SOMA070 / True than Nature Benny Nilsen
Purchase
Details
Where are we at night 09:24
Solids 02:24
Essence and accidents 10:38
Insofar 05:52
Permanent shadows 09:00
Unseen pull 06:12
Recorded and Mixed 2024-2025 at Odd Phasing and Echoes Amsterdam, NL
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering
Photography BJ Nilsen
Cover photo Annette Wolfsberger
Text by Arie Altena
:::::
True than Nature encourages active listening. There is sound that exists seemingly for its own sake – a continuing drone that slowly evolves, sound of nature – and there are sounds that refer to a momentary action, and sudden intrusions of sound. BJ Nilsen triggers shifts in the perception for the listener that alter how you perceive and experience the world through sound, and how you think about sound.
Listening to True than Nature is full of moments of instability. The shifts between sound spaces refocus your listening, or throw you out of a world you were imagining. You recognize sounds, wind, rain, metal bending, a hammer on stone, the background noise of a city, but often there is an unfamiliarity about these sounds. You think you recognize them, but often you are not sure, because you are not there, and different worlds clash or coexist at the same time.
True than Nature makes you wonder about how sounds exist, how they are brought forward, how they are made by objects, how they are perceived and how they are changed by the attention given to it. And all the time, you might ask yourself: What is that world that I am listening to? How does it exist?
:::::
The title True than Nature comes from Jean-Paul Sartre. BJ Nilsen’s previous release Irreal was also accompanied by a reference to Sartre: his idea that in order to imagine, a consciousness must be able to posit an object as irreal. Sartre is not mentioned often in sound studies, but his early book L’Imaginaire: Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination is a meticulous analysis of what happens when we imagine something. In the chapter on hypnagogic images – the images that appear in our mind just before we fall asleep – Sartre writes ‘Thus the image is given as “truer than nature”, in the sense in which one could say of a particularly suggestive portrait that it is truer than its model’.‘Plus vraie que nature’ – here’s the source for the title of the current release.
While listening to the tracks with the knowledge of how BJ Nilsen creates them, the quote by Sartre elicited thoughts on the ontological status of sound, field recordings, and the work of art. What exactly am I listening to? What is it that I am imagining while listening? What is the role of listening in understanding the world? In what sense are these sound images – if that is what they are – ‘more true than nature’?
:::::
BJ Nilsen (SE/NL) is a Swedish sound artist and composer based in Amsterdam. His work explores the intersection of field recording, sound, space, and perception. Through subtle electronic manipulations and detailed editing, Nilsen transforms environmental recordings into layered, immersive soundscapes that inhabit the space between reality and imagination.
His upcoming release, True than Nature (2025) on Ideologic Organ, continues a 30-year career spanning original scores and sound design for music, film, visual arts, and performance. His most recent album, Irreal (2021), was released on Editions Mego.
Nilsen began releasing music in 1991 under the moniker Morthond on Sweden’s Cold Meat Industry. Between 1998 and 2015, he released work as Hazard and under his own name on the UK label Ash International / TOUCH. His wide-ranging collaborations include projects with Karl Lemieux, Stilluppsteypa, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Anla Courtis, Janitor, Ragnar Jónsson, Judith Hamann, Chris Watson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Franz Graf, Claudia Schumann, Anthea Caddy, Z’EV, choreographer Örjan Andersson, and visual artist Femke Herregraven.
www.bjnilsen.info
Solids 02:24
Essence and accidents 10:38
Insofar 05:52
Permanent shadows 09:00
Unseen pull 06:12
Recorded and Mixed 2024-2025 at Odd Phasing and Echoes Amsterdam, NL
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering
Photography BJ Nilsen
Cover photo Annette Wolfsberger
Text by Arie Altena
:::::
True than Nature encourages active listening. There is sound that exists seemingly for its own sake – a continuing drone that slowly evolves, sound of nature – and there are sounds that refer to a momentary action, and sudden intrusions of sound. BJ Nilsen triggers shifts in the perception for the listener that alter how you perceive and experience the world through sound, and how you think about sound.
Listening to True than Nature is full of moments of instability. The shifts between sound spaces refocus your listening, or throw you out of a world you were imagining. You recognize sounds, wind, rain, metal bending, a hammer on stone, the background noise of a city, but often there is an unfamiliarity about these sounds. You think you recognize them, but often you are not sure, because you are not there, and different worlds clash or coexist at the same time.
True than Nature makes you wonder about how sounds exist, how they are brought forward, how they are made by objects, how they are perceived and how they are changed by the attention given to it. And all the time, you might ask yourself: What is that world that I am listening to? How does it exist?
:::::
The title True than Nature comes from Jean-Paul Sartre. BJ Nilsen’s previous release Irreal was also accompanied by a reference to Sartre: his idea that in order to imagine, a consciousness must be able to posit an object as irreal. Sartre is not mentioned often in sound studies, but his early book L’Imaginaire: Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination is a meticulous analysis of what happens when we imagine something. In the chapter on hypnagogic images – the images that appear in our mind just before we fall asleep – Sartre writes ‘Thus the image is given as “truer than nature”, in the sense in which one could say of a particularly suggestive portrait that it is truer than its model’.‘Plus vraie que nature’ – here’s the source for the title of the current release.
While listening to the tracks with the knowledge of how BJ Nilsen creates them, the quote by Sartre elicited thoughts on the ontological status of sound, field recordings, and the work of art. What exactly am I listening to? What is it that I am imagining while listening? What is the role of listening in understanding the world? In what sense are these sound images – if that is what they are – ‘more true than nature’?
:::::
BJ Nilsen (SE/NL) is a Swedish sound artist and composer based in Amsterdam. His work explores the intersection of field recording, sound, space, and perception. Through subtle electronic manipulations and detailed editing, Nilsen transforms environmental recordings into layered, immersive soundscapes that inhabit the space between reality and imagination.
His upcoming release, True than Nature (2025) on Ideologic Organ, continues a 30-year career spanning original scores and sound design for music, film, visual arts, and performance. His most recent album, Irreal (2021), was released on Editions Mego.
Nilsen began releasing music in 1991 under the moniker Morthond on Sweden’s Cold Meat Industry. Between 1998 and 2015, he released work as Hazard and under his own name on the UK label Ash International / TOUCH. His wide-ranging collaborations include projects with Karl Lemieux, Stilluppsteypa, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Anla Courtis, Janitor, Ragnar Jónsson, Judith Hamann, Chris Watson, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Franz Graf, Claudia Schumann, Anthea Caddy, Z’EV, choreographer Örjan Andersson, and visual artist Femke Herregraven.
www.bjnilsen.info