Supersilent - "9"

Here's what I'm imagining: There are three abandoned space stations in deep space--we're talking Alien-opening credits-deep space--and they're docking together in triad without a single soul aboard any of them. There are huge gears turning, lights and atmospheric equalizers blipping, chambers de-pressurizing, and air-locks hissing. The entire complex rotates ominously in the dark, silent vacuum of space, three interconnected parts locked in unison. Then, something goes wrong; something comes loose inside the metallic and airless structures. Or perhaps, some thing is loose within its dark corridors, wreaking havoc. The three entities slowly break apart in the entropy of a black, star-full facade, and drift slowly and forever into an endless abyss of nothing. Yep, that's what three Hammond organs will do to my brain.

I was curious as to how Supersilent would carry on sans drummer Jarle Vespestad--he was after all, the most sinister of metronomes in the electro-free jazz world--but I never imagined that the remaining three members would forgo their (super)natural instruments for a recording session exclusively comprised of Hammond organ explorations. There must be some other instrumentation on this album, I thought. No. Just Hammond organs. What I described above is what I pictured when I heard them for the first time on my headphones: space and planetary oblivion. It's not the best Supersilent album--not even close to the Rosetta-sounds of 8--but what 9 does is unfurl a mind-boggling new limb of this numerically-driven masterwork. No one knows how high the number of albums will reach, or even what they could possibly sound like, given the foreign amplitude of 9. The table in the sky is simply set up for the next excursion--should there be one--and it will certainly be out of this world.