CD, Audiophob, 2008
www.polyphren.de
Pulsing through your mind like the percussion of blood within your tympanic membrane, Nerthus draws fluidly amorphous dreamscapes that enshroud your imagination. Burgeoning from the damp stillness of a remote abyss swells the roar of a multitude sightless life stirred into action by the jarring tin of a pneumatic hammer rumbling from the bowels of a monstrous ocean liner. Each vision congeals only momentarily before its dissolution, as your mind prepares for the next onslaught, basking in the multi-tonal glow issuing from a million windswept pieces of broken glass from which the shimmering chime is assaulted as if a dust mite travelling across a freshly struck bass guitar string. That in turn is overwhelmed by the blustering grit of a jet engine in the skies above the rain forest; and so your mind will continue to wander throughout the entirety of “Urban.”
Undoubtedly by design, “Urban” is meant to draw upon these contrasting biologic and synthetic archetypes. Within these two distinct states is something faintly familial to the listener’s basal nature and similarly strikes a cord with aspirations of enlightenment. Ubiquitously eclipsing the extremes of evolution from primordial ooze to transcendent energy, a tender balance is achieved where otherwise distinction may have aired discordance.
Blurring the distinction between construct and construction, Nerthus’ “Urban” is mostly comprised of resonant sub-bass accompanied by synthesized natural instruments like claves and chimes layered over heavily reverbed atmospherics. Plodding percussion and glitched-out synth lines whir throughout and are the backbone of the composition. Apt for a restless sleep or in accompaniment to an evening of hallucinogenic introspection, “Urban” will undoubtedly stir your thoughts.
[7/10]
— George Caruso