nernes/skagen

The magnet poles in Kjetil Nernes’s guitar stack milled to the humidity in the air and toppled of waves of guitar

noise to Stian Skagen’s electronic altar.The two young men, who would become the foremost communicators of

downward-spiraled sound storms kept their first concert together in 2006.

With a trailer filled to the brink with speakers and cabinets, they rumble through a sweaty underground tour

on the U.S. east coast summer 2008. The overwhelming response from the sound hungry Americans confirmed

that the tunnel NERNES / SKAGEN was digging had something concealed within it, as it became dangerously

deeper and darker.

Back in Oslo they began the constructions of what would constitute the framework for their debut album Ad

Undas. Against a wall of microphones, amps, and cabinets, they bolted their airy vibration and drone sludge to

four structures. These four structures became their Ad Undas Album.

NERNES / SKAGEN is a hybrid duo that melts together some of the extremities on the music and soundart

scene in Norway. Nernes has his background from noise rock, where his band Årabrot has frightened and inspired

the established music scene. Artists such as Glenn Branca, Tony Conrad and Dylan Carson’s Earth are the

most important inspirations for the sound and structures he conjures in the meeting with Skagen.

Skagen comes from Oslo soundart scene, he pushes forward a soundscape based on synthesis, analogue, filters

and advanced sound constructions. Inspired by composers like Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick and Ryoji

Ikeda, Skagen finds himself on the boarder of minimalism and avant-garde compositions.

This combination makes NERNES / SKAGEN to a neurological travel in man and its understanding of music.

From the lower caves and mountains, where the pure phenomenology has is rising. Creating uncontrolled vibrations

in the spinal cortex. By liberating them self from the rational, NERNES / SKAGEN seeks a sonic dualism, that challenges the

listeners’ perception and understanding of time.

When NERNES / SKAGEN enters the stage, a drone atmosphere, opens a space with the potential for a deep

listening and meditative state. Where the listener can join their journey inspired by Dante’s Inferno.

From their analogue and digital environment, their sharp fluctuations of sound waves cut through the air, pulling

the listener into to their crystal sharp sonic space.