Unmaker, the 3rd album by Copenhagen’s LLNN, is a stupefyingly unforgiving affair: abrasive and vile, at times effervescent and escharotic, and finally absolutely smothering, suffocating, terminal.
Vocalist and 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.”
LLNN burst onto the scene with 2016’s critically acclaimed debut album โLossโ, a sheer display of โabsolute raging rawnessโ, as Terrorizer put it. But there is more to their sound than that: โthe wavering drone synths that are effortlessly merged with a raw hard- core-driven darkness define the subtle idiosycratic nuances of LLNN’s very unsubtle, painfully overwhelming soundโ (The Sludgelord).
After European tours with Bison, performances at festivals like Roskilde, Roadburn and Arctangent and a split EP with WOVOKA, LLNN returned with sophomore album โDeadsโ in 2018, an album that felt more compact, yet more complex and organic all at the same time. The band further explored the coalescence of the guitar & bass – axis with keys player Ketil G. Sejersen’s synth layers โ a direction that is now further pursued on Unmaker. In fact, LLNNโs contemporary heaviness is not just โdense, suffocating tracks that build and crashโ or โburied vocals coming from under thick guitars and pounding drumsโ (Decibel): itโs 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 & Limbo.
“As huge fans of classic sci-fi scores and video games, weโre fascinated by how cinematic sound design can evoke certain emotions and let our imagination unfold into abstract storytelling,โ 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,โ he continues. A circular metal saw was recorded and modulated โ 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 โ essentially manipulations of the real world โ 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, the band unveils first single, โInterloper.โ 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.โ
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.
Since their very inception, LLNN have triggered the interest of movie soundtrack composers like 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,โ says Albrechtsen. โIโm obsessed with music that explores what sound can do to our body, to our mind, to our imagination. LLNNโs new album is one of the most overwhelmingly intense records Iโve 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.โ
