to one’s inner emotions, providing the soundtrack to the twists of our internal narratives and retrospective explorations. Thus the invoked feelings might range from haunted reminiscences to daydream contemplations or nighttime wanderings.

Erik (whose own mix for the journal can be heard here) and Otto further explored their creative impulses with their side projects. Erik sculpted haunted dark ambient atmospherics with horror undertones under his Svarte Greiner moniker and explored acoustic music in the B/B/S project together with Aidan Baker and Andrea Belfi. He also founded the celebrated Miasmah label. Otto collaborated with Huw Roberts under the name Nest and released the subtly refined “Retold” album, which crystallised that lush haziness into a quietly contemplative work. Erik’s and Otto’s individual creative excursions provided a better insight into Deaf Center’s musical sources, emphasising the two poles of its sonic core.

2014 was a prolific year for the project and both its members. The melancholic “Recount” 12″ together with Erik’s and Otto’s respective critically acclaimed solo albums “Flame” and “Pino” were released on the Sonic Pieces label. All this was accompanied by their tour in Japan. The finishing touch of the year was the opening performance for Slowdive in London. This was a great pairing as both bands have contrasting approaches but similar sensitivities to the luminescence and shades of the emotional core.

The first recordings

“Neon City” places the earliest archive recordings beside the duo’s first published work. “Pale Ravine” offers a more direct connection: the artists identify “Place” as an alternative cut of “Stone Beacon”.

This collection opens Deaf Center’s archive of unreleased material recorded between 2003 and 2010. Its twelve compositions feel closer to an album than a conventional mix, offering alternate paths, digressions and alleyways through Deaf Center’s released material. This piece of work marks the 10th anniversary of the project and serves as an introspective statement on the duo’s diverse, yet consistent musical path. According to the band, this is very personal material, which also includes unfinished and different versions of the tracks. It is a strange and at the same time enchanting trip behind the scenes of the band’s history serving as a reminder of the past and at the same time the proof of the timeless nature and underlying textural core of Deaf Center’s music.

The selection starts with a monumental hazy waltz-like hypnosis called “Social Lucy Waltz”. It is an uncompromising exercise in sheer and haunting gracefulness and is definitely one of the most beautiful moments of the duo acting as a perfect opening statement. These echoing loops then smoothly fade into “Lob Throb”, whose introspective yet homely acoustics recall the moments that made “Neon City” so thrilling and captivating. The mix draws its own map and travels across the soundscapes filled with lakes of monolithic drones, baroque elegance and proudly ends with quietly moving orchestral washes of “All”, recorded in 2010.

From the sessions

The closing “All” comes from the “Owl Splinters” sessions. “Recount”, released in 2014, provides a contemporary companion to this opening of the duo’s private archive.

The collection recalls the abstract lyricism of Rene Duvillier’s painting “Les 3 Mondes”. Both these pieces share the subconscious depth and the qualities of a strangely unfamiliar world of light and shadows, which requires patience and close observation to fully perceive its staggering beauty and majesty. Rene merged the motifs of early abstract art (e.g. Wassily Kandinsky) with his own personal sensibilities to reveal the beauty of the lost pre-WWII Paris in a subtle and forward-thinking way. Deaf Center also uses similar building blocks to create abstract pieces for delving into our own emotional selves by adapting the language of modern classical music.

The collection closes an intense 2014 with a year-end statement and an impulse towards new beginnings. It is an open invitation to embrace the past and to look forward towards the unclear, yet inviting future.

Deaf Center on the recordings

All tracks are previously unreleased and (c) Deaf Center 2003 – 2010 mixed by Erik K Skodvin

Dust – from 2006-2008 live shows.
DC gets home – Walking around Otto´s house with a recorder while playing off a loop. Anno 2003.
Place – Alternative cut, Stone Beacon from Pale Ravine.
Cello – Unfinished track based around a cello samplepack.
Paris – We didn’t go – or rather – we never went.
All – Intro/outro based on later live shows. Taken from the Owl Splinters recordings